A World that Works
Where the possibility is brought to life.Help remove their jiggers or should I say – help remove my jiggers or is more appropriate to say – help remove our jiggers
As I read through the book on Community Building: What Makes It Work I was drawn to thinking about how an organization I’m affiliated with in Kenya is applying each of these factors identified that influence community building.
Ahadi Trust is a non-profit organization that has set out to eradicate jiggers in Kenya. It was started almost two years ago by a man (yes a man starting a heart/social organization – what does that say about the way the organization operates?) who noticed an issue that was crippling and impeding the full participation of his home-area’s residents in personal and community events.
Executive Director, Stanley Kamau Maina, a self-made wealthy man listened to the local minister who told him in response to his inquiry as to why so many people hadn’t turned out to his community-wide christmas party that many of the people were infected with jiggers. Jiggers are a little flea like bugs that embeds itself in the skin under the toenails and fingernails of man – where the resultant sores may fill with pus and become infected. It leads to great discomfort and great pain, even honeycomb appearance of the limbs and amputation.
Immediately, he commissioned a providence survey to determine just how many people in this area as was affected by jiggers. The numbers identified were staggering. Since March of 2007 he has worked to provide assistance and supplies to assist people and raise awareness of the issues that has been overlooked as an impedence to community and national development.
I am examining his model for sustainability and depth though the division of the factors into characteristics – of the community, of the community building process, and of the community building organizers.
My initial observation is that this is not led by the affected but by community organizations. The authors define community building as:
Any identifiable set of activities pursued by a community in order to increase community social capacity.
I am courious of the capacity that is being developed. How would Ahadi need to shift their role? What are the resources necessary to create a more sustainable initiative?
Community Building…child’s play much like Jenga and Legos
Community building is one of the most rewarding and personally taxing endeavors for the builder and buildee. It requires great skill and patience to alter the potential of a community for collective good.
In Community Building: What Makes it Work a review is provided of the factors influencing successful community building. Authors Mattessich and Monsey provide an exhaustive depiction of the research scope and literature on topics related to community building. What quickly but not surprisingly was discovered is that the terminology and definitions of the work is extremely varied.
Before I go into further detail the distinctions laid out and the checklist provided to assist in detecting successful community building I will provide a simplistic example of community building that can appear as problematic towards the creation/construction of something beautiful.
Often times communities operate in counterproductive ways. Breakdown in and/or the develop of capacities of interactions, institutions and individuals lead to certain realities. Much like the games jenga and legos players use game pieces to construct by connecting or deconstructing and reconfiguring.
The comparison diagram illustrates the strategy of each. Jenga provides excitement and anxiety for its players as they try to pull out blocks and place them on top without toppling the teetering tower. As I think about community development and building I think of the often selected person or people that are identified ‘pulled’ from the group and place on top or ahead of the group. This is often a person the outgroup feels comfortable dealing with. This is not problematic by itself aside from the fact that community/tower is swaggering and unstable with one of its strongest links removed. I think about the people that leave their communities for education or work. This outmigration leaves an unstable situation. The objective of this game of pulling and placing the last block on the tower without it falling offers some encouragement but leaves me considering what happens to the gaps in the tower/community. The shape of this tower transforms from a distinctly neat object to one that appears to be severely augmented. Even with the successful placement of a block without it falling its integrity has been compromised and will not sustain external conditions that may befall it (a sneeze, bump of the table, etc.).
Legos offers another thought for community development and building. These bricks are assembled and connected in many ways to construct decisive images – a car, a house, an airplane, a square, a triangle. When I think of Legos I think of the individual design of each brick so to foster linkages and interaction. The adaptability that lego bricks offer allows for creativity and intuitiveness, regeneration is continuous. This is essential to community sustainability – its relevance and longevity. Just are there are prescriptions, guidelines for designing certain types of communities there are kits available for lego enthusiasts to provide guidance in their and essential pieces – tools – for projects. So, too, value is found in these pieces. Hobbiest buy and collect different pieces – shapes and colors – that they recognize are necessary for constructing created designs.
This is a stab at visualizing my interpretation of the way communities work.
Mapping for understanding
In reviewing three of the readings for the second stage of the Building & Sustaining Local Communities course I found some comfort in familiarity, encouragement and direction.
