Students Notes No.

1(10th November 2010)

MA in Project Planning and Development

SOCIAL CHANGE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Senate Approved Course Outline

LDP 611 SOCIAL CHANGE AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

The concept of a community; community development; Models of community development;

approaches to community development; psycho-social approach to community development;
community mobilization; constraints to community development; comparative community
development; participatory models of community development; urban-rural development;
models and dimensions of community development; Gender issues in community development;
theories of social change; rural-urban Dichotomy in social change; rural-urban social structure-
demographic factors change agent, their role.

Suggested Detailed Course Outline

1. Theories of social change: social and human development; stages in human development;
driving forces in social development; models and dimensions of community organization and
development; role of technology; rural-urban dichotomy in social change; gender issues in
social change.

2. The Community: definition, characteristics, functions, emerging thinking on the definition of

the community

3. Community development as a concept and practice: historical development of community

development and practice in Kenya and elsewhere; Community Development Department
and other developmental departments; the changing philosophical basis of Ujamaa villages
before and after the Arusha Declaration; the changed role of government and donors as the
main drivers of community development and the ascendancy of peoples power.

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4. Community empowerment: Paulo Freires philosophy on education as a tool for community
empowerment; Nyereres education for self reliance; the psycho-social approach; coding as
a tool in popular education; The concept of conscientization and levels of awareness.

5. Sustainable development; the theory of participation and its linkage to sustainability of

community projects; the concept of ownership of community projects; role and
characteristics of an empowering community development motivator/officer; characteristics
of an empowered community.

6. Principles and practice in community mobilization: Community Situational Analysis,

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs, Force Field Analysis, SWOT Analysis, and the 3Cs of
Community Mobilization.

By the end of this course, you should be able to

a) Explain the relevant theories, principles and processes of social change

b) Define and explain the concepts, characteristics and functions of the community
c) Discuss theories and practice of community development in Kenya and elsewhere
d) Explain the meaning, principles and methods of community empowerment
e) Discuss the concept of participation and the role of change agents in community
mobilization

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LECTURE ONE: THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Course Objectives

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to

a) Describe the main theories of social change and discuss their importance in our
understanding of social development
b) Describe relationship of social change and development
c) Discuss the driving forces in social development
d) Explain models and dimensions of community organization and development
e) Define rural-urban dichotomy and outline the determinants and consequences of rural-
urban migration
f) Discuss gender issues in social change and community development

CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

A) THE MEANING OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Society is created through the interaction of people with each other. These people could be
individual men and women; any groups of individuals interacting at any level for any purpose; or
social/cultural groups, such as family, clan, etc with common culture and affinity.

Social change refers to those changes that occur in societal behavior and societal structures over
a period of time.

The changes that occur in a society and the interaction of its members set the society in motion.
For this reason, social change has been described as the social dynamics that reveal the laws of
motion in the society. (What is the law of motion?)

B) CONTEMPORARY THEOROES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

These are grouped into 4 major categories, namely

a) Evolutionary theories
b) Cyclical theories
c) Equilibrium theories and
d) Conflict theories

1) Evolutionary Theories

a) Charles Darwin (1809 -1882)

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Charles Darwins theory of biological evolution is the basic theory. It stated that laws of natural
selection led to the survival of the fittest and consequently the extinction of the least capable
species. The theory perceived society as moving from simple and primitive communities to
advanced and complex ones.

b) Auguste Comte (1798-1857) saw society evolving through 3 stages

i) The theological stage: where everything was seen as a result of supernatural powers.
Examples are Europe all the way to the Middle Ages (about AD 900) priests were the
dominant figures; and Africa (up to the end of 1700s) where spirit mediums dominated. It
was believed that these priests and the spirit mediums were in touch with the supernatural
and hence could explain various phenomena. Many of our communities have examples of
these mediums; for example, the Kikuyu, Mugo Kibiru, is supposed to have predicted the
building of the Kenya/ Uganda railway that brought in the European settlers.
ii) Metaphysical stage, (the theoretical philosophy of being and knowing) where knowledge
was seen as a product of abstract forces of either religious or secular nature. While the priests
were still dominant in religious matters, their inability to explain abstract phenomena of a
secular nature, led to the entry of a new group called lawyers (= people of wisdom) to share
the spoils, thus both dominating Europe from 1300-1800.
In Africa, this stage lasted between 1700s-1800s. While the spirit mediums still retained their
importance, they too had to share the centre stage with wise people (mainly of chiefs and
other trusted men) who served as the advisory boards to royalty.

iii) The positivistic stage from about 1800 to the present referred to as the scientific stage,
due to the central role played by science. Scientific laws based on proven knowledge were
called upon to explain both natural and social phenomena. Accordingly, scientists became the
most prominent people in the positivistic stage.

