COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT,

SOLIDARITY, AND CITIZENSHIP

A. Concepts and Perspectives of
community
1. Importance of Understanding Community
Dynamics and Community Action
• Learning about communities is a key to
appreciating our daily interactions with others,
as we locate ourselves in a web of social
connections.
• Understanding the dynamics within our
community aids us in responding to the
collective challenges we face.
2. Definitions of community
Etymology
Derived from the Latin word communitas
meaning “fellowship”.

Its Latin roots, communis, means common.

Com translates to “with” or “together”;
whereas munire translates to “to strengthen”,
“to fortify”, or “to defend”
 Social Science Perspective
• An informally organized social entity, characterized by a
sense of identity.
• A group of people living in the same defined area, sharing
common basic values, organization, and interest.
• A group of people whose connections and relations are
formed by their shared histories, experiences,
geographies, and identities.

“A religion is a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to

sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and forbidden--
beliefs and practices which unite in one single moral community
called a Church, all those who adhere to them.” (Durkheim; 1995:
44)
•a community is a group of people who interact
with one another, for example, as friends or
neighbors.
•This interaction is typically viewed as occurring
within a bounded geographic territory, such as
a neighborhood or city.
•The community’s members often share
common values, beliefs, or behaviors
Institutional Perspectives
• Communities have a mechanism for
coordinating values, goals and actions of its
individual members. Social institutions
perform this function.
• Institutions – are established rules that ensure
the regular and predictable behavior of actors
within a community.
Institutions – are established rules that
ensure the regular and predictable
behavior of actors within a community.

Categories
Informal Institutions – explicitly
communicated, embodied in legally codified
documents or artifacts.
example: laws and policies that are
implemented by government agency or office.
Informal Institutions
Are practices, norms, traditions, culture,
conduct and belief systems of a community.

These are not codified or written, but are

nonetheless embedded in communities,
operating due to the interactive process of
preference exchanges and social expectations
that occur therein.
Civil Society Perspective
Communities are built in pursuit of advocacies, causes
and goals.
examples: Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and
People’s Organizations (POs)
In most cases, the goals and strategies of NGOs and POs
complement with those of the state and are presumed
to work in partnership with the state in a cooperative
mode to address societal problems in the areas of
environmental protection, social welfare, promotion of
human rights and civil liberties, among others.
Organic Perspectives
An organic perspective of community refers to
local or grassroots groups within a particular
locale that are driven and organized because
of community issues and concerns.
…address particular issues, such as crime
prevention, environmental protection, or
waste management.
3. Elements
a. Structural Dimensions
Geographic Dimension – focuses on how a
community is shaped by the physical space it
uses and the location of its resources – human,
natural, and technological.
An examination of a community’s geographic
system would typically start by looking at the
scope and limits of its territory, distribution of
its population, and the location of its resources.
Socio-Political Dimension
It refers to the relationships of power and
control between individuals and groups in a
community.
Political leadership, whether formal or
informal, and how it is accepted and sustained
by community members are important factors
that help analyze the quality and processes of
decision-making in the community.
Economic Dimension
refers to the means by which members of a
community allocate, produce, and distribute
scarce resources to address their wants and
needs. It is the aspect of the community that
is concerned with how exchange value is
created and what systems of exchange occur
within a community.
Cultural Dimension
refers to people’s way of life. It encompasses
the values and beliefs that are passed on from
one generation to another.
b. Dynamic and Processes – focus on community
power relations, leadership, and social change
Formal power structure from the legal
authoritative basis of elected and appointed
government officials and leaders of civic
organizations. (

Informal power structure exists alongside the

formal institutional power structure, it is harder
to empirically identify, but is equally a significant
factor in a community’s development.
Actors
• Legal-authoritative decision-makers –
individuals or bodies whose authority is based
on formal rules and institutions. Typically,
legal-authoritative decision-makers occupy
positions of authority through legally
mandated processes like elections or through
formal political appointments
• Influencers
individuals or groups who do not have direct
authority, but are capable of shaping decisions
that affect the community.
4. Typologies of Community
• Formal-Informal typology emphasizes leadership and
power relations in the community
• Local-global typology focuses on the scope and
breadth of communities with respect to its
geographic dimensions and the reach of its other
dimensions (e.g. economic, socio-political, and
cultural)
• Rural-urban typology is based on the distinction in
terms of development, industrialization, ecological
condition and lifestyle.
 Functions of a Community
Function Explanation
• Production-Distribution- Communities provide its members
Consumption livelihood through the use of its
resources and the system of
exchange embedded therein
such as trade and commerce

