Reinterpreting community development for health promotion in the 21st Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Glenn Laverack

The role of community development for health promotion has been problematic, not least because of a lack of trust between government and civil society and the use of top-down pro-grams that have contributed to low community involvement. This paper discusses the much needed reinterpretation of community development for health promotion in the 21st Century. It is grounded in an understanding of its origins, in the role of community-based organisations and in its relationship with capacity building and community empowerment. Health promotion is political and a reinterpretation of community development has to reflect the extent to which communities can be politicized to take more control-over the determinants of their lives and health. In the 21st Century we can substitute the use of the term ‘community development' with the use of ‘community empowerment' in both discourse and practice in health promotion.

This chapter presents an interview with Marcelo Lopes de Souza, a scholar who cooperates with social movements, and professor in the Department of Geography at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Drawing on the experiences of Latin American social movements, Marcelo discusses the implications of a commitment to radical autonomy for the funding of community-based movements and for emancipatory community development more broadly. Among the topics covered are the importance of ‘the commons’ in the life of communities; the role of ‘autonomous’ movements in community empowerment; the so-called ‘NGOisation’ of Latin American civil society and the extent to which this phenomenon has been a feature of the movements that Marcelo is familiar as well as its effects.


Author(s):  
Louise Warwick-Booth ◽  
Sally Foster

Abstract This book chapter seeks to: (i) explore 'the community' as a vital context for health promotion; (ii) explore different meanings of community participation, engagement, community involvement and community development; (iii) discuss the importance of social capital; (iv) explore the role of lay involvement in health promotion; and (v) suggest that working with communities and not merely in communities is essential for resilience and wellbeing.


Author(s):  
Louise Warwick-Booth ◽  
Sally Foster

Abstract This book chapter seeks to: (i) explore 'the community' as a vital context for health promotion; (ii) explore different meanings of community participation, engagement, community involvement and community development; (iii) discuss the importance of social capital; (iv) explore the role of lay involvement in health promotion; and (v) suggest that working with communities and not merely in communities is essential for resilience and wellbeing.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Faradiella Mohd Kusin ◽  
Amirul Azuan Md Joni ◽  
Ferdaus Mohamat Yusuff ◽  
Sharifah Nur Munirah Syed Hasan

Key community-based environmental conservation programmes in Kong Kong Laut, Johor include the river and mangrove ecosystem conservation and management programme. The overall aim of conserving the ecosystem and encouraging local community participation in the programme is to promote the existing eco-tourism potential of the area. This paper entails the outcomes of community-based activities aimed at building the capacities of local communities through community mobilisation, awareness creation and capacity building (i.e. transferred knowledge and skills). Findings indicate that there have been improvements in the river water quality status within the ecosystems over the course of a one-year project, despite relatively small participation among the local communities in the conservation programme. However, it was evident that active participation from a minority group of the local community has contributed to significant human and social capital, suggesting that community empowerment might be crucial for future development. Despite this, a school outreach programme on waste minimisation within the community demonstrated an encouraging level of participation among school children and teachers. The major challenge to maintaining continuous efforts to conserve their environment is the simultaneous developments taking place close to the river and mangrove ecosystems. While it remains a challenge to all the stakeholders, collaborative efforts among the local communities and the university, school, government agencies and private sector have made it possible to strategise for more future approaches that will benefit the whole community.


Author(s):  
Ruth Cross ◽  
Louise Warwick-Booth ◽  
Sally Foster

Abstract This book chapter aims to: (i) explore the role of the epistemic and academic community of health promoters; (ii) suggest that there are new and emerging public health problems to take into account; (iii) reinforce the need to defend the radical intent of the Ottawa Charter and to develop further anti-oppressive practice; (iv) describe how the health promotion discourse is changing, and moving into new realms of wellbeing; (v) reinforce the importance of hearing lay voices and understanding 'healthworlds'; and (vi) present some ideas for moving forward the value base of health promotion. Fields of endeavour apart from health promotion also struggle with the goals of empowerment, equality, justice, and are also contemplating how to deal with challenges of the 21st century, such as complexity, globalization and social capital. These fields might include education, criminal justice, social work, sport, development, and so provide rich and relevant avenues for further reading.


2019 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 627-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Efendi ◽  
Agustiyara ◽  
Husni Amriyanto Putra

Since 1998, Indonesia has experienced a major transformation in the relationship between the rulers and the ruled. State–society relationships were previously subject-object, military-civilian, or superior-inferior. In other words, the state played a central role in all matters, while civil society ‘Muhammadiyah’ was limited to political and social activities. This tended to negatively impact community involvement in prevention and risk-reduction for natural disasters. This paper examines the role of civil society in disaster management in Indonesia. It does so in relation to the particular example of Yogyakarta, a special province where local values traditionally have more inherent authority than government-imposed law. The paper further discusses how there are important lessons for the future to be drawn from a Yogyakarta case study of how the national government has generally failed to build a private–public partnership and state–society relationship to deal with natural disasters based on local community needs.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Fisher ◽  
Michael Reece ◽  
Eric Wright ◽  
Brian Dodge ◽  
Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin ◽  
...  

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Sardu ◽  
Alessandra Mereu ◽  
Alessandra Sotgiu ◽  
Paolo Contu

Although community participation is a component of community empowerment, it often remains a theoretical exhortation. Reporting experiences which enable people to take control of their lives, can be useful to suggest practical elements for promoting empowerment. This article describes the experience of a Sardinian village (Ulassai), that developed into a community empowerment. The Laverack’s operational domains were used to measure the community empowerment process. The process started in 1979 ‘almost by chance’ with an art performance that was the entry point for community participation. This experience has been the foundation for the community empowerment. Citizens acquired the ‘ability of thinking and planning as a community and not mere individuals’. In the following 30 years citizens gave birth to several outcomes rooted in that event. The intermediate outcomes highlight the ‘ability of action by a group to mobilize existing resources, and act collectively against opposing forces’. The long-term outcomes demonstrate the ‘ability to integrate the cultural experiences that strengthened the community’s identification into a sustainable community asset’, and the ‘ability to cope with global environmental challenges and to collaborate on an equal basis with other stakeholders. The pathways to community empowerment, showed by the community of Ulassai, overlap with the ‘operational domains’. The Ulassai experience shows that the empowerment process can start from an event apparently unrelated to health promotion. This community experience illustrates the positive role arts can play in community development. Hence, the call for health promoters to look carefully into those situations that occur naturally in communities.


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