community engagement topics

1. Community Engagement,
Solidarity and Citizenship

2. The area as a place to live
•Includes the quality of the physical
environment and people’s attitudes to
living there.
•To which needs are matched with
resources

3. The Area as a social community
•Including resident’s involvement in the
social life of the community; the extent to
which the community is supportive; formal
and informal networks.

4. The area as an economic community
•Includes income levels and employment
prospects of local residents; prosperity
and viability of local shops;

5. The Area as a political community
•Includes the system and structures of
political representation and local area
management.
•Includes the degree of involvement in local
decision making.

6. The area as a personal space
•The degree of attachment that people
have to the local area, memories and life
experiences of local people.

7. The Area as part of its city
•Infrastructural, economic and social linkages
between the local area and the city or district of
which it is a part.
•The specific local identity that differentiate the
community from the area

8. The Process
•It is not an easy task.
•Certain principles are to be taken into
consideration.
•The whole process must be treated with
respect to the people.

9. Guiding principles
•Offsetting Biases
•A reversal of learning
•Learning rapidly and progressively
•Local Facilitating
•Self-critical awareness and responsibility
•Sharing of Information and ideas

10. Offsetting Biases
•This means to set an atmosphere of being
relaxed and not rushing. It requires a
process of slowing down and putting the
collection process in its right perspective.
You are in that community because you
want to know the community.

11. A reversal of learning
•This means to change your perspective from
a “know it all” to being a community
learner. It is the process being open and
learn from the people from your face to face
encounter with them.

12. Learning rapidly and progressively
•This means a conscious exploration of many
possibilities in terms of methodologies and
processes. You must be flexible in your
collection processes or methodologies. Be
open to improve and change your
techniques.

13. Local Facilitating
•This means a process of including the local
people to lead or co-lead in the
investigation, collection, consolidation,
analysis, presentation and learning. You
make the people part of the process from
the beginning to end.

14. Self-critical awareness and responsibility
•This mean a counting examination of
behavior among the outsider facilitators. It
entails a process of check and balance and
let the experience become an opportunity
to do better and learn from mistakes.

15. Sharing of Information and ideas
•Establish a space for sharing of information
and ideas between the people in the
community, between the people and the
facilitators and between facilitators. Create
a venue for dialogue.

16. Participatory Action Research