Key Words C of Community Development, Empowerment, Participation

Capacity:

 The ability, power or strength of a community or an organisation.
 (Español: capacidad, Français: capacité).

Capacity Building; Capacity Development:

 Increasing the "capacity" (ability) of a community or an
 organisation. (Español: desarrollo de la capacidad, Français:
 bâtiment de capacité, développement de capacité, fortifier de la
 communauté). Empowerment. Strengthening. See Elements of Strength
 for a list of sixteen elements of capacity building.

Casual:

 Informal. Relaxed. When an organisation does not require that its
 staff wear uncomfortable formal clothing, then dress there is said
to be "casual." When a couple have a sexual relationship without
 benefit of formality or public ritual (as in marriage) their
 relationship is said to be "casual."

 Do not confuse this with the word "causal."

Catalyst:

 In chemistry, a catalyst is a chemical that affects the rate of a
 chemical process, without becoming part of that process. It usually
 speeds up the process. The word, therefore, is a good one to
 describe a mobiliser or social animator. The mobiliser does not
 develop or change a community. The community develops or changes
 itself. The mobiliser stimulates that change, without becoming part
 of the social organisation of the community. Most importantly, the
 mobiliser provides temporary leadership, without becoming a
 community leader.

 (Español: catalizador, Français: catalyseur).

Causal:

 If there are two conditions or actions, and one (B) is the result or
 effect of the other (A), then the relationship between the two is
 "causal" and the direction of causality is between "A" and "B." "A"
 would be the "cause" and "B" would be the "effect." The actions of
 condition of "A" must be both sufficient and necessary for it to be
 identified as the "cause" of "B."

 This is a relationship between two variables where a change in one
 is seen to be the "cause" of a change in the other. This is an
 epistemological problem for scientists. When heat is applied to some
 material, for example, the molecules in that material tend to move
 faster.

 We assume that the application of heat (the "causing" or independent
 variable) somehow "causes" the increase in movement of molecules
 (the "caused" or dependent variable). Sociologists have known that
 (although suicide is very difficult to predict for any individual)
 rates of suicide are very predictable.

 Where the population has a greater proportion of Catholics, or
 practising Catholics (measured by church attendance), the suicide
 rate tends to be lower. Where divorce is more difficult (as measured
 by laws and divorce rates), suicides by married women tends to be
 higher. We have no epistemological reason, however, to say that
 those observations prove that restrictions against divorce (the
 independent or causing variable) "causes" an increase in propensity
 to suicide (the dependent or caused variable) among married women ,
 or that Catholicism "causes" lower rates of suicides (there may
 simply be lower reporting rates, for example).

 See: "because." Do not confuse this with the word, "casual." or
 "causality" with "casualty."

 (Español: causal, Français: ~).

Celebration:

 A celebration is a happy recognition of an event, usually one which
 changes the status of a person or thing. A celebration is a public
 party. (Español: celebración, Français: célébration). For a
 mobiliser, celebration of completion of a community project is an
 important element of community empowerment, where the community is
 publicly recognised for successfully engaging in self-help. See
 Mobilisation Cycle. It is also an opportunity to start a new
 beginning, another mobilisation cycle. See Celebration.

Charity:

 The helping of poor or needy people is a universal value, and
 found in all the major world religions. But there is giving and
 giving. If your gift makes the receiver dependent upon you, then you
 are not helping to strengthen the receiver, or helping him or her
 become more self reliant. (Español: caritativo, Français:
 charité). When you give some coins to a beggar on the street, then
 you are training that person to be more of a beggar. If your
 assistance is well thought out, and helps to strengthen the receiver
 (see the story of Mohammed and the rope in Stories), then it is a
 much more useful gift.