When I think about the inequities in social capital I immediately think of the mapping of a community and I then wonder what are the theories that can lend better explanation leading to transformation of communities.
Nan Lin in her article Inequality in Social Capital talks about capital moving from a class-based perspective to an actor-based perspective. The thought behind the capital theories is that “investment and mobilization of capital will enhance the outcomes desirable to individuals or communities.” This can be looked at on a macro (community, society) and micro (individual) level.
Lin offers her definition of social capital as investment and use of embedded resources in social relations for expected returns. The empirical data suggest that social resources affect action outcomes. These outcomes are things such as job search, promotion and earnings. When there is inequality in social capital the outcomes impacts are far reaching and could be said to keep a cyclical affect on the quality of life of some groups in place.
Asset mapping is the exercise in community development that is used to show the features and details of the assets, resources of a community. It is a way to learn something about a community by finding out all there is to know and that which comprises it.
Dorfman’s Mapping Community Assets Workbook aids community developers in the process of organizing local people to take an active role in the place where they live.
What I find to interesting and complementary between these is that for the most part they are puzzle pieces unto one another. Community mapping aims to come from the positive, creative, productive perspective in hopes of building strength, resources and assets. She encourages not to come from a needs perspective because this creates a deficiency mentality and that it is more difficult to build something sustainable in a deficit.
However, if two community’s assets of different socio-economic status were presented along side one another it will reveal inequalities in social capital.
How do we develop more useful theories? In The Basics: What’s Essential about Theory for Community Development Practice? by R. Hustedde & Jacek Ganowicz lays out what they see as three major limitations of theory for community developers. I find it interesting and a transitional challenge for myself to translate my community development experience into useful theory. Yet the observations made and knowledge gained are universal and still no single theoretical approach is suffiient on its own as the authors note because societies, communities, and social change are complex.
These authors argue that the most important issues for community development theory concern structure, power, and shared meaning. They are interrelated to influence the direction and impact of community development practice.
There are threads that weave these writings -
Relationships – Capital – Networks – Macro/Micro -
Morality? What morality?
Morality is defined as the code of conduct held to be authoritative in matters of right and wrong – values. Morals are created by and define society, philosophy, religion or individual conscience. Morality is also seen as synonymous with ethics which is often discussed with behavior. Ethics on the other hand seeks to address questions such as how a moral outcome can be achieved in a specific, how moral values should be determined, what morals people abide by, what the fundamental ethics or morality is, including whether it has an objective justification, and how moral capacity or moral agency develops and what is its nature.
Morality and democratic morality runs deep in cultures and thus, presumptively, just as customs and beliefs are different in each culture so too is the notion of morality. However, the basic premise remains the same.
James Wilson in Moral Sense offers that there is a large group that believes morality is nothing more than a “set of rules that well‐meaning but tolerant bluenoses impose on other people”.
Mankind’s nature is appealed to when we are called to defend our moral arguments. Wilson writes that our confidence to defend them is challenged due to our lack of confidence in their validity. It occurs as difficult to defend the indefensible. Morality has no basis in science or logic. Most have moral sense but some of us have tried to talk ourselves out of it.
Philosphers throughout time have commented on morality. The following are highlighted in Wilson’s work:
Example: Houston homeowner kills two men robbing neighbor’s home; On trial for murder, the white settler who shot a poacher
Example: 462 West Texas children taken custody by Child Protective Services; Polygamist sect marries children underage
I often wonder are the morals subscribed to that may or may not justify these scenarios?
(Green, Cecilia (2004) Letters from Exile)
Some observers hold that individuals have distinct sets of moral rules that they apply to different groups of people.
Gender based Educational Status
Can the idea of in-group/out-group be reinterpreted as a problem or challenge of scale & increasing complexity?
Redford, The Administrative State, 1968
Organizations whose decisions affect our lives; Expansion of government; and Allocation of continuing or recurring aspects of public functions to administrative structures. Redford, pg 3.
Wilson, The Moral Sense
•Development is the expansion of capabilities… having the freedom to choose between different ways of thinking.
•The enrichment of human lives.
•Being able to choose how you want to live.
