Notes and Insights

Once upon a time there was a calling…

It began with charity and the provision of welfare.

When this approach encountered radical opposition it shifted into ‘capacity building’ and empowerment, an approach also adopted by government.

This too has encountered opposition: some practitioners and development organizations now offer alternative development paradigms such as ‘working with questions and working with communities’. When working in this way other questions cannot be ignored, such as: “Who sets the agenda?” and “who defines the rules of the game”?

Some insights about community development practice:

• It should surface principles of good practice, not just models where one size fits all.
• A good basis and starting point is to Identify community assets and resources.
• It should adopt an action orientation where structures emerge from working together and not vice versa.
• It should say NO to SAQA, but YES to non-formal education in context.
• It should move from planning outcomes to becoming a dynamic process; from ‘entry and exit’ to understanding relationships and changing roles; from professionalisation to beliefs and values.
• It should bridge the local and the global, the individual and the collective, the private and the public, the past and the future.

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