City:

 A human settlement (habitat) that is characterised by (1) a large
 population, (2) population density and (3) social complexity (eg
 division of labour, heterogeneity). (Español: ciudad, Français:
 ville). There are no universally agreed measurements for these three
 variables, so dorps, hamlets and villages lay near one end of the
 spectrum and cities and mega-cities lay near the other end, with
 towns and peri-urban settlements in between. These three variables
 affect methods of community strengthening. (Also see Village).

Civic Engagement:

 For some mobilisers, the authorities are seen as the "enemy" or
 "opposition" and see their task as organising the poor communities
to oppose those "oppressors." That may be an appropriate approach in
 some situations, and is often seen as "civic engagement" rather than
 as "community participation."

 The methodology in these modules (developed mainly in Africa) sees
 the bringing of those authorities on side is more likely to lead to
 sustainability and a consistent national policy and programme of 
 poverty elimination. (Español: compromiso cívico, Français:
 engagement citoyen).

Class Conflict:

 This concept was used by Karl Marx, and his interest with industrial
 society, and the built in conflict between owners of the means of
 production (capitalists, bourgeoisie) and those who sold their
 labour to survive (proletariat, workers). Español: lucha de clases.
 Français: Conflit de classe. Pycc. In your work as a community
 mobilisers in a farming area, you might see the owners of the means
 of production as the land owners (as in a pre-industrial society)
 and tenant farmers, squatters, or peasants. In a city, as a
 community mobiliser, you might not see any owners of the property or
 factories, but you will see workers and tenants in the low income
 urban neighbourhoods.

Clinical Sociology:

 This term is used to describe the direct involvement of social
 scientists to bring about social change. See Applied Sociology. A
 community mobiliser is engaging in clinical sociology. Español:
 sociología clínica. Français: La Sociologie clinique. Pycc.

Common Values:

 Common Values belong to one of the sixteen elements of strength,
 power or capacity of a community or organisation. See: Elements of
 Community Strength. These are the degree to which members of the
 community share values, especially the idea that they belong to a
 common entity that supersedes the interest of members within
 it. The more that community members share, or at least understand
 and tolerate, each others values and attitudes, the stronger their
 community will be. (Racism, prejudice and bigotry weaken a community
 or organisation). When simulating a community to organise and act,
 the mobiliser needs to be aware of the role of common values in
 empowering that community or organisation.

 (Español: ~, Français: ~).

Communal Facilities and Services:

 In a human settlement, some facilities are owned by individuals
 or families, usually housing. Other facilities, like roads, water
 supply or schools, are owned by the group as a whole. These are
 communal.

 Communal services and facilities are one of the sixteen elements of
 strength, power or capacity of a community or organisation. See:
 Elements of Community Strength. Human settlements facilities and
 services (such as roads, markets, potable water, access to
 education, health services), their upkeep (dependable maintenance
 and repair), sustainability, and the degree to which all community
 members have access to them. The more that members have access to
 needed communal facilities, the greater their empowerment. (In
 measuring capacity of organisations, this includes office equipment,
 tools, supplies, access to toilets and other personal staff
 facilities, working facilities, physical plant). When simulating a
 community to organise and act, the mobiliser needs to be aware of
 the role of communal services and facilities in empowering that
 community or organisation.

 (Español: prestación comunal, Français: service communal).

Communication:

 Communication is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or
 capacity of a community or organisation. See: Elements of Community
 Strength. Within a community, and between itself and outside,
 communication includes roads, electronic methods (eg telephone,
 radio, TV, InterNet), printed media (newspapers, magazines, books),
 networks, mutually understandable languages, literacy and the
 willingness and ability to communicate (which implies tact,
 diplomacy, willingness to listen as well as to talk) in general. As
 a community gets better communication, it gets stronger. (For an
 organisation, this is the communication equipment, methods and
 practices available to staff). Poor communication means a weak
 organisation or community. When simulating a community to organise
 and act, the mobiliser needs to be aware of the role of
 communication in empowering that community or organisation.

 Element of capacity / strength. See 16 elements. (Español:
 communicaciones, Français: communications).

