Some Thoughts About Community Development

? The Picture

This is a beautiful picture of Mount Errigal the highest mountain peak in County Donegal, Ireland. It is an example of what community development can achieve. The art piece was painted using oils by my sister Veronica Maguire, who loved but never had the opportunity to study art and trained on to be a successful hairdresser. 17 years ago Veronica took up painting and joined a new community arts group, FiachArts Circle, made up of beginners and experienced artists. Since joining Veronica and other FiachArts Circle members, have developed into promising artists creating numerous beautiful works of art which they exhibit throughout Donegal.

I used this art piece of Mount Errigal because it is a pyramid-shaped mountain that can be used as a pictorial representation of Bottom-Up community development, a subject that I will expand on later.

About Me

I have worked for over 20 years in community development both voluntarily and in paid roles in London, and Donegal, Derry and Tyrone in Ireland. It is an area of work I really enjoy, so I want to share a few thoughts about what makes this work so important and why I am so passionate about it. I will describe what is community development work, the skills required, and its factors such as bottom-up development, communication, process, change. All factors that drive and influence this work and why it is so important in Ireland.

Community Development Work

The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." But I would say plainly that it is self-describing: "developing a community", progressing it to a better place than where it was.

What is Community?

The community has been defined generally as "the condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common". I define it as when more than one person comes together in a "commonality" whether as a result of an issue, race, identity, area from. We are members of many communities, I am a member of many communities that define my geographical location, background, physical attributes, social media membership, what I am a fan of, profession etc..

• Coill an Airgid / Silverwood estate, Balybofey - Donegal - Ireland where I live.
• Cockney Irish - English speaking - White European where I was born and background
• Male - Caucasian - Rhesus negative - Black haired - Hazel eyed
• Member of LinkedIn - Facebook - Twitter
• Horslips fan - Boxing fan - GAA fan - Dog & Cat lover
• Community Development Worker educated to Masters level

I am a member of all these communities and much more.

Community Development tasks

The following is a list of tasks commonly undertaken:-

• meeting with people and researching their community needs
• reporting on community needs and helping to solve them with the community
• facilitating and organising people to address them
• designing plans with the community on how to fulfil the needs
• developing a practical framework or path with the community to achieve the plans
• obtaining funding to resource the activities required in the plans and framework
• managing people and facilities to utilise the resources funded effectively
• guiding community projects delivery through to full implementation

Community Development work activities

• community training programmes, e.g. for carers, sports clubs or voluntary groups
• seminars, residentials, conferences, information days, exhibitions
• surveys, needs analyses and community audits
• protesting, lobbying and advocacy
• fundraising, grant application making, implementing funder requirements
• activities such as games, clubs, exhibitions, tours, conferences, residentials, festivals

Community Development Workers’ skills

A Community Worker must be a “jack of all trades” and able to provide communication, change management, involvement, engagement, funding & ownership, and leadership to facilitate a community. Below I have produced a list of some of the required skills:-

• Projects: planning, managing, developing, funding & designing
• Managing: staff, volunteers, resources & facilities
• Marketing: social media, publications, websites & internet information
• ICT: using software, internet & telecommunications
• Training: facilitating, listening, mediating & team building
• Researching: interviewing, surveying, analysis & reporting & mapping
• Surveying: monitoring, evaluating, filing & auditing

This does not include the fact that a Community Development Worker is often called upon to roll up their sleeves often putting in the physical work involved in setting up facilities for events; registering participants, collecting money, moving around tables and chairs and so on.

Community Development Worker contracted hours

Being a Community Development Worker means that regular work includes evenings and weekends, often above contracted hours, times when people require you to be available for support and assistance. However, as community development to me is more of a vocation than a job, I am always happy to work with a passion beyond the call of duty.

Committee, Community Workers paid and unpaid

Making community development work come to realisation is usually achieved by a committee / or group of individuals dedicated to making change happen. Not all Community Workers are employed or trained and qualifications vary; many dedicated community workers are unpaid volunteers who rarely get expenses, rewards or even recognition. These volunteers often do the work that would be paid or rewarded in other sectors, doing this work for the altruistic love of the community and for what they believe in. They are at the coalface and have the local knowledge, experience and influence to act on the issues effectively and undertake essential and often unrecognised work. In some instances, volunteers gain expertise, achieve qualifications and become employed to undertake the community work.

To be a Community worker, you need a passion for people, empathy for their issues, excellent interpersonal communication skills, motivation to change things in an ongoing process and much more! This complex mixture of issues, factors and the ability to utilising a broad range of skills to solve problems with the community makes community development so interesting for me.