“The right to make one’s own choices in life is important as an aim in itself whether or not it can be incorporated in any development indicator. This includes the right to barter and exchange in the marketplace. Indeed Sen goes much further than most free market think tanks who put much to much emphasis on economic freedom as simply the royal road to a high GDP. But, unlike some free market advocates, he emphasises that freedom to sell and buy in the market must be balanced by other human concerns, such as those of the environment or the distribution of opportunities among the population.” Samual Brittain Review of Development as Freedom
The Essential I
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Beginnings of a glossary
Adaptable
1.able to adjust oneself readily to different conditions:
As times change, priorities change, needs change, approaches change so too must a community’s responses change while holding to an agreed commitment.
Sustainable Development is a pattern of resource use that aim to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but in the indefinite future. The term was used by the Brundtland Commission which coined what has become the most often-quoted definition of sustainable development as development that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
United Nations. 1987.”Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development.” General Assembly Resolution 42/187, 11 December 1987. Retrieved: 2007-04-12
Variances: Economic Sustainability, Green Sustainability
Natural Capital
An extension of the economic notion of capital (manufactured means of production) to environmental ‘goods and services’. It refers to a stock (e.g., a forest) which produces a flow of goods (e.g., new trees) and services (e.g., carbon sequestration, erosion control, habitat). (Green Facts Glossary)
An “unsustainable situation” occurs when natural capital (the sum total of nature’s resources) is used up faster than it can be replenished.
Social Capital
Social capital is a concept in business, economics, organizational behaviour, political science, public health, sociology and natural resources management that refers to connections within and between social networks. Though there are a variety of related definitions, which have been described as “something of a cure-all“[1] for the problems of modern society, they tend to share the core idea “that social networks have value. Just as a screwdriver (physical capital) or a college education (human capital) can increase productivity (both individual and collective), so too social contacts affect the productivity of individuals and groups”.
Putnam, Robert. (2000), “Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community” (Simon and Schuster).
To refer to something as a capital asset is to imply it is useful in creating wealth, either in terms of well-being or in monetary terms.
Capital (assets)
Anything of material value or usefulness that is owned by a person or company
Capacity Building
Capacity Building is much more than training and includes the following
- Human resource development, the process of equipping individuals with the understanding, skills and access to information, knowledge and training that enables them to perform effectively.
- Organizational development, the elaboration of management structures, processes and procedures, not only within organizations but also the management of relationships between the different organizations and sectors (public, private and community).
- Institutional and legal framework development, making legal and regulatory changes to enable organizations, institutions and agencies at all levels and in all sectors to enhance their capacities.
Capacity building is a long-term, continuing process, in which all stakeholders participate (ministries, local authorities, non-governmental organizations and water user groups, professional associations, academics and others).
http://www.gdrc.org/uem/capacity-define.html
Social Justice
Social justice is the quality of a society’s generalized right-ness. As there is no objective, known standard of what is just, the term can be amorphous and refer to sometimes self-contradictory values of justice. It is generally thought of as a society which affords individuals and groups fair treatment and a just share of the benefits of society. (Different proponents of social justice have developed different interpretations of what constitutes fair treatment and just share.) It can also refer to the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society.
Social justice is both a philosophical problem and an important issue in politics, religion and civil society. Most individuals wish to live in a just society, but different political ideologies have different conceptions of what a ‘just society’ actually is. The term “social justice” is often employed by the political left to describe a society with a greater degree of economic egalitarianism, which may be achieved through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or property redistribution. The right wing also uses the term social justice, but generally believes that a just society is best achieved through the operation of a free market, which they believe provides equality of opportunity and promotes philanthropy and charity. Both right and left tend to agree on the importance of rule of law, human rights, and some form of a welfare safety net (though the left supports this latter element to a greater extent (e.g. to provide for capable individuals in society) than the right).
Equity
1. The state, quality, or ideal of being just, impartial, and fair.
2. Something that is just, impartial, and fair.
Thoughts on things essential for community
Community has an interesting and personal meaning to me. From a very early time in my life I have known the power of the feeling of community and had a strong long for creating it everywhere around me.
Community is the place of varied realms – physical, intellectual, institutional, experiential, genetical or temporal – where people share life. Where a connection is formed based negotiated occurances.
