Empowering Community Groups and Organisations

Abstract

This chapter considers approaches to empowering work with and within community groups and organisations. How can the worker act so as to empower people in such settings? The first thing to recognise is that such work is essentially individually and group-based. Thus, many of the points made in earlier chapters about work with individuals and groups apply here. However, conditions in formal organisations are very different to community settings where the work may be with community associations or incipient self-help organisations. Second, empowering work is work with people. So, it involves approaches which engage with them, elicit their wishes, facilitate them formulating their own goals, address their needs, inequalities and/or disadvantages, and enable them to achieve their goals. Third, much of the material in this chapter on community empowerment is what community workers would recognise as community work.