UNIT I
REVIEW OF CONCEPTS AND HISTORY OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
I. Introduction:
The 1960’s is characterized as the start of “Development” era. Almost all nations are development minded. Countries which have been poor and stagnant for centuries are striving to minimize or eliminate poverty, disease, ignorance and inequality.
The Philippines like the rest of the developing countries adopted the thrust to improve the quality of life of the people by engaging in simultaneous development programs. The general thrust of the Philippine government through its bureaus and agencies, is to give greater attention to the less fortunate, particularly those considered the poorest of the poor.
Government and private entities poured projects to “communities” for them to develop. They viewed community as the concept of society as a body of people who contribute their own respective functions for the attainment of their common goal. To make the projects become successful, government as well as private institutions search for alternative models of development - development that is more people centered.
With that, community organizing has emerged as a key component of these development models. Participatory development is such one model which is based on two basic assumptions; that the benefits derived from the development efforts accrue to the majority of people and that the majority fully participate throughout the development process.
The need for community organizing is further made urgent by the recognition that genuine development will require societal transformation that will involve communities, particularly the poor and marginalized sector of the society.
II. Definition of Concepts
A. Community – Defined as an organization of families and individuals, settled in a fairly compact and contiguous geographical area, with significant element of common life as shown by:
q Manners – is defined as a way of doing something. People do the things they want to do for survival, comfort, security and satisfaction and these goals of individuals provide as beginning explanation for the organization of the group life.
q Customs – defined as the social convention carried on by tradition.
q Tradition – handing down orally of customs, beliefs and others from generation to generation. Constitutes the stable aspects of culture as it maintains the status quo of a social group, and;
q Mode of Speech. – it is the language of a certain people or group.
Community also refers to people and the pattern of social relationship, among them which maybe characterized by:
q A Common System of Values – Values defined as a concept that has various shades of meaning. It hints at what ought to be or at those which relate the ultimate ends, goals or purposes of social action. Values are culture bound, they vary from one culture to another - hence societies are expected to exhibit different value system. For instance, Filipinos treasure the values of “pakikisalamuha or pakikipagkapwa” (personalism). According to Quisumbing (1978) personalism serves as the basis of genuine commitment, authentic respect for human person, meaningful involvement and deep loyalty. This personalistic relationship is best seen among Philippine organization that strongly binds member together.
Most of the values Filipino hold dear are integrated into the characteristics of the people. These beliefs and practices have been acquired from generation to generation and almost all of them constitute the elements of value system of other people.
q Normatively defined relation. Norms are defined as the accepted ways of behaving that govern group life in all societies and at all times. These are “rules or standards of behavior shared by members of a social group (Britannica, 1997) and ideal patterns of behavior that most members of society consider to be correct and proper in particular situations. They constitute the rules for what one should do or not do in a given situation and are generally enforced by negative or positive sanction from the external environment.
It also manifested in organization or institution like schools, factories and the like. In these situations the norms constitute the procedure, rules and regulations of the organization. They serve as the bases of a common understanding among members.
q Interdependence – it is traditionally defined as “needing and depending upon each other”. An important new level of understanding emerges from examining the prefix “inter” which refers to that which exists “between and among” discrete entities. Beyond depending upon each other, we depend upon what we create between and among us. Instead of stressing dependence (what we can get from our interactions) we emphasize focusing attention upon what we contribute to our interactions that enhances the quality of what exists between us.
q Recognition of belongings – Everybody wants to feel that he or she is liked and accepted by others. We get our greatest joys through association with others who make us feel that we have unity.
q System of stratification – is the way in which a large group of people living together is divided into classes. It is this system that make people differ from each other by the place that they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor and consequently by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it. The system of stratification are relatively permanent because they are systematically linked with other institutions in society as the economy, the family, marriage, religion, politics or education and changes in the system of stratification will lead to changes in these institution. The stratification system of society is partially dependent on the normative order of the culture, since it will determine the criteria upon which statuses are ranked. When difference in social rewards tend to persist over time-that is when they are structure just like any social structure, we have a system of social stratification. Social stratification results from human actions both present and past. Earlier generations create the system of stratification into which later generation are born. It is when groups are marked with some degree of permanence.
q Locality - is the area occupied by closely-knit varies according to the term of reference used. It can be as big as an urban community or as specific as a rural community. Even then, natural barriers such as a river, a hill or a specified zone in a barangay that isolates a group of people can be termed thus.
