What is community development? Its Principles, Obstacles and Future Studies

Applied community development is a continuous effort to find solutions that can benefit the
community and enact a collective effort to empower individuals and groups to support specific
demographic populations isolated, marginalized, and without access to essential resources vital
to living efficiently and successfully.
The significance of societal development is in the values that underpin such as mutuality,
honesty, trust, promoting agency: empowerment; boosting capability and techniques such as
Co-ownership, equity, shared values, and enhancing ability via intentional development of
possibility.

What is involved in community development?

It is a vague term, but it has a particular meaning within the government and city planning fields.
It is a set of strategies to improve the overall well-being, emphasizing equal citizen access to
housing, parks, employment, public services, etc. It is essentially an effort to pool community
resources to upgrade community conditions, resulting in broad benefits.

Applied community Development involves creating a community that meets the needs of
people. You have to consider a community with many people like your family and children. A
community with a diverse population might develop places, libraries, and community centres
that cater to those who may need help adapting, speaking the language, and learning skills for
jobs. Communities with many seniors might create shuttle services and home help services to
meet their needs. A society that has deteriorated and been crime-infested needs to be
revamped and given assets for pride, comfort, enjoyment, and safety for the residents.

What are the principles of community development?

Community Participation

Everybody has a valuable contribution to make, and community members may join in at any
level. Volunteers and community members are vital to this decision-making, analysis, provision,
involvement, and direction setting at all applied community development practice levels.

Community Ownership

Participants are actively engaged in decision-making and have ownership of the activities. It is a
process of self-determination, awareness, and collective action.

Empowerment

A process that encourages individuals to meet their needs and aspirations in a self-aware and
informed way takes advantage of their skills, experience, and potential. Change and growth
occur through informing and empowering individuals and communities.

Lifelong Learning

Learning is incorporated into societal development actions, supporting and building people’s
abilities, knowledge, skills, and endurance. Additionally, they create the health, wellbeing, and
connection of individuals and their families via formal and informal education, occupation, and
self-development pathways.

Inclusion

The diverse contributions that people make are valued, irrespective of their background and
abilities. Therefore, identifying individuals and local needs through various methods is
instrumental to informing the planning and development of activities and programs.

Access and Money

Programs are accessible and welcoming. They promote a fairer distribution of economic power
and resources between individuals by enhancing their communities; social, ecological,
economic, and cultural infrastructures.

Social Action

Internal and external factors affecting the local community are examined, and connections
between people, organizations, groups, and districts are transformed through collective actions.
It can also be considered in the context of social movements. For example, we are advocating
for changes in shared social values.

Advocacy

In fulfilling group and individual requirements, applied community growth professionals act
together with, or on behalf of, members.

Networking

Linking, forming alliances, cooperating, and working together with people, agencies, authorities,
and companies are crucial, together with the interaction between informal and formal
procedures to achieve connections within the regional communities.

Self Help

Individuals are encouraged to come together in a caring team environment to share knowledge
and information. They also share abilities and lifestyle experiences so that every member can
achieve their targets.

Culturally Safe and Affirming

Cultural Diversity is a strength the requires mutual understanding and respect. Cultural
practices, language, and values differ but can be a powerful unifying force. Community
Development provides a safe cultural space to affirm diverse groups positive characteristics
and identify common goals and universal human aspirations.

Builds Community Capacity and Resilience

Personal resilience is interdependent with social stability. Social work builds
relationships between people and helps resolve conflicts by making understanding and
accepting of differences. This capacity-building outcome is also referred to as Social Capital

Community Development supports socially conscious democracy.

It engages community members in the democratic process. It values the perspective of every
citizen. It helps them make informed decisions and seeks to educate them in inspirational and
efficient ways.

Community Development is ubiquitous and builds adaptive strategies.

Applied community development is a process and an outcome that manages the inevitable and
unexpected consequences of change. A community may be bound by geography or shared goals and ideas geographically dispersed across the globe and traverse cultural and national boundaries.

Societal leadership is fostered from within the community.

A Community Development practitioner does not direct it. Instead, a core principle of
Societal development is a commitment to participatory planning.

Action orientated research

Societal Development requires constant research and should be evidence-based on both
Qualitative and Quantitative data.

Community Development builds shared identity and belonging.

We all want to belong to a group that accepts us and values our contribution.

What are the obstacles to community development?

Applied Community development is based on human rights, equality, social justice, diversity,
and respect. Community stories are based on self-determination, where people and
communities have the right to make their own decisions and choices.

The barriers in community development are:

1) Lack of communication
2) Lack of public participation
3) Lack of competency-based Leadership
4) Lack of infrastructure
5) No initial funding
6) Waste dumping
7) Lack of short-term funding
8) Lack of ongoing funding
9) Lack of stakeholder participation.

For the community’s development, the people living in any society must understand their
responsibility and collectively overcome these obstacles. There are others obstacles to
development like Conception of time, Political context, Colonial legacy, Socioculture heritage,
Sociopolitical organization. These obstacles create hurdles for the development of any
community.

Applied Community development- Scope and Career Opportunities

For those who’d like to pursue a career in community development, the scope is endless.
A career in applied community development leads to getting jobs at schools, colleges, public,
private and non-profit organizations. An applied community development degree program draws
information from many fields, including anthropology, urban studies, and political science. Some
of the skills you will learn with a community development degree are growing organizations,
monitoring, Evaluating programs, sustainable nature Use, and much more.
Gain the knowledge, experience, and leadership skills required to succeed in careers in
government and non-profit organizations with a masters in community development.

Top Community Development Courses offered by institutions

1. Masters in Community Development By Future Generations University
2. Master in Community Development and Social Innovation By Keystone master studies

3. Masters in Community Development From University Of Victoria
4. Community Development and Action (M.Ed.) From Peabody College

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