Community Development
FOUNDATIONS AND BASES
- Community Development and Community Extension Service Defined
Community Extension Service
The term "extension" implies something added or provided. Historically, it was used by academic institutions in the United States to describe another function that they undertook to address a need at the time. It was an apt concept coined to convey "reaching out" and along with teaching and research - land grant institutions "extend" their resources, solving public needs with college and university through non-formal, non-credit programs.
According to the CHED, "Extension" refers to the act of communicating, persuading and helping specific sectors or target clienteles (as distinguished from those enrolled in formal degree programs and course offerings) to enable them to effectively improve production, community and/or institutions, and quality of life. An Integrated Extension Program shall include the following components: (1) Training programs; (2) Technical assistance and advisory services; (3) Communication/Information services; and (3) Community outreach activities.
Community Development Defined
Community development deals with the growth and sustenance, conflict resolution, rehabilitation and transformation of marginalized communities through peoples' participation and collective action to ensure the holistic and corporate well being of the peoples.
Two types of communities are referred to in this proposition. The first is the spatial or geographic community that is composed of the people, the territorial space and set of values and norms that govern the organization and the intra-personal and inter-personal relationships of the constituents of the community. The other type of community is the sectoral community whose constituents may not live in the same locality but are affected bounded or determined by common interest, needs of forces. These include both men and women, as well as children in the following sectors: peasant, workers, urban poor, students, church people, indigenous people and similar groups. It also includes groups of people coming from objectives because they see that coming and acting together would help in achieving their common purpose.
Community development means recognizing and building up the peoples, potentials and capabilities, enabling them to define their direction, and participate in the process of change through collective actions to ensure the well being or welfare of the people. Any structural change should lead to greater fulfillment of these goals.
Community development is a process of transforming the marginalized communities so that they may collectively act on their situations and on the external forces that undermine and perpetuate the oppressive conditions.
Community development is a commitment to the creation of a society that provides equal access to social, economic and political opportunities through popular participation.
There are three fields of involvement in Community Development: Community Organizing, Community Resources Management and Community Education.
UST has adopted the concept and approach of Community Development in 2001. Through the UCDP the University is working with partner communities and groups towards their empowerment, self-reliance and development through community development approach.
- Biblical Foundations/Bases of Involvement and Engagement in Community Development1
For a Christian to remain silent and unmoved in the face of such tragedy, such violence and destruction is a denial of the Gospel. At the opening of his public ministry, Jesus proclaimed His Mission:
- The spirit of the Lord has been given to me,
for he has anointed me.
He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor
To proclaim liberty to captives
And to the blind new sight,
to set the downtrodden free,
to proclaim the Lord's year of favor
(Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus also said: I have come that they may have LIFE, Life in all its fullness.
(John 10:10)
The Biblical message is basically a message of Life, Hope, Justice, Peace and Development.
A re-reading or re-interpretation of the Bible is necessary in order to discover the Biblical themes of Life, Hope, Justice, Peace and Development as right relationships which run like a thread all through the Bible.
In the Bible, God repeatedly takes the initiative to reveal Himself as Love and Compassion because of his desire to establish profound relationships between himself and his creatures; among peoples; and between people and the rest of Creation.
God's relationship with human beings
We have three parables in the New Testament that clearly point to a new understanding of relationship between God and people, a relationship based on a new world order and justice as conceived by Jesus.
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Scriptures
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Parable
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Content
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Matthew 18:21-35
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The Parable of the Merciful Master
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The mercy of the Master is extraordinary, for he does not act according to human standard, He shows compassion to his servant who pleads mercy and cancels all his debt.
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Matthew 20:1-16
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The Parable of Compassionate Employer
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The owner of the vineyard is concerned about the unemployed. We are told that several times during the day he goes in search of them, inviting them to work in his vineyard. His pre-occupation was not to get the work done, but to ensure that the workers received sufficient pay to ensure a decent life for their respective families. God's justice is according peoples' needs.
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Luke 15:11-32
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The Parable of Understanding Father
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He was unusually understanding of his young son who wanted to go away on an adventure. In agreeing to this he knew the risk he was taking as a father. When his son eventually returned to the house, the father asks for no explanations; he only showers love and mercy on him. When the elder son reacts angrily to the father's gratitude towards his younger brother, the father gently explains to him that all that matters is that the younger brother has been "found" again with new life.
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The above three parables reflect the Biblical concept of justice understood as "right relationships", of mercy, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness.
God is on the side of the poor because they are poor and discriminated against. That is who God is, and what God's Covenant is all about: a pact with the poor that they be able to live as brothers and sisters in an egalitarian community of faith. God does not idealize the poor. God is not against the rich or powerful: God is against the structures of society that place the rich and the powerful against the poor and dispossessed of the earth. God saves all.
