The publication of the 3rd international congress “Community Development: Local and Global Challenges” last September in Lucerne has arrived! The Congress was an important event to discuss crucial questions concerning global developments and their local impacts with professional community developers from all over the globe. The success of the event can be seen in the impressive number of participants as well as the many positive feedbacks we have received. By the way, the presentations of the keynote speakers can be downloaded at http://community.knowledge-exchange.ch and are now used in various seminars at the LUASA and other universities.
The book contains about fifty articles from 17 countries on four continents.
It is structured along geographical regions: we follow the sun from East to West, going from Asia, to Africa, then to Europe and finally to the Americas. Within a continent the order of countries also follows and East-West trajectory. Finally, each article is eight pages long and, depending on the original length of the article, might look a bit different in terms of its layout.
A copy of the book can be ordered in the web-shop at http://147.88.201.215/HSLUWeb/Shop/product/e31942e8-21c6-41ce-a361-6fe4ea725c2e.aspx Price: 45 CHF).

Content :

Asia

• Michael P. Canares: Combating Poverty : The NGO’s Role in Poverty Reduction and Community Development in the Philippines
• Indra P. Tiwari: Creating Development Habit and Cultivating Development Culture among Rural Communities for Overcoming the Vicious Cycle of Poverty and Underdevelopment in Nepal – The Swabalamban Approach
• Jan Zychlinski: The Disaster Relief Program after the 2004 Tsunami in Sri Lanka as a Challenge and a Chance for Social Work/Community Development and a Contribution to Strengthen the Civil Society

Afrika

• Yves Alexandre Chouala: Societé civile et développement communautaire au Cameroun : éléments pour une appréciation critique
• Geoffrey I. Nwaka: Indigenous Knowledge, Local Governance and Community Development in Nigeria

Europe

• Oya Acikalin: NGO – Public Organisation Cooperations in an EU-Funded Program in Turkey
• Marju Medar: The Role of the University in Regional Cooperation and in Developing Skills in the Community
• Elina Nivala: Animating Civil Society from the Inside: The Case of the Finnish Youth Society Movement
• Gülcan Akkaya : Community Development in Post-Conflict Societies, Citing Kosovo as an Example
• Maria Maiss, Ursula Stattler: Social Space-Oriented Brief Intervention for Politicans in Communities and Socialworkers
• Christian P. Casparis: The Socio-Economic Potential of Community Centres : A Voluntary Sector without Do-Gooders
• Claudia della Croce, Joëlle Libois: Des pratiques en animation socioculturelle dans deux contextes culturels fifférents : La Suisse romande et le Liban
• Claudia della Croce, Jorge Pinho: Exemple d’un processus participatif lors de l’elaboration d’un nouveau plan d’études de niveau bachelor en animation socioculturelle
• Miryam Eser Davolio: The Empowerment of Civil Society for Repelling Right-Wing Extremism in Swiss Municipalities
• Christoph Hauser, Simone Schweikert, Patricia Wolf: Developing the Future Together : Involving Key Stakeholders into Regional Development Processes
• Annette Hug: Project Methods: Transformation Versus Running in Circles
• Isabelle My Hanh Derungs: Transcultural Place Attachement – At Home across Borders
• Margarita Sanchez-Mazas, Yuri Tironi: Le Conseil delémontain des jeunes : espace d’expérimentation ludique de la citoyenneté
• Alex Willener: The BaBel Project : Sustainable Neighbourhood Development in Lucerne’s Baselstrasse Neighbourhood
• Rudy van den Hoven: Changes and Challenges in the Schilderswijk. Revitalisation of a Dutch Neighbourhood
• Chantal Crenn „Chez nous, c’est Marrakech » ou l’animation en «territoire rural » prise dans les toilets de la mondalisation
• Michel Lac: Les enjeux de l’animation vus par la presse française: une grille de lecture des représentations professionelles des animateurs?
• Philippe Matty: Eléments de conaissance des dimensions socio-cognitives des pratiques professionelles des animateurs de Centre de Loisirs Associé à l’Ecole
• Abdourahmane Ndiaye: Institutions des territoires et mondialisation. L’étude de cas du PLIE des Graves
• Yves Raibaud: Les animateurs des cultures urbaines participent-ils à la construction de nouvelles images ethniques?
• Judith Allan, Ripin Kalra, Tony Lloyd Jones: Community Asset Management : Life Cycles and Learning
• Kath Beveridge, Dave Valentine : Neighbourhood Planning and Service Delivery in Aberdeen
• Patricia Bryant: Include Us In
• Guy Stevenson: „It Ain’t Disneyland“ – Connections and Disconnections in Participation, Partnership and Community Engagement
• Jordi Segarra, Xavier Úcar: Participative Research to Create a Youth Local Plan and a Sustainable Structure of Youth People’s Participation in a local Community