Communities have processes that

shape social behavior by
• Socialization
instilling in its members norms,
values, knowledge, skills and
attitudes
 Functions of a Community
Function Explanation
• Social Control Mechanisms within communities such
as social pressure or formal
institutions, regulate the conduct
and behavior of community
members

Communities thrive through the

• Social Participation association and involvement of its
members. These are exmplified in
the groups and organizations within
communities such as religious
associations, businesses, and
neighborhoods.
 Functions of a Community
Function Explanation
• Mutual support Communities offer its
members interactions that
encourage cooperation and
solidarity.
B. COMMUNITY ACTION
1. Overview
a. Community Engagement – refers to the
process of working collaboratively with and
through groups of people affiliated by
geographic proximity; special interest, or
similar situations to address issues affecting
the well being of those people.
b. Solidarity – refers to the idea of unity or
feeling of agreement among individuals with
common interest
c. Citizenship- characterizes the
relationship between a citizen and a
political community. This is indicated by
citizen’s involvement in state affairs, with
respect to its economic and social
processes, institutions, laws, rights, and
responsibilities.
Purposes of Community Action
Community Development – both a process and a
product.
As a product, Maser (1997) defines community
development as the capacity of the people to
work together to address their common interest.
As a process, it requires an integrative approach to
systematically assess the problem, capacitate the
community, and solve a problem
a. Major Issues affecting poor
and marginalized communites

b. The Role Of The Youth In

Community Action
3. Selected Cases of Community-Action
Initiatives
• Community Health
• Community Employment
• Waste Disposal
• Hunger
• Sanitation
• Drinking water systems
• Housing conditions
C. Core Values and Principles of
Community-Action Initiatives
1. Human Rights
The rights inherent to all human beings
whatever our nationality, place of residence,
sex, national or ethnic origin, color, religion,
language, or any other status.. Human rights
are bais individual entitlements.
 HUMAN RIGHTS
Natural Rights Life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness

Civil Rights Privacy, property, religion,

expression, contract,
and movement
 HUMAN RIGHTS
Political Rights Assembly, petition, suffrage, direct
and indirect participation, self-
determination, self-government,
and election to public office.

Livelihood, equal opportunities,

education, housing, leisure and
recreation, the freedom to
choose one’s occupation, to
Social and Economic picket and to strike for better
working conditions and various
Rights benefits to improve the quality
of life.
2. Social Justice
Jose P. Laurel defined social justice as the
humanization of laws and the equalization of
social and economic forces by the state so that
justice may at least be approximated.
Objectives:
• Respect our rights and freedoms as individuals
and as a people
• Eliminate poverty as quickly as our resources
and abilities would allow
• Provide everyone with their basic material
needs, the, improve their standard of living
• Change institutions and structures to address
inequalities
3. Empowerment and Advocacy (Community
Engagement)
Successful community engagement programs
entail the achievement of four actions known
as the 4 Pillars of Community Engagement
• Information
• Consultation
• Involvement
• empowerment
Aside from the achievement of the 4 pillars of community
engagement, successful community engagement also entails the
guidance of various principles and goals, among them:

• Increase in the knowledge of community members

about the issues that are being addressed
• Encourage communities to co-create additional
knowledge or views pertaining to issues being
addressed
• Shared application of knowledge to address the issues
of the community
• Create opportunities for improvement, communication
channels, and engage the communityin regular and
continuous exchanges.
4. Participatory Development
Characteristics (Majid Rahnema)
• Cognitive – it generates new ways of
understanding community issues and
problems
• Political – it capacitates the powerless
• Instrumental – it proposes alternative
solutions
 Forms of Participatory Development

• Passive Participation – Participation is at the

minimum; stakeholders are merely informed
about the plans and progress of projects. The
people’s involvement hardly goes past the
discussion during meetings
 Forms of Participatory Development
• Participation by consultation – Stakeholders
answer queries posed by external researchers
or experts. The decision-making power remains
in the hands of external parties who, ultimately,
are not obliged to actually use the stakeholders’
input.
• Participation by collaboration – Stakeholders
with predetermined goals participate during the
discussion, analysis, and decision-making stage.
 Forms of Participatory Development