Jesus' relationships with people (Compassion and Love)
- MARK 1:40 - 42
- A leper came to Jesus and begged him, "If you so will, you can make me clean." Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, "I will; be clean." The leprosy left the man at once and he was made clean.
- MATTHEW 22:37-39
- Jesus answered, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the most important of the commandments. But after this there is another one very similar to it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole Law and the Prophets are founded on these two commandments."
- MATTHEW 9:27-28
- As Jesus moved on from there, two blind men followed him, shouting, "Son of David, help us!" When he was about to enter the house, the blind men caught up with him, and Jesus said to them, "Do you believe that I am able to do what you want?" They answered, "Yes, sir!" Then Jesus touched their eyes and said, "As you have believed, so let it be." And their eyes were opened.
- LUKE 7:36-50
- One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to share his meal, so he went to the Pharisee's home and as usual reclined on the sofa to eat. And it happened that a woman of this town, who was known as a sinner, heard that he was in the Pharisee's house. She brought a precious jar of perfume and stood behind him at his feet, weeping. She wet his feet with tears, she dried them with her hair and kissed his feet and poured the perfume on them.
The Pharisee who had invited Jesus was watching and thought, "If this man were a prophet, he would know what sort of person is touching him; isn't this woman a sinner?"
Then Jesus spoke to the Pharisee and said, "Simon, I have something to ask you." He answered, "Speak, master." And Jesus said, "Two people were in debt to the same creditor. One owed him five hundred silver coins, and the other fifty. As they were unable to pay him back, he graciously canceled the debts of both. Now, which of them will love him more?"
Simon answered, "The one, I suppose, who was forgiven more." And -Jesus said, "You are right." And turning toward the woman, he said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? You gave me no water for my feet when I entered your house, but she has washed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You didn't welcome me with a kiss, but she has not stopped kissing my feet since she came in. You provided no oil for my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. This is why, I tell you, her sins, her many sins, are forgiven, because of her great love. But the one who is forgiven little, has little love."
Then Jesus said to the woman, "Your sins are forgiven." The others sitting with him at the table began to wonder, "Now this man claims to forgive sins!" But Jesus again spoke to the woman, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace."
The biblical text would also show that Jesus' compassion and justice crossed barriers of race (The Good Samaritan), gender, culture, religion, age and even of the outcasts. He accepted the political outcasts such as licensed tax gatherers, social outcasts such as lepers, religious outcasts such as prostitutes. The whole inclusive thrust of Jesus is summed up in the baptismal creed as quoted by Paul: Gal. 3:27-28: "All of you, through baptism in Christ, have put on Christ. There is no longer any difference between Jew and Greek, or between slave and freeman, or between man and woman; but all of you are one in Christ Jesus.")
Community Development is seeing Christ in others (Indicators/measurement of Christian action and response):
"I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcome me, naked and you cloth Me, I was ill and you comforted Me, in prison and you came to visit me, I assure you, as often you did it to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did it to me." (Matthew25:35)
- Pastoral Foundations/Bases of Involvement and Engagement in Community Development
The PCP II emphasizes that "the spirit does not breathe on us in a vacuum. He comes to us here in the Philippines with all its joys and hopes, its griefs and anxieties."2 It was stated in the opening part of Gaudium et Spes (Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World) that "the joys and hopes, griefs and axieties of the peoples are the joys and hopes, griefs and anxieties of our Lord Jesus Christ." To describe generally the conditions of Philippine society as expounded by the PCP II, that we are great majority of God's "anawim," life is full of "kahirapan", of suffering; "walang kaayusan ang bayan," there is no order, no harmony in our society. Life is obstructed. These are our shadows.
Now, in this contemporary time, with all its problems, there are also opportunities, its promises. Not all happenings are shadows. Not all is darkness. Dissatisfaction with the old order is growing and positive responses are being attempted and continuously initiating. The efforts cover a wide range of interests: ecological concerns, health and livelihood projects for the poor, national sovereignty and non-traditional politics, gender equality and sensitivity, protection of the rights of children and differently-abled, peace-making and conflict resolution, human rights, and the likes. It is happening at all is cause for great hope and it strikes at the root cause of the inequalities not only in the Philippines but also in the global society.