America

• Maria Helena Santos: Youngsters and the Biulding of New Images
• Edina Schimanski: Gender, Enviroment and Development: Women’s Social Inclusion through Community Participation
• Evelyne Baillergeau: Proximité et intégration sociale. Les enjeux de l’intervention sociale de quartier
• Augustin Ependa, Patrice LeBlanc, Ina Motoi, Micheline Potvin: Processus collectifs et leadership territorial
• Raymond Laprée: L’engagement communautaire développé chez les élèves du Québec

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An interesting Institution for Community Based Research projects is the Center for Urban Research and Learning of Loyola University Chicago. Their current projects are realized in several areas (e.g. Health, Housing, Community Capacity Building, Participatory Evaluation and Youth) and really link “community-based knowledge” with “university-based (discipline-based) knowledge”. On the website one can find short descriptions of ongoing and past projects.
More Information about university-community research and teaching partnerships in other countries and the model of Science-Shops can be found at the International Science Shop Network (ISSNET).
Through this Network CURL and the Universities of Liverpool and Seville came in contact and collaborated together with the CoRAL Network of Georgetown University in the EU-US funded project “equitable sustainable community development”. Unfortunately the homepage is not all up-to-date, but provides interesting resources on equitable sustainable development.

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Last year we had the chance to  attend two presentations in an online-session from interesting institutions and projects from overseas.
In the first online-session on the 14th of September 2007 Ian Goldman from Khanya - African Institute for Community Driven Development talked about “Community Based Planning - Projects and Experiences from the African Institute Khanya”.
In the second online-session, on the 18th of September 2007 David Van Zytveld presented his, Aparna Sharma’s and Christine George’s work at the Center for Urban Research and Learning in Chicago: “Urban Research Projects – Experiences from the Center for Urban Research in Chicago”

Besides the presentation of the interesting experiences and projects from the two organisations we also experiences the online-sessions as a tool to shorten distances and enable the exchange of experience and knowledge beyond geografical borders.

The online-sessions have been recorded and can be watched at http://www.hearingseminars.com/p99243998 (South Africa) and http://www.hearingseminars.com/p46727746 (Chicago).

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At the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts the terms of “Community Devlopment” and “Soziokulturelle Animation” are both used. E.g. you can enroll for the MA international Community Development or get your bachelor degree in Soziokulturelle Animation. It might be a difficulty that there is no direct English translation for “animation socio-culturelle” (French) or “Soziokulturelle Animation” (German). The terms Community Development and Soziokulturelle Animation also refer to different historical backgrounds. The concept of “animation socio-culturelle” or “Soziokulturelle Animation” is rooted in France (compare Jean-Claude Gillet, 1998).

We will adhere to the following definition as provided by Bernard Wandeler (LUASA). (http://www.socialinfo.ch/cgi-bin/dicopossode/show.cfm?id=631)

Social change demands adaptability, fundamental reorientation and learning processes of everyone. Values and norms must be repeatedly re-negotiated. “Socio-cultural Animation” derives its importance from this situation. Its social function is a subordenate concept of the general participatory paradigm as it supports the various groups within a collective and strives for social and cultural reconciliation.

