As people began to take more of an interest in reducing and eliminating poverty around the globe, community developers initially used a very predictable method of planning their work. They would enter a community, look for what seemed broken or missing, and work to fix the problem or meet the need. Development workers created a variety of programs designed to meet various needs. A needs-based approach to learning about a community immediately leads to a programs-based plan for development. Many of the best-known community development organizations originated under this strategy, and they are still around because their approaches are easily recognizable.
After a while of doing these programs for the poor people in their communities, community development workers began to realize that their efforts did not seem to be helping people as much as they expected them to. Poor people still stayed poor, and it seemed like the same people came through their programs over and over again with little change. Moreover, they began to realize that the poor viewed their own situation of poverty in different terms than they did. The poor themselves seemed to define their own situations in terms of psychological and social brokenness, often referring to their own sense of brokenness on a deeper level than simply lacking some necessary thing. Critics of community development and of their “liberal” values showed evidence that the poor were simply becoming dependent on the handouts they were receiving. Community development workers could not argue with this evidence. What was occurring was a collision of two very different perspectives: the materially-rich had a “god-complex” while the materially-poor felt shame, and when the two came together, the perspectives of both sides were exacerbated. A new perspective on community development would be necessary to avoid this problem.
As community development workers began to see that their attempts at helping were really hurting, they came to realize that their very approach to the communities was causing the shame. When viewed from the perspective of the poor, handouts and programs designed to help became demeaning and embarrassing. A prideful father could not bear to watch a well-meaning and nicely-dressed church worker deliver a meal that he could not provide himself, so he would withdraw, further weakening the family. The community development workers had emphasized the family’s needs, increasing their shame. If they could find a way to reduce this sense of shame, they could work more closely with the family.
As this realization became more apparent, people began to look for the assets in a community. They realized that all communities had something of value to offer, and that sometimes it only took a little encouragement to bring it out. As community developers began to hunt for the assets in a community, they realized that it took much more work to discover them and then required a great deal of personalized attention to bring them out. For example, a single mom might struggle to provide for her kids, but after some conversations, a community worker realizes that she secretly loves baking and decorating desserts of all kinds and frequently scrapes together change to bake for her kids. The worker offers to pay her to provide desserts for a community meeting, where other community members watch in amazement as a lady they have known surprises them with a hidden talent. It isn’t long before an unemployed businessman decides that he can become an entrepreneur, and with some startup capital that the community worker helps him secure, he hires the single mom and a community bakery opens. In this scenario, two jobs have been created along with a new business that will both benefit the community and keep money in the community (a cake bought from Walmart will send money to Arkansas). This work, however, could not have been done with a program – it required a great deal of individual attention from a development worker.
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