Community:

 The word "community" has been used in several different
 contexts. Biologists talk of community as meaning several
 individuals in a single species, or several different species,
 living, competing, co-operating, to make a larger whole.
 Since the advent of the internet and information technology,
 various collections of persons, often those sharing a single
 interest, have grown up, without geographical boundaries, and who
 communicate electronically. The focus on this web site in this
 training series, is on a more orthodox meaning of community, a
 community of living human beings, one which usually has geographic
 boundaries (except those may be stretched, as in nomadic
 communities), associated, for example in communities that range from
 local neighbourhoods in large urban areas, to remote rural villages.
 See Habitat.

 A community is not just a collection of individual human beings.
 It is a super-organism that belongs to and is part of culture,
 composed of interactions between people, everything that is learned.
 Its six dimensions include: technology, economy, political power,
 social patterns, shared values, beliefs and ideas. It is not
 transmitted by biological means, but by learning. Like a tree or
 other life form that transcends the very atoms which compose it, its
 human members can come of go, through death, birth or migration, and
 it still continues to live and grow. It is never homogeneous, having
 many factions, schisms, competition and conflicts within it. A
 community is a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. See
 "What is Community."

 (Español: comunidad, Français: communauté).

Community Based:

 For a project or organisation to be community based, it must
 originate in a community, must have community members responsible,
 and have its decisions (policy and executive) made by community
 members. An outside agency or project that is merely located in a
 community can not rightly claim to be community based. Also,
 consulting with community leaders does not make it community based.
 There is a big difference between community-based and
 community-located If an agency sets up a service in a community (eg
 a clinic, an IG programme), then that is community-located. To be
 called community-based correctly, an activity, construction,
 service, or organisation, must be chosen, selected and controlled by 
 the community as a whole (not just some factions). The important
 thing is for decision making to be community-based, the decisions
 must be made inside and by the community.

 (Español: basado en la comunidad, Français: Fondé sur la
Communauté).

Community Based Organisation:

 A CBO is an organisation that has been formed and developed
 within a community, where the decision making (management and
 planning) is from the community as a whole. An agency that is formed
 from outside, and has decisions made for it from outside, may be
 community located, but is not community based. See the Acronym, CBO.

 (Español: organización basada en la comunidad, Français:
 organisation a basé dans la communauté).

Community Based Rehabilitation:

 Rehabilitation in this context means physical (biological),
 emotional or mental rehabilitation (or habilitation) of persons who
 are disabled by some physical, emotional or mental incapacity.
 (Español: rehabilitación basada en la comunidad, Français:
 réadaptation a basé dans la communauté). Where rehabilitation is
 community based, then the decision making and responsibility for the
 habilitation of those disabled individuals are in the community, and
 do not originate outside the community. See the Acronym, CBR.

Community Contribution:

 When we point out that community participation is not the same
 thing as community contribution (though many mistakenly assume it
 is), we also note that both are necessary. While community
 participation means the decision making that makes any activity
 community based or community centred, community contribution is
 necessary to ensure that the community members feel that they own
 the project, ie that they have invested in it, not just received it.
 We recommend that at least fifty percent of the inputs of any
 community project that we support must come from the community
 itself. At first this is often viewed with anxiety and despair from
 many community members. Then we point out that the donated communal
 labour alone has to be fairly calculated, and that if they did so,
 they would be pleasantly surprised at how much value that would add
 to the community input. We point out that the time spent by
 community members, especially those that sit on the executive
 committee, deciding and planning the project, are donations of
 executive and management skills, time and labour. The donated labour
 should be fairly costed. Furthermore, we point out that the value of
 donations of sand and dirt, too, are often underestimated, and
 should be recognised, with fair cost estimates, as community inputs.
 (Español: contribución comunitaria, Français: contribution de la
 communauté).