In the Spirit, we look back in wonder over our journeying as a Christian nation. There are lights, there are shadows, successes as well as failures, but through them all the Spirit breathes mightily, palpably, guiding and prodding and leading us on to where we are now.3
Commitment for Christian Social Transformation, Peace and Development is really a challenge. We are living in the worst of times and we are also living in the best of times, but only if crisis is made to become kairos. We seize the grace of the moment and respond to its challenge, as we should, always, in faith.4
The call is for change, an updating (aggiornamento) of our selves. The call is for our growth, the full flowering of our life of faith in Christ, the integration of faith and life. This is the essence of living for social transformation and development.5 As Christians, we should take our path to peace.6 The peace we are dreaming to attain is a dream of development of peoples, especially the poor, deprived, oppressed and exploited as the Christian subject and Christian object. So, it is right and just to say "the new name for peace is development."7
Prerequisite to development, we should and we must be committed in living and adhering vital elements of development:8
- Not just economic growth or accumulation of wealth but transition from less to more human conditions;
- With its interior dimension;
- Demands a spirit of initiative;
- Must be achieved within the framework of solidarity and freedom;
- Must take into consideration ecological restoration and balance;
- Must transform poor peoples' life and condition from different forms of miseries;
- Must empower lay people;
- Effective political will is needed;
- It is ultimately connected with liberation; and
- With moral character.
Community Development is based on the Christian Vision of Development
The peoples' aspiration for development is the "freedom from misery, the greater assurance of finding subsistence, health and fixed employment; an increase share of responsibility without oppression of any kind and insecurity from situations that do violence to their dignity as men and women; better education - in brief, to seek to do more, know more and to have more in order to be more."
Therefore, "development cannot be limited to mere economic growth. In order to be authentic, it must be complete: integral that is, it has to promote the good of every man (woman) and the whole of man (woman)." ---Pope Paul VI (Populorum Progressio)
The Practice of Love by the Church
Deus Caritas Est (The Charity of God)
Pope Benedict XVI
- Love of neighbor, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level: from the local community to the particular Church and to the Church universal in its entirety.
- As a community, the Church must practice love. Love thus needs to be organized if it is to be an ordered service to the community. The awareness of this responsibility has had a constitutive relevance in the Church from the beginning: "All who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:44-5)
- The Church's deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility of: proclaiming the word of God, celebrating the sacraments, exercising the ministry of charity.
- Following the example given in the parable of the Good Samaritan, Christian charity is first of all the simple response to immediate needs and specific situations: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, caring for and healing the sick, visiting those in prison, etc. The Church's charitable organizations, beginning with those of Caritas (at diocesan, national and international levels), ought to do everything in their power to provide the resources and above all the personnel needed for this work. Individuals who care for those in need must first be professionally competent: they should be properly trained in what to do and how to do it, and committed to continuing care.
- Christian charitable activity must be independent of parties and ideologies. It is not a means of changing the world ideologically, and it is not at the service of worldly stratagems, but it is a way of making present here and now the love which man always needs.
- Charity, furthermore, cannot be used as a means of engaging in what is nowadays considered proselytism. Love is free; it is not practiced as a way of achieving other ends.
- Historical Overview/Development of Academic Institutions' Involvement/engagement With Communities
The origins of Extension Work: Land Grand Institutions in the United States9
The term "extension" implies something added or provided. It was used by academic institutions in the United States to describe another function that they undertook to address a need at the time. It was an apt concept coined to convey "reaching out" and along with teaching and research - land grant institutions "extend" their resources, solving public needs with college and university through non-formal, non-credit programs.
The extension scheme had its beginnings in the 19th century when a number of legislators at the federal and state levels realized the "working class people" (should) gain practical education to improve their lives". Enabling legislations were passed to particularly deal with problems.10
The putting together of an extension program in the United States had a focus and that was to increase agricultural productivity. It had direction as well. Thus, Farmers' Institutes were established. The agricultural workers were educated through a non-formal type of arrangement using demonstrations as a teaching methodology. Resource persons utilized the knowledge generated from researches in the Agricultural Experiment Stations to improve technology and agricultural practices. Leadership and home management trainings targeting women and youth to improve community life were added to involve everyone in the development process.
The enabling legislations, fund support, collaboration and the close coordination between the academe and the local governments as well as the integration of the research and extension functions brought about the successful American agricultural revolution. It created a great impact on the lives of the farmers by substantially increasing their productivity and income, and modernizing farming practices through the use of new technology.
Later, with movement of the population to the cities, efforts expanded to include other services to address growing urban related issues as the landscape of American society changed.
Extension work in the Philippines: Extending the University11
The beginnings of extension work in the Philippines followed the track of the United States, using the land grant set-up. It was quite similar in intent to the original concept in that academic institutions were to play a significant role in serving the rural populace and that motivated some schools to operate in identified localities while others to expand their reach. The assistance that was provided in the beginning was related to increasing agricultural productivity.
In the Philippines, however, the idea of moving to the provinces came from school administrators rather than legislators. Private academic institutions, too, came in to make their own contribution. This might have given one the impression that the concept of extension literally meant "extending university", adding other branches or campuses or setting up a new one in the provinces. There was no specific goal or direction that cohered the involvements of these academic institutions. They had their own perspectives about their work including the nature of extension services that they would provide.
