What is community development?
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Underpinning strategies
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In addition to its fundamental values, community development rests on four vital pillars or strategies: • • • •
Networking Collective action Organisation development Informal education
Networking In order for people to collaborate and achieve meaningful change, they need to be connected with those who share their concerns, to find potential allies and partners, and to have links with decision makers or service providers who hold power and resources. Communities have natural attachments through families, neighbours, friendships and familiar faces seen out and about. But these networks tend to be exclusive and might not give access to the most useful ideas or assets. Most communities comprise patterns of biases and barriers that distort or prevent people relating to one another. A good networker who knows the community well can set up introductions, liaise across sectoral or area boundaries and facilitate networking opportunities so that community members can extend their own networks and reach into less familiar territory, thereby addressing social exclusion and power differentials (Gilchrist, 2019). Collective action A central tenet of community development is that it enables people to take collective action to tackle shared issues or to pursue a common cause. Community development works with people to identify goals and supports them to accomplish these. By coming together, comparing experiences and understanding the root causes of problems, people realise that their combined efforts can change situations, improve conditions and potentially challenge structural