In a community, the pattern of relationship among people maybe ordered by special interest such as church, school, profession or welfare community. Hence, a “geographic community” maybe composed of several special interest groups and sectors such as farmers, fisherman, women and others.
A community is also a combination of social units and systems which perform the following major social function.
q Economic – the purpose of economic development is definitely the establishment and promotion of new economic system, able by itself to raise production and the income levels of the society. The development in economic sector includes the efficiency in using of resources such as land, labor, and management and also include the development of employment, health, housing, transportation and education. The availability of commercial banking, and marketing plays a key role in economic development. Those things should be able to be established through the community development program in the rural area. The activity in economic aspects is concerned with the provision of goods needed to satisfy human wants, individual and collective. The economic growth is possible to be measured by several variable such as income per capita, productivity in agriculture, economic performance of the labor force and constant innovation of science and technology.
q Socialization - Man is a social being. He is always subject to human contact and relations. Infants need their mother so that they could be fed. Young children rely on their teachers for information on what is going on around them. Teenagers indulge in special forms of relationships with the opposite sex. Adults marry and raise their own children. In other words, people need each other. The term socialization is the way culture is transmitted and the individual is fitted into an organized way of life. Through this, a society’s agreements are transmitted from one generation to the next generation. It is the essential links between the individual and society – a link so vital that neither individual nor society could survive without it.
q Social Control – Social control is the process whereby a group or society enforces conformity to its demands and expectations. As such, it constrains members of a group to follow the norms set forth by the group. In a way social control coerces people to conform and at the same time teaches them to want to conform to the rules of the society in which they live. It refers to all collective efforts to ensure conformity to the norms. It is means for promoting conformity to a group or society’s rules; social control is internal when it is implanted through socialization process, enabling individuals to control their own behavior. It is external when other people apply it. A society without a mechanism of social control is unthinkable. Without social control, no society can ever be formed. Social control promotes conformity to norms while at the same time regulating human behavior. As such, it puts order in the society. Hence, it is very fundamental to the normal functioning of every society anywhere and anytime.
q Social Participation – A person occupying a certain status has something in his mind on how he is supposed to think and do about it. It refers to the individual’s assumption or assignment to the performance of a part in a specific situation as one of the members of the group or community. People participation is one important thing to be considered in the development of community program. Because people know best what is good for them and they represent a massive resources in terms of labor potential, practical knowledge, experience and ideas. People must given a chance to partake in decision-making, implementation, benefit and evaluation so that people become concern to the development.
q Moral support – Moral and values are the things that we cannot separate them from human development. According to Mark Cohen, the keys to success in the development of community are flexibility, tolerance, of ambiguity, common sense, perseverance and most important, a basic belief in the notion that people are capable of making competent decisions about programming that will directly affect their lives. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that community workers have to be able to handle ambiguity, to balance top down requirements and bottom up demands, to stimulate change and to encourage conservation; to be able to confront their own values – and those of the community – and to learn from these moments of truth. For there are no answer to the ethical and moral problems in community development – only a better understanding of one’s own being and those of others.
B. Community Organizing
q Community organizing is a development strategy for building people’s capabilities towards self-determinants and self-reliance. It is a method and process of educating, organizing and mobilizing people which leads to their own development.
q Community organizing is both method and a process. It is a method it follows some basic steps. However, situations tend to be fluid. The correctness of strategy depends on sound community diagnosis. Because it is a process the particular stage or entry point a community organizer utilize is greatly dependent on his/her reading of the local condition.
q Community organizing is a continuous process of: (a) educating people to understand their critical consciousness or their existing conditions; (b) organizing people to work collectively and efficiently on their problems; and (c) mobilizing people to develop their capability and readiness to respond and take action on their immediate needs towards solving their long-term problems (OCE-CSWCD, UP).
C. Community Organization
The concept of community organization has evolved through the years. The following represent the range of ideas representing this evolution from the western theorists to the synthesis of Filipino contemporary community organization practitioners.
q Community organization is the process of bringing about and maintaining adjustment between social welfare needs and resources in a geographical area or special filed of service (Dunham, 1958)
q It is a process by which a community identifies its needs and objectives, orders/ranks or objectives, develops the confidence and will to work at these needs and objectives, takes action in respect to them and in so doing, extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices in the community (Ross, 1955 and 1976).
q It refers to the mobilization of force around real or created conflict in order to force communication and movement. Controversy is used as a tool for organizing strong citizen-based groups, which can affect the decision making process. Through such means, citizens are helped to become articulate, informed and politically active and to exercise their collective influence at the point where decisions are made (Ronnow, 1969)