• Empowerment Participation – Stakeholders

actively participate in the process and its
analysis. This features a joint decision making
process, wherein stakeholders are considered
equal copartners with the external experts.
Most significantly, control and ownership of
the process are in the hands of the primary
stakeholders.
 Pros and Cons
Pro Con
• Participation helps LGUs • Costly and slow
maximize the use of their • Tokenism – only a few locals
resources from the community are
• Enhances trust in the hand-picked to prove its
government participatory credentials
• Ensures continuity of plans
despite changes in leadership
• Accurately identify problems,
issues, needs and concerns
5. Gender Equality
• Defined as the equal rights, responsibilities of
women and men and girls and boys.
(United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and
the Empowerment of Women)
• The measurable equal representation of men
and women.
(International Planned Parenthood
Federation)
Gender equality does not denote that
both genders are the same. It
emphasizes equality of women and
men as humans imbued with the
same fundamental rights. Gender
equality recognizes that men and
women are of equal value and should
be accorded equal treatment and
opportunities.
Gender Inequality
• Men often experience better opportunities, more
freedom, and higher social regard than women who
share the same social characteristics (such as class
origins, nationality, and age).
• Men often hold more weight in marriages and other
direct relationships between men and women.
• Men predominantly occupy social positions that
possess significant political, legal, or cultural powers.
GROUP ACTIVITY
 Instruction
Identify the Steps/Methods of Community
Action in the Context of Community
Development.
Briefly describe each step/method.
Steps/Methods
1. Community Profiling
a. Needs and Resources Assessment
A Needs Assessment lets the community identify
the things that it needs. It is used to determine
the gaps between the community’s present
condition and its desired condition.
The discrepancy between “what is” (current
situation) and “what should be” (desire, intended
goal or target) is referred to as the need.
Needs assessment can be conducted through a
survey for the following purposes:
• To learn about community needs. Surveys can
support your own experiences and observations.
It also gives you a more comprehensive
information from a larger representative group
than by relying solely on your own observations.
• To have a more objective and honest description
of what people need
• To discover possible needs that did not exist or
once considered as not important
Needs assessment can be conducted through a
survey for the following purposes:
• To document or record needs which can be
used in applying funding and advocating
causes
• To ensure that the action you take are related
to the needs of the community.
Resource Assessment
Resource assessment conventionally refers to
money or finances. Resource assessment
helps the community be informed about
resources (such as material resources,
financial, equipment, personnel) that can be
accessed to address the needs of the
community. Likewise, it also identifies the
resources that a community needs to acquire
to achieve its goals and objectives.
Steps/Methods
2. Participatory Action Planning and Leadership Development

Participatory Action Planning involves the open and inclusive

engagement of groups and individuals in a community who
have decided to pursue a goal or solve a problem.
Compared to Action Planning that is initiated by those in
authority (top to bottom planning), participatory action
planning is a process that gathers insights and ideas from
community members. This encourages community
members to communicate with each other and identify
their problems and draw solutions.
Leadership Development
Leadership development is another important
part of the community action process that can
commence during the start of the planning
phase. Leadership is the most important
resource and it requires due attention.
Leaders emanate from a selected group,
volunteers, or individuals, known as the core
working group. Leaders ensure that essential
tasks , goals and objectives are accomplished.
Steps/Methods
3. Resource Mobilization
The capacities of communities to implement
interventions meant to solve their collective
problems depend on the resources they
possess, control and mobilize. It
encompasses the appropriate, efficient and
effective use of material support, personnel
support, and knowledge support.
Steps/Methods
3. Plan Implementation
refers to the phase where actual and
concrete implementation of tasks and
activities are done. These activities and tasks
are meant to comprise the specific
intervention/s a community undertakes in
solving a problem or addressing an issue.
Steps/Methods
4. Monitoring and Evaluation
Monitoring – focuses on the status and
progress of tasks and activities in the course
of implementation of the community action
plan. Monitoring includes procedures that
allow the tracking of the performance of
project implementers and the effect of the
resources in completing tasks and activities.
Evaluation
conducted in the middle and at the end of the
scheduled completion of the community
action plan to evaluate the effectivity and
success of the project. Evaluation
TYPES:
Process Evaluation –
Summative Evaluation
Impact