I have experienced a sense of community in a few sincere instances and what appears to be consistent in them are the following similarities:
Acceptance
1. the mental attitude that something is believable and should be accepted as true; “he gave credence to the gossip”; “acceptance of Newtonian mechanics was unquestioned for 200 years” [syn: credence]
2. the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception; “its adoption by society”; “the proposal found wide acceptance” [syn: adoption]
3. a disposition to tolerate or accept people or situations; “all people should practice toleration and live together in peace” [syn: toleration]
4. the act of taking something that is offered; “her acceptance of the gift encouraged him”; “he anticipated their acceptance of his offer”
Wordnet, 2006, Princeton
The presence of acceptance in a community allows for the players freedom to express or act out emotions, concerns or desires related to their existence in the community and/or the direction of the community.
Agreement
1. the statement (oral or written) of an exchange of promises; “they had an agreement that they would not interfere in each other’s business”; “there was an understanding between management and the workers”.
2. compatibility of observations; “there was no agreement between theory and measurement”; “the results of two tests were in correspondence”
3. harmony of people’s opinions or actions or characters; “the two parties were in agreement” [ant: disagreement]
4. the thing arranged or agreed to; “they made arrangements to meet in Chicago”
5. the determination of grammatical inflection on the basis of word relations
6. the verbal act of agreeing
Wordnet, 2006, Princeton
The degree to which a community can align/agree on fundamental organizational, priorities or solutions. The process for coming to this may vary as well as its representative nature.
Achievement/Accomplishment
- The act of achieving or performing; an obtaining by exertion; successful performance; accomplishment; as, the achievement of his object.
- 2. A great or heroic deed; something accomplished by valor, boldness, or praiseworthy exertion; a feat.
Community’s suffering together for a greater purpose develops great bonds and commitment to an entity.
Active
1.engaged in action; characterized by energetic work, participation, etc.
2.being in a state of existence, progress, or motion
3.involving physical effort and action
4.having the power of quick motion; nimble
5.causing activity or change; capable of exerting influence
6.effective
7.requiring personal effort or attention; not automatic
8.interest-bearing
Dictionary.com
Community requires the ongoing exertion of energy – collectively and individually.
Advancing
1.to move or bring forward
2.to bring into consideration or notice; suggest; propose
3.to improve; further
4.to raise in rank; promote
6.to bring forward in time
Dictionary.com
Progressive thinking and actions ensure the sustainable existence of community.
Advocative
1.to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument; recommend publicly
Dictionary.com
Language, spoken or written – about and used within community is the wind the fuels the flames of a community. A community has to be a believer in itself and its possibilities.
Adaptable
1.able to adjust oneself readily to different conditions:
As times change, priorities change, needs change, approaches change so too must a community’s responses change while holding to an agreed commitment.
More definitions by people instructed to use only 15 words to define community can be viewed at the following site.
http://www.community4me.com/comm_definitions.html
Eventually, perhaps, a donkey will drink
Some people will do the right thing or the thing they know is good for them just because they know it’s the what?…right thing or that it’s what?…good for them. Well, I’ve never really quite operated like that. There had to be some dragon breathing down my neck often times for me to get in action. I’m not saying this has been the most efficient or even the smoothest.
With that said I am even having to be taken to the river on my own blog. My three little post last year came to a halt when I was sideswiped by a thing called GRADUATE SCHOOL, while homeschooling a 9th grader, working three jobs and single mama’ing it.
Nonetheless, I’m back at it with the requirement of my Building and Sustaining Communities course to blog. I’m very excited about it and look forward to expressing myself regularly via this medium.
See you around the campus.
From one bird to another…
This past week the nation and central Texas, myself included, paid tribute to the life of Lady Bird Johnson.
When my parents relocated our family to Austin from Lexington, Ky I can only imagine their feelings being similar to George and Weesie, that they were movin’ on up. It was the mid 70’s and the world was an oyster for my parents. My father and several other African Americans across this country were taking advantage of opportunities previously closed off to them.