For example, private and public sponsors promote “Socio-cultural Animation”
in:
• community centers
• student or youth assemblies
• organizations active in street work or mobile youth programs
• various prevention projects
• cultural centers
• church associations
• refugee centers,
• parishes
• pedagogy
• on public playgrounds
• union edification programs
• corporate recreation services
• in sports
• tourism etc.

“Socio-cultural Animation” is a professionalized service rendered to the community. It supports the interests of communities in their social and cultural existence.
As a rule, “Socio-cultural Animation” works with volunteers. It fields requests from varied groups, public and private organizations and helps arbitrate solutions for the furthering of their shared environs.
“Socio-cultural Animation” intervenes in politics, education, culture and social life.
At the center of the philosophy are its informal character and high accessibility. Proceeding from the culture in question, considerations are made and needs are addressed.

In its interventional subcategory, “Socio-cultural Animation” fulfills, in particular, four functions:
1. Political participation and Community (Capacitiy) Building
2. Brokering of culture and the arts
3. Prevention in the social aspects
4. Edification

“Socio-cultural Animation” professionals personify active roles:
1. The “animator” advances the following three-step process:
a. stimulation
b. encouragement
c. enabling and empowerment

Here the aim is to activate the intrinsic resources of the focus groups.
2. As “conceptionalists” they explore the environs and collect relevant information concerning the activation requirements of the defined social groups
3. As “organizers” they offer support in the form of organizational structures (campaigns, projects etc.) to stakeholders.
4. As “intermediaries”, they promote actions that impart culture through facilitation to mitigate conflict.
The methods used in “Sozio-cultural Animation” consist in the construction of learning situations as specific as a sociological investigation of structures within a district.Interventions and projects of the “Socio-cultural Animation” are always participatory and project management methods are used frequently. In “Socio-cultural Animation”
sustainability is of great importance.

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As is surely the case with most other issues, there is an amazing amount of information available on the web relating to community based development and research (CPD/CBR). One of the most interesting sites that I have come across recentlyy is Xavier de Souza Briggs’ Working Smarter project website at MIT. I received his information through the Appam Listserv (APPAM-L@LIST.S-3.COM): for details and links see Brigg’s email at the end of this blog entry.

De Souza Briggs’ website provides a lot of highly interesting material on community development and research. Most especially Brigg’s and his colleagues have developed a set of ‘strategy’ and ‘program’ tools that - while primarily geared toward the ‘doing’ of community based development and research – are also deeply immersed in current theoretical thinking about CBD and CBR. Clearly these guys know what they’re talking about and they have a lot of experience CB projects! 

In addition to the information provide what immediately caught my eye was Brigg’s opening statement on the websites main page where he states that community based problem solving is all about “finding common ground without being afraid to disagree”. The idea that most collaborative processes must necessarily involve a certain degree of disagreement between collaborators has been central to my own thinking about community based work. My colleague Corey Shdaimah (Univ. of Maryland) has developed this argument in a recent paper that was the result of a small retrospective study for which we interviewed a group of community activist with whom we have collaborated on a larger study on home repair issues among low-income homeowners in Philadelphia/USA (”Collaboration Between Community Advocates and Academic Researchers: Scientific Advocacy or Political Research?” Roland Stahl and Corey Shdaimah, British Journal of Social Work 2007; doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcm069).
Based on our analysis of the interviews we conducted we argued that:
Collaborative approaches [in CBR] are well suited to study practical social problems because they force researchers to engage with people who encounter such problems on a daily basis. If nothing else, collaborations with community groups force researchers to acknowledge the complexity and situatedness of real-world policy problems. Yet, collaboration is easier said than done. When we asked our community partner to assess the value of the collaboration between researchers and advocates in the Home Repair Study, we learned that collaborations between academics and community groups require careful matching of expectations in the initial stages and the maintenance of trusting relationship throughout the collaborative process. This is frequently timeconsuming and difficult. Our case study suggests that the collaborative process is well worth the struggle and that it can contribute to more effective research and greater political impact of advocacy endeavours. (p. 17)

The main source of potential disagreement in CBR project has to do with the fact that the various key players and constituents have different roles and therefore, at least to a certain degree, different interests. Corey and I argue that it is very important to make these differences in terms of roles and interest explicit both during the planning as well as the implementation stages of a CBR project. If a group of collaborators in a community based project fails to do this, it can come to no great surprise that such conflicts of interests might fester and eventually negatively affect the collaborative process at some point during the project. Or, to restate Brigg’s point: in order to find common ground we need not be afraid of disagreement but rather engage it!

