FAQs: Community Development Questions

At ECS we get asked lots of questions about what we do, why we do it and how we help communities and other groups. This page deals with the area of Community Development.

Question. What is community development?

Answer.

Community development is a planned approach to improving the standard of living and well-being of disadvantaged groups and communities. The first part of any development project must be to engage with the community in order to understand what they think and what they want. This ensures that better decisions are made.

Question. What are the types of community development?

Answer.

There are many types of community development projects. Some are aimed at decreasing unemployment, some to improve the level of homelessness. Others are designed to stabilise neighbourhoods, reduce domestic violence, or improve local health care.

Question. What is the purpose of community development?

Answer.

Its key purpose is to change the ways that communities develop, ensuring that this is based on justice, equality and mutual respect. Community development involves changing the relationships between ordinary people, the public bodies that serve them and those who are in positions of power, so that all members can take part in influencing the issues that affect their lives.

Question. What are the 5 principles of community development?

Answer.

Community development is built around 5 tenants, the empowerment of all in that community, the protection of their human rights, the inclusion of all, that social justice is provided and self-determination ensured. Above all though, collective action is needed to ensure that the community remains a cohesive unit and is best able to ensure its 'voice' is heard.

Question. What are the problems of community development?

Answer.

Community development project are prone to many problems. A major one is that the objectives the community wishes to achiever are ambiguous. Another is the inability to control assignments to control groups or communities. The lack of proper measurements or the use of sample sets that are too small can also cause failure.

Question. What are the characteristics of community development?

Answer.

The characteristics of the community development process include total community involvement in defining the problem, as well as the problem solving and decision-making process. These processes are geared towards creating changes in behaviour and requires learning by doing.

Question. What are the core values of community development?

Answer

Community development is fundamentally based on the values of human rights, social justice, equality and respect for diversity. The principles which underpin its practice are: Self-determination - people and communities must being guatanteed the right to make their own choices and decisions.

Question. What are community development activities?

Answer.

Community development is a process where a community actively comes together to take collective action and generate solutions to their common problems. Such development projects range from small initiatives within a small group to large initiatives that involve a much bigger community. These initiatives can include improvements in health care services, social justice and other social problems.

Question. What makes a community a community?

Answer.

A community is defined as a group of people who share something in common. Communities can be defined by how well its members share attributes and the strength of the connections amongst them. A community can include multiple social and ethnic groups, but they do need to be alike in some way, and who feel some sense of belonging or interpersonal connection as well as sharing some common objectives.

Question. What are the limitations of community development?

Answer.

There are a number of things that can slow down or impede the development of a community. These include unemployment, poverty, poor education, and racial tensions and discrimination. However, the desire for equity, justice, and sustainability can revitalize a disintegrating community and can to some degree offset the problems the community faces, allowing positive development to take place.

Question. What makes a community successful?

Answer.

A good community is a cohesive, safe, confident, prosperous and happy place. It is free of poverty and crime, providing a high quality of life for everyone that lives there. It values and promotes open, participative development processes, and is underpinned by a continuous culture of trans-generational learning.

Question. Why is community outreach important?

Answer.

A community outreach programme is all about giving, contributing, and helping those groups of people who cannot help themselves and need assistance to ensure that their 'voices' are heard. One major benefit that community outreach can bestow is that it can influence younger generations to give back to their community, this often eliminating many social ills. Community outreach programmes can help any community to grow in a substantial way.

Question. How do I start a community outreach program?

Answer.

It is vital to start any community outreach programme in a planned manner. The first step is to define the goals and objectives, whilst the second is to identify the targets of message that is to be sent. Next the message has to be created and carefully packaged. The message can then be distributed and the results evaluated.

Question. How do you build a strong community?

Answer.

Building a strong community requires a lot of work. Enriching a community requires experimentation, that you make sure the process is not boring, that all can tell a good story, keeping it simple, whilst connecting with the active members. You also have to use people who are good observers, and that never compromise with quality or content. Above all the leaders of the project must keep in constant touch with their teams

Question. What are community needs and wants?

Answer.

The needs and wants of any community are two very different things. A good community has to provide the basic human needs of food, clothing, shelter, companionship, justice, free association, freedom, friends, family, employment, freedom to worship a chosen religion, and stable governance. Everything thing else is a Want and this needs to be taken into consideration when planning improvements for that community.