Question:

While Comtes theories have been hailed as valid in explaining evolution and development of the
European societies, how valid are they for Africa?

Studies seen to show that these theories could also apply to Africa.

i) While many Africans have, for example, embraced the Christian values, when necessary they
revert to their traditional/cultural beliefs, values and rituals, such as cleansing ceremonies.
We seem to oscillate between the two as convenient and without a feeling of loss or
inhibition!
ii) Virtually every African country has a law to suppress witchcraft; a clear testimony that
mediums and diviners are still a major factor in African societies.
iii) What of the invocation of divine powers by the likes of Alice Lenshina (1960s) and Alice
Lekwena of Uganda (1980s) to mobilize even the educated against established authorities?

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c) Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) provided a two-stage evolutionary theory. He said that the
society moves from simple and primitive to complex entities.

i) Simple societies were characterized by mechanical solidarity that is, tightly bound
together by shared values and similarities of their everyday activities (farmers; headers;
etc).
ii) As opposed to more complex societies that are basically a creation of industrialization;
that have transformed simple societies from mechanical to organic solidarity. In such
societies people are held together by business-like relationships in which the mechanical
jack-of-all-trades has been replaced by highly specialized workers in organic societies;
with high level of interdependence on virtually everything. Workers perform specialized
tasks for which they are paid wages for which they use to buy goods from others equally
specialized workers.
iii) Durkheim coined the term anomies = normlessness to describe these people who
belonged nowhere, who were uncertain about the norms of their society and who had no
common shared values. Such a situation is well exemplified by our rural/urban
dichotomy.
iv) Most traditional African societies are consistent with the mechanical society with strong
personal ties and activities; as opposed to urban societies who possess the organic
attributes of impersonality and exploitative and competitive characteristics of the
business world, whose aim is mostly personal gains.

Evolutionary Theories and Dependency Theory

a) All these evolutionary theories have several things in common.

i) They see change as unilinear that is, following one line of development that progresses
naturally (that is, evolve) to a better world. They are passive in approach in that the
evolutionary explanation of social change is no different from the quantitative or the
modernization view of development that is premised on the principle of non-intervention
SINCE the benefits of the general betterment of society will eventually trickle-down to all
sectors of society.
ii) The evolutionary theory has been used to support the modernization theory explaining that
the so-called developed world went through stages of development (i.e. an evolutionary
process) to reach their current industrialized status, and that the rest (underdeveloped world)
will eventually evolve in the same manner.

b) But we know better!

c) What we see in the 1st world has nothing to do with evolution. The truth is that
i) Despite being very poor in natural resources, the 1st World (especially Europe and Japan)
now dominate the world through centuries of imperialism that ensured that

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ii) the colonized states specialized on production of primary products while the colonizers
processed these
iii) colonized states did not develop an industrial base that the theory postulates as crucial for
take-off
iv) that unequal pricing relationship between primary and processed goods existed
v) The world economic situation is organized in such a way that this dependent relationship
continues; for example,
vi) the so-called aid is an inbuilt dependency and gridlock system as most countries can never
pay the debt;
vii) the world aid and trade institutions such as WTO, World Bank and IMF are controlled and
designed to perpetuate this inequality

d) Also, even the new 3rd world power elite (popularly known in Latin America as
comprador = collaborators) would never liberate their people since
i) they are simply an appendage of the capitalist west;
ii) unable to generate an autonomous and sustainable form of capitalism of their own; and
iii) trading in nothing original to their countries

e) For the 3rd World

i) just as happened in Europe through the Marshall Plan after 2nd World War
ii) deliberate interventions are needed in favour of the poor and marginalized by the government
and international agencies.
iii) But as such a move would threaten the power elite; it is fair to expect opposition at high
places with a lot of lip service and nothing substantial.

2) The Cyclical Theories of Social Change

As contrasted with evolutionary theories that see change as a continuous process, cyclical
theories view change as a circle of growth and decline.

a) Oswald Spengler (1918) after studying 8 previous civilizations

i) Defined 5 stages in the life of society, namely birth, childhood, maturity (the golden age),
decline (old age), and death.
ii) The early stages are characterized by rapid growth; the latter stages are retrogressive and
materialistic.
iii) He obviously concluded that our present form of civilization will fade away and be replaced
by a new society.
iv) And why not? Just think of the Greek, the Roman, the Mesopotamian civilizations in Europe
and Middle East; and also various past kingdoms in Africa Biblical ones of Egypt and more
recent ones of Ashanti, Zulu, Ethiopia, Buganda, etc. They all have faded away.