Community Development:

 When a community develops, it grows. See the word, Development.
 It does not necessarily mean getting bigger or getting richer. It
 means getting more complex and stronger. A community does not get
 developed by a mobiliser and more than a flower grows taller by
 someone pulling it up. A community (as a social institution)
 develops itself. A mobiliser can only stimulate, encourage and guide
 members of the community.

 Some people assume that community development simply means
 getting richer -- an increase in per capita wealth or income. It can
 be, but is more. It is social change, where a community becomes more
 complex, adding institutions, increasing its collective power,
 changing qualitatively in its organisation. Development means
 growing in complexity and strength in all six dimensions of culture.
 (Español: desarrollo comunitario, Français: développement de la
 communauté).

Community Empowerment:

 To increase capacity of a community is to increase its ability to
 do things for itself. It is more than just adding some communal
 services or facilities like roads, sanitation, water, access to
 education and health care. It means increased ability and strength.

 It means more skills, more confidence, and more effective
 organisation. It can not come about by charity or donation of
 resources from outside. It can be facilitated through action such as
 community projects, but only when all community members become
 involved from the beginning, to decide upon a community action, to
 identify hidden resources from within the community, and by
 developing a sense of ownership and responsibility of communal
 facilities from the start to the finish. While increased
 democratisation may be helped by Government devolving some law
 making power to the community, its capacity to make use of its legal
 decision making depends upon it having practical capacity, ie the
 ability to make decisions about its own development, to determine
 its own future. Power, strength, capacity, ability, empowerment.
 (Español: potenciación comunitaria, Français: fortifier de la
 communauté).

Community Implementation Committee:

 The CIC is the Executive, Development Committee or Project Committee
 of the community, chosen by the community as a whole, responsible
 for carrying out the wishes of the whole community. Community
 Project Executive. Community Project Committee. Community
 Implementation Executive. Development Committee. This is the
 executive organisation at village level that carries out
 construction or maintenance of a communal facility or service.
 (Español: comité de implementación comunitario, Français: comité de
 développement).

Community Management Training:

 Community management training is aimed at poverty reduction, the
 strengthening of low income communities in the planning and
 management of human settlements communal facilities and services,
 their construction, operation and maintenance. This is training for
 action, not just for skill transfer or for giving information to
 individuals. Training, as a method for strengthening low income
 communities, for poverty reduction, for promoting community
 participation, for practical support to democratisation and
 decentralisation, is far from being only the transfer of information
 and skills to the trainees. It also includes mobilising and
 organising. This is non orthodox training. Formalisation and
 institutionalisation of this kind of training brings with it the
 danger of emasculating the training, of emphasising the skill
 transfer over the encouragement, mobilisation and organising aspects
 of the training.

 Management training in this sense was developed for strengthening
 the effectiveness of top and middle management in profit making
 corporations. (Español: adiestramiento para la gestión comunitaria,
 Français: formation pour la gestion de la communauté). It has been
 modified here, and integrated with techniques of trade union
 organising, for the purposes of mobilising and strengthening the
 capacity of low income communities to come together, help
 themselves, for developmental social change.

Community Participation:

 Community participation is far more than the contribution of
 labour or supplies; it is participating in decision making, to chose
 a community project, plan it, implement it, manage it, monitor it,
 control it. It differs from community contribution. Social Animation
 promotes the activities of a target community, with a view to the
 community taking more responsibility for its own development,
 starting with decisions about what projects to undertake, and
 stimulation to mobilise resources and organise activities. Community
 participation promotion aims at ensuring that decisions affecting
 the community are taken by all (not only a few) community members
 (not by an outside agency).

 In the CSMED methodology, community contribution is encouraged,
 for it helps the community to become more responsible for the
 activity if they invest their own resources in it. We also encourage
 Government, and outside donors to discuss their activities with the
 whole community; this is community consultation. Community
 participation here should not be used as the equivalent of community
 contribution or community consultation (as is misleadingly done by
 many assistance agencies); participation here means participation in
 decision making, in control and in co-ordination. (Español:
 participación comunitaria, Français: participation de la communauté).