—
Email from Xavier de Souza Briggs:
RE: “Working Smarter in Community Development”—new tools for teachers, learners, funders, evaluators, others

Dear Colleagues and Friends:

I’m pleased to share three “knowledge-in-action briefs” as part of a new online resource for self-directed learning that aims to strengthen the field of community development in America. We hope that you and your students, partners, or clients, find these useful.

In 2004 and 2005, I organized a series of workshops to put researchers in dialogue with practitioners. These were funded by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in connection with the ambitious New Communities Program in Chicago (and its evaluation). Informed by those workshops, the new briefs are about how to work smarter, not just harder, on behalf of important goals at the local level:

    (Brief 07-1)    Rethinking Community Development: Managing Dilemmas about Values and Goals
 
    (Brief 07-2)    Stocks, Flows, and Dreams: Shaping and Measuring Neighborhood Change in Community Development
 
    (Brief 07-3)    Networks, Power, and a Dual Agenda: New Lessons and Strategies for Old Community Building Agendas
 
The Working Smarter project website also includes learning guides and links to helpful resources on the web, for example NeighborWorks America’s excellent material on success measures and much more.
 
The new tools complement those at our companion website, www.community-problem-solving.net, which focus on key civic processes for leading change, such as negotiating, organizing stakeholders, participatory planning, forging effective partnerships, and more. More than 80,000 copies of these free tools have been downloaded worldwide since The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT launched in 2003, by educators and practitioners and others. Trainers and teaching faculty in planning, social work, public policy and management, sociology, political science, public interest law, and other fields have assigned the tools in their courses and programs.
 
The new Working Smarter briefs, though distinct in focus, were written in a similar format, with “ideas in brief” and “ideas in practice” sections as roadmaps upfront and with accessible language throughout.

Please note that no copyright permission is required for any and all educational use of the new briefs. But we’d love to get your feedback and also to hear about your use of the material, of course.
 
I’m grateful to Susan Lloyd and Julia Stasch at the MacArthur Foundation, Andy Mooney and Susana Vasquez at LISC-Chicago, and the workshop participants, web designers, MIT staff and students, and others who made this work possible.

With best wishes,
 
Xav

Xavier de Souza Briggs
Associate Professor of Sociology + Urban Planning
and Director, The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 9-521
Cambridge, MA 02139, U.S.A.
 
(voice) +1 617-253-7956
(fax) +1 617-258-8594
(email) xbriggs@mit.edu
 
The Community Problem-Solving Project @ MIT
www.community-problem-solving.net
 
Works in progress: http://web.mit.edu/xbriggs/www/

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The Congress Book of the 3^rd international congress “Community Development: local and global challenges” in Lucerne in September 2007 will be published at the end of april. It will give the opportunity to review the congress and read about issues from the various workshops. It contains 35 contributions from four continents (Asia, Africa, Europe and America) and shows as well differences as commonalities in international Community Development.
For an overview of the contributions please take a look at the table of content.