b) Arnold Toynbee (1962), after studying development in 21 societies, concluded that societies
are constantly challenged by their environments and their neighbouring societies. Those

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 societies that withstand the challenges live on; those unable to successfully meet the
challenges perish and give way to others.
c) The discussion below seems to support his claim.

i) Most African kingdoms and societies could not manage European invasion and
colonialism and virtually all were colonized
ii) Later in mid 20C, the colonial powers themselves (including later the apartheid South
Africa) began to crumble as they failed to successfully deal with the mounting
independence movements led by the enlightened Africa elites.

d) In discussing both Spengler and Toynbee theories, we note:

i) Both theories agree that change is inevitable
ii) However, while Spengler believes that all societies will eventually die
iii) Toynbee believes that those who could deal with their challenges will survive
e) History certainly supports Toynbee.
i) African societies did not die but challenged and won against colonialism though it took
a long time (It took more than 100 years for most African societies to regain their
independence)
ii) The cycle of change continues in post-independence Africa and elsewhere especially
Through military coup dtats in many states (a social change or a transformation of
society arising from the old democratic orders inability to counter the forceful
military takeovers)
The collapse of the former Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (USSR) in 1991 when
it failed to successfully deal with economic (perestroika) and political reforms
(glasnost) introduced by Mikhail Gorbachev
These policies opened up the Soviet Union to the rest of the world in a manner that
the formerly closed society could not manage.
Hence the collapse of USSR and the emergence of various independent states: the
major ones being Russia, Georgia and Ukraine.
f) Back to Africa,
i) We have many examples of dictatorial regimes that have failed to manage the current
world movement towards democracy and have hence been swept away.
ii) Those that have not collapsed have used unorthodox methods to cling to power: e.g.
Mugabes very controversial land program that has kept the majority blacks on his side in
spite of the unpopularity of his regime. However, as is already clear, the days of his
regime are numbered.

3) The Equilibrium Theories of Social Change

They are also called functional theories as they see society as made up of parts that are functional
in sustaining society. Society is seen as made up of sub-systems that constantly moving in unison
towards stabilizing sustaining the society. A change in one part leads to a compensatory change
in other parts until the entire social system returns to some level of stability or equilibrium.

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Let us give education as an example:

a) The colonialists introduced a new (though limited) western education meant to make the
natives to fit in with the new colonial order. The education was necessary to instill
conformity; for socialization (talk the same language); and also enable the natives service
the new order as junior officials
b) The change in education brought about changes in all other aspects of life thus reinforcing
stability and equilibrium in the new order.
i) A complete new value system now exists in Africa due to the introduction of this western
education
ii) For example,
new systems of law and order and administrative systems were instituted
the idea about the nuclear family and also the whole concept of individualism were
supported by the western education system.
iii) The western education also facilitated the introduction and spread of Christianity. The
ability to read the Quran also has had a major effect in the spread of Islam in Africa.

4) The Conflict Theory of Social Change

a) First proposed by Karl Marx (1867), the conflict theory proposes that tension is the
driving force behind social change. Conflict theorists see society as made up of parts that
are in a constant state of conflict. To Marx, inequality is the single source of conflict in
the world.
b) Even people at the magic level of awareness (to be discussed later in the course), who
may view their problems as Gods will, will not tolerate domination for all the time and
soon or later will confront their oppressors.
c) C Wright Mills introduced the idea of the power elite a tiny minority group of
government, military and business people who control the affairs of the nations.
Education is one key commodity that they have misused and manipulation to remain in
power. For example, they have maintenance of high levels of adult illiteracy thus
having yes-men and women.
d) Bantu Education in South Africa is another relevant example that gave sifted type of
education that also devalued peoples culture and history.
e) Of course, apart from misuse of education, the elite have misappropriated other state
resources raiding the Treasury; manipulating prices and causing shortages; many corrupt
deals; using the tribal card; and even buying of votes for peanuts, etc

f) With such kind of behavior that leads to glaring inequalities, conflict theory (and even
equilibrium theory) stipulates that people will react unfortunately, usually violently to
correct the situation. Africa has seen more inter-group conflict than any other continent.