Conceptual-Belief Dimension of Community:

 The belief-conceptual dimension of community is another structure
 of ideas, also sometimes contradictory, that people have about the
 nature of the universe, the world around them, their role in it,
 cause and effect, and the nature of time, matter, and behaviour. See
"culture." Beliefs, like all cultural elements, are transmitted by
 communicating symbols, not by genetic (biological) inheritance. The
 beliefs and perceptions of reality shared by members of a community
 are affected by your mobilising activities, and should be a major
 consideration in your planning of mobilising activities.

 (Español: dimensión dogmática y conceptual, Français: dimension de
 croyance et conceptuelle).

Confidence:

 Altruism is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or
 capacity of a community or organisation. See: Elements of Community
 Strength. While expressed in individuals, how much confidence is
 shared among the community as a whole? eg an understanding that the
 community can achieve what ever it wishes to do. Positive attitudes,
 willingness, self motivation, enthusiasm, optimism, self-reliant
 rather than dependency attitudes, willingness to fight for its
 rights, avoidance of apathy and fatalism, a vision of what is
 possible. Increased strength includes increased confidence. When
 simulating a community to organise and act, the mobiliser needs to
 be aware of the role of confidence in empowering that community or
 organisation.

 (Español: confianza, Français: confiance).

Conflict Theory:

 This is a sociological framework that says society is composed of
 groups competing for scarce resources. The agricultural revolution,
 which has not quite finished, saw a conflict between autochthonic
 gatherers and hunters, and the later farmers. Pygmies in Uganda and
 D.R. Congo, aborigines in Canada, USA, and Australia, and Koisan in
 southern Africa, are all societies that depended upon gathering and
 hunting, and have immense differences in values and social
 organisation compared to agricultural and industrial cultures who
 came to replace or dominate them. In the Judaic bible, it tells
 about Cain and Abel, a tiller of soil and a herder of animals. Their
 conflict is represented through history in the conflict between
 horticulturists and herders. Perhaps the killing of a million Tutsis
 (representing herders) by the Hutus (who represent tillers) is a
 current representation of such conflict. In nineteenth century North
 America the conflict was represented by cattle herders and black
 soil farmers. In sociology the framework was created by Karl Marx
 who was concerned with the conflict between labourers and owners of
 capital in industrial society. In your work as a community
 mobiliser, it may be that you will be able to identify owners of
 land and tenants who live on that land (in rural areas) and owners
 of property and tenants who live in their houses (in urban slums),
 and see that as the major conflict. Español: teoría del conflicto.
 Français: la théorie en désaccord. Pycc.

Constraint:

 A constraint is any hindrance or barrier to reaching desired
 objectives. (Español: obstáculo, Français: contrainte). A good
 project design courageously identifies constraints, then generates
 strategies to use available resources to overcome them.

Consult:

 When an aid agency or donor organisation consults with community
 leaders or representatives, they often ask if the community wants a
 project. That answer is likely to be, "Yes." The agency may then
 report to its board or donors that there was community
 participation. That is incorrect. What has taken place is a
 consultation, not genuine community participation in decision
 making, choosing and planning a project from among the community
 priorities (in contrast to the agency's priorities). (Español:
 consultar, Français: consulter).

 Context (political and administrative environment):

 Context is one of the sixteen elements of strength, power or
 capacity of a community or organisation. See: Elements of Community
 Strength. A community will be stronger, more able to get stronger
 and sustain its strength more, the more it exists in an environment
 that supports that strengthening. An environment that supports
 strengthening includes political (including the values and attitudes
 of the national leaders, laws and legislation) and administrative
 elements (attitudes of civil servants and technicians, as well as
 Governmental regulations and procedures), and the legal
 environment. When politicians, leaders, technocrats and civil
 servants, as well as their laws and regulations, take a provision
 approach, the community is weak, while if they take an enabling
 approach to the community acting on a self-help basis, the community
 will be stronger. Communities can be stronger when they exist within
 a more enabling context. When simulating a community to organise and
 act, the mobiliser needs to be aware of the role of context in
 empowering that community or organisation.