Family members from Kentucky would come down to visit us from time to time. Just like my father, the quintessential showman and travel & culture enthusiast that he is, he would take each and every one of our guests around the “must sees” in Texas. That would take us, in 300 degree Texas summer weather no doubt, in our brown station wagon with no air conditioning on a trek across the state and on international trips to Mexico, the Alamo and all things “Johnson” – the Johnson Space Center, LBJ Library & Museum and LBJ National Historic Park.
I learned at a very early age about this man with a funny name to me – Lyndon. I mean I really learned about this man, his wife with a funny name also, his daughter with the same name as Charlie Brown’s friend and on and on. Family member after family member would come and we’d plan out the excursion. Where should we go first? How long will they be here? What is the must see? Always, never got cut from the list, was a visit to the Library & Museum.
I took on a sense of pride for this place. From my grandparents, to Aunts & Uncles and our many cousins that have come we were their access to the displays about his life, his influence and his legacy. I can remember one time telling my parents let’s not get a docent this time, I’ll do it. And I did, but not only there. I also took great pride in sharing with my family the man that died before I was born’s childhood stories. I joked about it as I got older that I was beginning to think I was a JohnSON instead of an EmerSON. I mean my non-paid co-tour guiding was more than the innocent people that came for the experience bargained for. It got to the point that just about the time I knew the paid tour guide was going to tell us about his favorite song I’d start singing it in advance, “I’m singing in the rain, Just singing in the rain, what a glorious feeling, I’m happy again…” Just about then my mother would say, “Zip It!”.
Today, I have the honor of working with the LBJ Library & Museum through one of their initiatives, Texas Forums. Through the use of and the introduction to various tools or resources we work to engage people in dialogue about issues that affect their lives. I still walk through those doors with great pride and an inside chuckle comes over me as I pass the docent’s desk every time.
The LBJ Library & Museum under the remarkable leadership of Dr Betty Sue Flowers is creative in the support of programs that keep the spirit and legacy of LBJ & Lady Bird expressed.
I am, however, a little perplexed by the dismal demonstration of gratitude or respect recently in regards to Lady Bird’s passing from the African American community. Now I can understand some slight confusion we may have on the impact this woman had on our community given the story being told over and over was that she was an ecologist, an environmentalist. That hasn’t ever been “our issue” although the grim reality is that it is “our issue”. This may be acceptable as an explanation for people of my generation or younger but not so for my elders.
Out of sheer respect a greater representation by blacks & browns was due in my opinion. It could not have been, by any means, a small feat to be LBJ’s wife during his presidency. We were reminded at Lady Bird’s funeral of them being thought of as nigger lovers. That didn’t make the obits as a positve attribute but if signing the Civil Rights Act and instituting the Great Society meant that, then they were every bit ones. And I thank them.
The Civil Rights Act is the same act that was recently up for renewal. In all of the showboating to demonstrate who was the greatest champion for it we forgot who made the “RE”newal part a consideration. Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms were the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical care, urban problems, and transportation were launched during this period.
The law of attraction states that you attract whatever you put your attention to. I am wondering where is our attention directed? Is it on things beautiful? Is it on what’s possible?
I urge us to come together and hone our attention toward loving ourselves! Toward families! Toward eductating ourselves in all ways! The Jamestown Project urges us also in their Appeal to the American Imagination.
Just as LBJ recognized that we could have continued speeding down a road that led toward the increased coarsening and degradation of our culture, or we could seize upon that moment of national soul-searching to change course and turn onto a path that leads to renewal. He chose the road to healing and transformation. By his side was Lady Bird.
I was taught please and thank are the magic words, so PLEASE let’s not let this moment pass us by and THANK YOU, Lady Bird, for your attention to all things beautiful, your steadfastness and your service.
Well, here I go
It’s one small step for “wo”mankind. I’ve revved up my engines and put on my helmet. The flags are waving and off I go…
I’ve heard about this blog thing, seen it all over the place. I even hosted a wildly amazing PBS connected blog event a week ago. That means nothing. I have never blogged.
I had an amazing being stay with me last weekend. He poured more into my mind and spirit than I anticipated when I told him he could stay a couple of days to scope out Austin’s vibe. But, I called him here subconsciously and he delivered. Thank you.
I am feeling my away around this place. I will be using this tool to share my thoughts, my ideas and my work. I’m so excited!
That’s all for now. I will let you know when the official debut will take place but until then, take it easy!
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