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g) For example, since getting rid of colonialists in the 1960s, Africa has seen more military
coups, attempted coups and counter-coups than any other continent. Every sub-region has
been affected.
h) In those countries where the gun has not been the rule, other methods such as mass
protests have been applied to bring down long-standing regimes, including in our own
country.
i) We have also seen the conflict perspective made use of beyond the military to bring
about a different order, for example, struggles in industry between labour and
management to bring about a more just relationship therein
ii) Organized labours significant influence in the political landscape, e.g. COSATU in
South Africa; removal of Kaunda by Chilubas Movement for Multi-party Democracy
(which by then was nothing more than an association of organized trade unions);
iii) The Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe that will eventually wrestle
power from Mugabe is for all practical purposes the political wing of Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions.
i) Family as a social unit can also be understood in terms of domination and power
application. In almost all African families
i) Adults, especially the male, are in control through creating certain advantageous
situations for themselves
ii) In male-female relationships, the male has appropriated the best occupational roles
leaving menial chores for the female. Our Parliament and political parties are good
examples of this whereby, despite the stipulation of 30% of all seats to go to women,
this is never honoured.
iii) The male control family resources and in many societies polygamy is the order of the
day
iv) In child-adult relationship, adults determine what the children will eat, what movies
to watch, when to go to bed, etc
j) It is due to such unequal situations that resistance has been the order of the day in Africa,
not only by the many gender-related organizations that have come up in the last two
decades or so; but also due to the efforts of other human rights organization.
k) All this has lead to a new male-female relationship that
i) has seen women get out of the kitchen and into the board rooms in both public and
private sectors;
ii) has seen a new definition of the family to include single motherhood; even single-
sex marriages; and
iii) has seen divorce the culmination of husband-wife conflict in a family becoming
more and more accepted, thus leading to a major transformation of the family, and
society as well.

Reading List

1) Richard P. Appelbaum: Theories of Social Change: Markham Publishing

Company Chicago (1970)

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 2) Sabo Indabawa and Stanley Mpofu: The Social Context of Adult Learning in
Africa, UNESCO Institute of Education (2006)
3) Frank Youngman: The Political Economy of Adult Education and Development:
Zen Books Ltd (2000)
4) Notes from the Web and other Sources (at the end of these lecture notes)

LECTURE TWO: THE COMMUNITY

Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to

a) Define the concept of the community

b) Describe characteristics and functions of the community
c) Discuss the emerging thinking on the meaning of the community and the factors that
influence the new thinking

A. WHAT IS A COMMUNITY?

There are several definitions of the community.

1) A community as defined through physical/geographical location with the following

characteristics

a) A known geographical area. We talk of the land of the Taita, Luhya, etc with known
boundaries and where one would expect to find the majority of the people from these
particular ethnic groups. People from other ethnic groups would be few and it is known that
the originated from elsewhere.
b) A shared culture that is harmonious (common land tenure system; common traditions (e.g.
marriage, burial, inheritance); common language; common religion and beliefs)
c) Common concerns about the welfare/future of the particular ethnic group vis--vis others.
Examples could be the various welfare associations and other ethnic based activities and
programs e.g. GEMA, cultural nights, etc.
d) These ideas of the community are important. The community helps us define who we are and
where our loyalties lie. We have and are supposed to have commitments to our communities.
There is nothing wrong and there is everything right to be proud of who we are else we are
nothing, have no roots or identity.
e) However, when carried to national politics - where the concerns about the welfare of only
one group is magnified above all others - it always has negative, even disastrous,
consequences. Examples of such disasters include the tribal massacres in Rwanda where
about 1 million Hutu people were killed; religious and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia mainly
against Moslems, our own tribal cleansing, and the forced removals in South Africa during
apartheid fall under this category.

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f) Note that even within the same community, there are several sub-communities with many
differences and interests. We therefore need to look beyond the geography and be concerned
with the way inhabitants of that physical space interact with one another; and the bonds of
affinity and affection that they share; as these two affect their developmental efforts.
g) Of necessity, the community described above is generally rural in character. The community
is bound by known norms - breaking of which brings censure. These norms give the
community its identity and maintaining them ensures the very survival of the concerned
community.

2) Communities brought together by common needs and interests (mainly in urban centers
but not wholly), whose characteristics include

a) Common locality e.g. a township, where they need to share and maintain resources (water,
schools, security, etc)
b) Common work place e.g. in a school or a company (with common rules and procedures; and
where all have the welfare of the company at heart because they depend on it for their
survival)
c) Common religion, e.g. Christians, Moslems
i) Note too that these communities are also bound together by geography: they are most of the
times quite close and are on face-to-face contact most of the time. Also, that they too have set
up laws and agreements that govern them and that each member must respect else he/she is
censored.

B) WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF COMMUNITY?