Community Cohesion

Community workers contribute toward creating the community cohesion that glues the community together giving the community the ability to function and grow in harmony together rather than in conflict and help to providing equality and promoting diversity. Examples of activities that positively contribute to a better community include:

• Addiction support - helping people with addiction to face life more positively
• Religious groups - helping people with faith, bereavement and marriage
• Sports clubs - contributing to wellbeing, physical and mental health, identity and socialisation
• Environmental groups - caring for the environment, health & safety, tourism and community pride
• Gender support groups - that act in so many ways to not only benefit their genders but the community as a whole
• Health, carer and disability support - helping with health and disability issues

Bottom Up Community Development

Community Development is based on a bottom-up approach where the people at the bottom levels of the hierarchy of power in society (the more disadvantaged) agree and decide the needs of their community. It is the opposite of the usual top-down approach where, you have one person at the top, dictating the needs to be fulfilled. Bottom-up community development means that the worker is closer to the core of the issues, in a position to move issues forward and upwards to the decision makers resulting in community empowerment and a positive difference in the community. Greater involvement in participative decision making can have a genuine impact on the community, just as an acorn (issue or idea) planted, can grow into a stronger oak tree (community). This model of the hierarchy of power is often depicted as a pyramid or triangle shape like Mount Errigal.

Communication in Community Development

Clear communication by the Community Worker is essential, This is undertaken by talking to people on the ground, listening to what they have to say, recording, analysing and reporting what is said. By collecting this information, using evidence-based research and by bringing the community together in agreement enables the Community Worker to act effectively on issues. Community Worker also reaches out and consults with all strata of society, including the religious, police, health staff, council together with staff, politicians, educators. This often means working with those organisations in inter-agency structures to expertly facilitate and deliver community education and services, such as counselling, facilitation, adult education, childcare to those who most need it in the community. This communication of issues upward and in the way the community wishes to address them is elemental to how community development operates.

Community Development Process

Community Development is not an end in itself but a journey a process of achieving, experiencing the learning and development. This is often the catalyst for the beginning of many other journeys for the community. For instance, when a residents' group has a grass cutting need, then finds out that it has other environmental needs and addresses them through Tidy Towns work. Sometimes the residents group can grow in capacity, and address more community need by managing a community centre, providing for many previously unfulfilled community needs, such as childcare, recreation, and youth clubs etc.. In the community you will find that when one issue is addressed it often leads to more problems and issues being uncovered. Sometimes what was an issue in the community last year, such as vandalism, might this year be identified as underage drinking and next year it could be drug abuse in the community. This community development process often builds up the confidence and capacity of the community where, just like in business, they become more expert and professional in what they do and further build up their community empowerment, capacity and cohesion.

Community Participation, Engagement, Inclusion and Ownership

To be engaged in issues the community must feel involved/included and have the ability to influence action. This gives the community ownership and ultimately makes the project not only more democratic and representative but more powerful both within and outside (influencing government & politicians) the community. Thus making community development work relevant to users and those affected, making it more related to what they want and, ultimately, what their needs are. Community ownership of an initiative is essential for it to work effectively. Without community engagement, participation and ownership a project can fail just like a badly researched business service would. People in the community need to feel included and have ownership of the initiatives undertaken on their behalf, from my experience imported community initiatives rarely work in practice.

Community Change

Community Development is all about change; a core skill the community worker needs is the ability to manage change with the community. To do this they must always be focused on upskilling, as must the community, to develop effectively. This can be done by exploring ideas, by showing the benefits of change and by eventually changing people's ideas and attitudes, often through community education (such as racism or alcohol support), by providing a place or space to meet or play, or by creating a forum a voice for community action to oppose the wrongs or problems identified by the community. However many people are unwilling to embrace change as it often involves them facing the unknown, dealing with new methods of doing things and breaking their routines. Weak community capacity and cohesion can be a barrier to change and can slow down progress, as can the community culture. Change management is an intricate people and community skill and without it, a community development model that works superbly in one community may fail in another. The methodology must be systematic but also take into account and be responsive to the community needs, taking account of reactions at a pace that is appropriate to those affected by the change they are participating in, such as the introduction of new technology to an older community compared to that of a younger one.

Importance of Community Development

Community Development results in numerous festivals, sports events including many major national ones like the Special Olympics and Rugby World Cup, the many thousands of local community events that are organised throughout Ireland. The Government and Statutory services also utilise local and national community developmental knowledge and expertise to fulfil many community, health and social needs to deliver services such as homecare, rehabilitation, disability services, homelessness, addiction, childcare, education and so on.

Summary

In conclusion, community development is a wide-ranging highly important subject that impacts many areas of people’s lives. I have touched upon some of the factors that I believe are important, but as you can surmise, there are many I have not mentioned in this article.

What makes community development so enjoyable for me is when a community development initiative achieves success for instance - the smiles and reactions of the children enjoying their art pieces, the older people making new friends when out dancing or the sports clubs being presented with their brand new sports kits and so much more! All positive community initiatives that without collective group action by a committee of volunteers, facilitated by the expertise of a community worker may have never occurred.

I hope that you have found reading this article interesting and that you have gained some new insights into how community development works. Comments on this article are welcomed and do feel free to get in touch with me.

*Please note that these views are my own, as I am very passionate about the benefits of community development. My thank you goes to the many communities I have worked with and to Daniel Flossbach (Sales Expert, Life & Career Coach), Peter Johnson (Jobcare Business Liaison & Volunteering), Jennifer Butler (Instructor, American Civilization) & Wendy Van Gilst (Global Social Media Marketing Lead) for their expertise and influence in motivating and helping me to write this article.