 (Español: contexto (político y administrativo), Français: ~).

Contribution:

 Some people will confuse participation with contribution. Many
 people, when they hear the phrase, community participation. assume
 it only means community contribution. They think only of the
 communal labour that members will put into the project. (Español:
 contribución, Français: contribution). Unfortunately, there have
 been many cases in the past where community members were treated as
 serfs or slaves and forced to contribute their labour (or other
 resources, eg land, food). The methodology promoted in this handbook
 is quite the opposite. Participation here means participation in
 decision making, not merely the contribution of resources. See
 community contribution.

Corruption:

 Dishonesty, one of the major factors of poverty. See: Factors of
 Poverty.

 (Español: falta de honradez, Français: malhonnêteté, corruption).

Courage:

 Courage roughly means "bravery," and is often referred to as the
 bravery necessary to do the difficult but right thing, such as being
 honest and transparent with group or public funds. (Español: ánimo,
 Français: courage). It is also the core of the word "encourage,"
 which is what the mobiliser tries to do to community members to
 stimulate them to drop their apathy and fatalism and engage in self
 help activity, and what a good manager does as a leader of staff.

Criticism:

 One of the most important bits of wisdom to learn is that when we
 see something wrong, to criticize it usually does not make it right,
 or correct the problem. Instead, it usually makes the problem
 worse. Why? Because human beings feel threatened and under attack
 when someone is criticising them. Criticism lowers our/their self
 confidence and self esteem. We become defensive when criticised, and
 instead of correcting the mistake, we tend to defend it.

 When we are mobilising communities, co-ordinating volunteers, or
 managing staff, we must learn to expect that they will make mistakes
 and be prepared to deal with those mistakes in ways that further our
 aims. Showing our anger, criticising the person who makes the
 mistake, may serve a purpose of "venting," but we pay a huge price
 for that personal relief. Refer to the key words: Mistakes, Anger,
 and Sandwich, and search for ways to correct the mistake without
 negative criticism.

 (Español: críticas, Français: critique).

Cross Talk:

 In regular group discussions you allow, indeed you encourage,
 participants to speak their opinions and respond to others. In the
 Brainstorm Session, in contrast, cross talk is forbidden. (Español:
 debate, Français: entretien en travers). Participants must direct
 their responses only to the facilitator, and not respond to the
 contribution of other participants. This ground rule is necessary
 for successful participatory group decision-making in the 
 brainstorm session. It is not a feature of your work outside the
 brainstorm session.

Culture:

 More than merely songs and dances, culture, in social science,
 means the overall social system, the total of all learned attitudes
 and behaviour, consisting of socio-cultural systems belonging to six
 dimensions: technological, economic, political, interactive,
 ideological and world view. The basic unit of culture is the
 "symbol." Culture is not genetic; it is transmitted by communicating
 symbols. Sometimes called the "superorganic," because it is composed
 of systems that transcend the biological entities, humans, that
 compose and bear culture. See "Culture." A community is cultural.
 See: Strange Fish.

 (Español: cultura, Français: culture).

Curriculum:

 A "curriculum" is a plan of action applied to a training
 programme. This web site contains many modules, each of which
 includes a half dozen or so training documents. Together they
 represent the content of a curriculum for training mobilisers and
 related professionals working to empower low income communities. A
 summary and description of this curriculum material is in the
 document Framework for a Community Management Training Curriculum,
 which can be used for planning a programme for strengthening low
 income communities. (Español: programa, Français: programme
 d'études).

by Phil Bartle, PhD

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