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What I like in the Transgusto project Alex Willener presented last week, is its truly resource-oriented approach (beside that it is about food). As we know, Switzerland underwent a process of transformation from a poor, rural emigration country to a rich, more urbanized immigration country, like many other European countries in the last 150 years. It is interesting to see that on one hand, Switzerland’s “national myth” is built on multiculturality (we are the country of four languages and 26 cantons, means 26 educational systems, 26 health systems etc.; but on the other hand, Switzerland never really could perceive itself as a society grounded on migration flows (like more or less the rest of the world). Although Switzerland as immigration country was scientifically approved by the national science foundation programme 39 (in 2003), there is still a long way to go. Switzerland still shows tremendous difficulty to include migrants and the fact of migration in its thinking.
I feel that in the last one or two years or so, awareness is growing. But now, we have “good migrants” and we try to please them (high qualified, rich people, socially often not very interested in the communities they live in), but, hélas!, the former “Gastarbeiter” are staying here also, together with a number of refugees and asylum seekers. In my opinion, we should work further in building a true culture of welcome and participation for incoming people. Here, the Transgusto project is a wonderful example. Another track we are trying out is a Conference on diversity and integration, where we are involved in the conceptualisation. The aim of this initiative is to inform about the gain of diversity awareness in small and medium enterprises.
www.snf.ch
www.lips-org.ch/konferenz.php

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The Kick-of Workshop and the first meeting of the Community of Practice of the TRANSgusto was successful. In a creative atmosphere that was enriched by persian food by a prticipant from Teheran 15 people with a culturally and professional diverse background were discussing and completing the project concept. The project was enriched and the complexity grew. But the participants were optimistic that the project could work.
In the first week of June the first TRANSgusto cooking module will be carried out. Up to this date a lot of detailled planning is necessary.

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Wednesday, 12th this week we will have the Kick-off event oft the TRANSgusto Project.

The aim of TRANSgusto is to create new workplaces and simultaneously use the potential embedded in contemporary cultural diversity as a source for innovation. The project can be seen as a continution of the exemplary area-development project BABeL in Luzern, Switzerland.

It is well known that migration and cultural diversity can hold the keys to innovation. The underemployed migrants can be seen as an unused resource in the search for new forms of access to food. Most migrant women bring with them the knowledge of foods, modes of preparation, tastes and colours, spices and combinations.

TRANSgusto invites women from different cultural backgrounds with available time into a professionally structured context where they can use their knowledge in a process of searching for new food combinations that are healthy, tasty and colourful. The products that develop from this work will – also as carriers of a sympathetic image – be produced and sold by the same target group and eventually develop into a self-supporting business.

Excitingly new in this project are the following aspects:
• The combination of Project Management with the approach of the Community of Practice
• The idea of a Community of Practice that involves ordinary people and not only specialists

In the Kick-off meeting we expect a number of people with a diversity of academic, professional and cultural backgrounds. Today we informed the participants meeting about their preparations: Think about your expectations, ideas and your ressources fort his project.

TRANSgusto ist not yet entirely financed. Today we received a letter from one of the foundations we asked for contribution saying that they will be financing a part of the project. This ist an important signal for other funders that the project is taken for serious.
At the moment we are planning the last details for tomorrows Kick off Workshop.

More Information you find in the TRANSgusto concept transgustoenglish.pdf

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We are proud, after intense collaboration with the Westminster University (London), to offer the MA „International Community Development“, starting in September 2008. This Master Course strikes a new path in various aspects. The Triangle Social Work – Public Health – Architecture of the involved Universities satisfies the claim of interdisciplinarity.

The local and international students from the broad field of social and cultural studies, educational studies, psychology, spacial development, public health or communication help to find multifaceted approaches to current questions.

Also new in this Master Course is the international perspective: we take a look on global changes and their local effects in Switzerland as well as on effects in other countries within a development context.

You might want to know, who are the initiators of this innovative project. With this Blog we want to allow you to take a look behind the curtains. You will be able to take a closer look at the teaching staff and other members of the course team.

• Who are they and in wich projects are they involved?

• Which current questions are elaborated at the Lucerne University of applied Sciences and Arts?

• Which current issues are being discussed an what are the results?

In this Blog we will provide News and interesting articles from the promising field of „Internationale Community Development“. We would be happy if you joined and felt free to ask questions or make suggestions. We are very intersted in your opinion.

Yours sincerely

Prof. Mariana Christen Jakob
Course Leader International Community Development

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