In the University of the Philippines, extension efforts started in 1909 with the expansion of its campus to many parts of the Philippines.12 Their Charters incorporated this provision especially so since this was made a requirement by education regulatory and accrediting bodies.
Classified as an extension work, the operation of the Adventist University of the Philippines goes as far back as 1915 when a group of missionaries came to the Philippines to set-up a school. The University of Negros Occidental has been mainly involved in community outreach, research and academic work. Since 1947, it had been assisting the poor through provision of social services. In 1959, it involved its Student Catholic Action in its feeding program. It was observed however that for number of years, the school's outreach activities had been "sporadic and uncoordinated". With the assistance of religious, the management of their program has improved.
The institutions' main activity then was formal education. The courses offered were either new, addressing particular local concerns, or similar to those given to regular students. As they expanded, they strengthened their research work and went into providing social services to the communities. New structures were set-up to accommodate the additional involvements that they undertook.
The extension function of the public universities and colleges in the Philippines is highly developed. As in the United States, the services first focused on improving agricultural productivity with the assistance of faculty and students and actively linking with the Department of Agriculture and the local governments. Later, services expanded in scope and reach to include a wide range of interventions for low income communities that covered the areas of health, legal and education. Some of the examples were medical and dental missions, free legal assistance, teacher training, tutorial services and adult literacy. Networking activities with line agencies and non-government organizations grew as well.
What can be considered unique in the practice of extension in the Philippines are the following:
- Participation not only of the government but of the private associations as well;
- Building of networks for resource generation;
- Utilization of the services of law, medical and education students, among others, by providing assistance to those in need through community exposure or field work classes; and
- Support given to particular government programs like environmental protection, health, leadership and citizenship.
However, although the schools and colleges were able to meet some of the basic needs of poor families, their assistance did not produce the effect that the American agricultural revolution made on the lives of the farming communities in the United States.
Social institutions, like Universities and various religious organizations, have broadened their service concerns by actually engaging in development work, principally through outreach and social action programs/projects.
DIFFERENT APPROACHES IN WORKING AND ENGAGING WITH COMMUNITIES
- Approaches and Nature/Style of Management13
There are six (6) approaches in working and engaging with communities, these are: (1) Dole-out delivery/Top-down development programs; (2) Traditional Organizing; (3) Entrepreneur Development; (4) Community Extension; (5) Solid mass organization; and (6) Community Development. Each approach has their respective nature and style of management.
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Approaches
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Nature and Style
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Dole-out delivery
Top-down development
programs
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Traditional and dole-out approach in the provision and utilization of community resources without involving the people, leading to dependency, economism and destruction of the peoples' culture and environment.
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Traditional Organizing
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Produces community organizations that are individualistic and not responsive to the over-all needs of the people in the community; the organizations merely serve the interest of the outside organizers.
Example: POs organized by traditional politicians for the elites for their social functions.
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Entrepreneur Development
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A traditional approach of organizing the people merely for resource utilization and management without clear political vision of where the organizing would lead to.
Example: Community livelihood projects organized by or co-opted by private enterprises to do sub-contracted works.
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Community Extension
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Transfer of technology and capability building (this approach has been the tracked in the past of different educational institutions in engaging with communities).
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Solid mass organization
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Produces highly conscientized and organized peoples' organization but lacks interest and capability in undertaking socio-economic or environmental endeavors.
Example: Political organizing done by cause-oriented groups during the Martial Law period.
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Community Development
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Integrates the education, organization and resource management concerns of the community. The outcome is a conscientized and organized community/peoples' organization involved in various community affairs, including both the political concerns and management of their resources.
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UST is applying the community development approach in engaging with communities and institutions. Other approaches are also applied but as support mechanisms of the institution. UST as an institution is very conscious in its present engagement with partner communities so as to really promote people-centered development and empowerment.
- Processes in Community Development14
For the application of community development approach and program, here are the highly suggested processes which can be tapped and maximized for effective and efficient program intervention for development:
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Processes
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Community Organizing
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Community Education
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Community Resources Management
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Assessment of situation and problem identification
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Community Integration
Community Diagnosis
Social Analysis
Identification of Leaders
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Training Needs Assessment
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Community Diagnosis
Resource Inventory and Analysis
Environmental Impact Assessment
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Planning and implementation
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Core Group Building
Organization Building
Community Mobilization
Networking and Alliance Building
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Training Design Development
Curriculum Development
Training Implementation and Management
Experiential on-the-job learning process
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Resource use plan
Feasibility Studies
Project Proposal Making
Resources Utilization, Replenishment and Rehabilitation
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Evaluation
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Reflection
Community Organizing Assessment
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Training Evaluation
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Project Evaluation
Environmental Monitoring and Evaluation
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The principle of participatory development is part and parcel of all phases of applying the processes and components of community development. The engagement of all stakeholders is required with an open and communicative action.
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