Functions of a community are basically those that would be expected of a family. These include
basic functions such as:

1. Reproduction that ensures that the community survives and is sustained

2. Economic production, distribution and consumption (farmlands given by the community;
opportunity to work so as to sell ones knowledge or merchandise, etc
3. Socialization family togetherness and common education of children and young people by
the parents and by the community
4. Political (social control: who is who in the community; what is right/wrong and who decides;
having a voice and identity; a place to call home)
5. Participation (voluntary associations e.g. of young men or women, in sports, women
organization such as in churches, etc)
6. Mutual support (e.g. on health and general welfare matters, e.g. building of houses and
cultivating land on the basis of communal mutual support; joining others to celebrate joy or
sorrow; common security; etc)

In summary, the community is the place where we:

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i) Earn a living and/or obtain the goods and services we need for our sustenance and
recreation
ii) Are socialized: that is where we learn what values and behaviors are appropriate
iii) Have a voice in governance and can find our collective identity its a place we call
home and where we have ownership hence we nurture and are nurtured.

C. EXPANDED THINKING ABOUT THE DEFINITION AND MEANING OF

COMMUNITY

But the kind of community we have been describing is fast disappearing; and this has caused
rethinking about the meaning of the community as we have known it. Consider these examples:

What do we say about the members of these communities who are in the Diaspora? A
Taita working in Kampala; a Luo living in Washington DC; a Maasai married to an
Australian and living in Germany?
Are they still members of their communities or what are they especially since the
community no longer sustains them, gives them the sense of belonging or has control
over them?
We need to exploit these new relationships/opportunities, e.g. teaching mixed-marriage
children cultures and languages of both communities besides national ones.

a) The development of larger political entities (e.g. the state or regions made up of several
former states) means that our area of operation and participation becomes far bigger than the
geographical one we have been discussing. For example, we are all Kenyans and identify
with the state and expect the state to provide many services (e.g. education, health, security)
previously provided by our families or communities. Movements to form larger regional
bodies, e.g. the East Africa Community or even the States of Africa) are the talk of the day;
these possibilities will drastically change the meaning of the community as we know it.

b) That each one of us in a member of several sub-communities, each one performing some of
the functions that were previously identified as taking place in one geographical area, e.g. for
sustenance, we could belong to a production, savings, or consumer cooperative, or most
likely to all three. For participation, we could belong to a trade union, a church group or a
political party, or most likely to all three. In fact, different members of the same family will
belong to different social organizations, e.g. political parties, churches, some even opposed to
one another.

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c) We are even being urged (and it makes sense) to think not as members of a particular
community or even state, but as members of a global community. The global village has no
boundaries and the explosion of means of communication (radio, TV, internet, etc) ensures
that we are in touch all the time, some times more effectively (e.g. when watching sport on
the TV) that when actually on a face-to-face situation.

d) This means that we have become members of one interdependent global community, with
new opportunities (e.g. for trade and professional enrichment with like minds) and
challenges, for example, control of undesirable TV programs on children and fraud by
international gangs).

e) But belonging to the global village perhaps what we should have been all along. After all, we
belong to only one human race whether you believe in the Theory of Evolution or of
Creation.

References
1) Commonwealth Youth Program: Diploma in Youth in Development Work: Working with
People in their Communities, Module 4: Commonwealth Secretariat, 1998
2) Web and other sources

LECTURE THREE: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to

a) Define the concept of community development

b) Outline community development principles, approaches and practice
c) Trace the development of community development as a profession and practice in the world
d) Describe community development strategies employed by colonial governments and
independent governments in Africa and Kenya in particular
e) Discuss the changing thinking about community development in 1980s and after.

1) THE CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Community development as a concept has a long history and it has kept evolving through time
and has been called upon to respond to the needs of a particular time in that history.

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THE USA

In the USA, following the American Civil War in 1860s, there was a rapid rise in the number of
charitable agencies designed to lend assistance to those displaced, disabled, or impoverished by
the war mainly providing services to, or activities for, children and teens. They used the term
community organizing, the kind of work that Barak Obama did with impoverished black
communities in Chicago and that catapulted him to national prominence.

By the late 1940s, community organization had become professionalized in the field of social
work with its own theories and practices. In the 1960s, new realizations about the context of
American communities - particularly the vast social and economic underclass and the inability of
the welfare bureaucracy to adequately address the needs of the poor - influenced the orientation
of community organization efforts to deal more closely with community organizing, that is,
encouraging citizen participation and empowerment. As a result, the late 1800s also saw an
expansion of the public (peoples) school system, along with the creation of hundreds of
orphanages, hospitals, settlement houses, and other charity services. These activities were done
by the people themselves without governmental involvement. (See Notes A) From The History
of Community Organization at the end of these lecture notes)

IN AFRICA

In Africa, we can perhaps talk of 3 phases of Community Development and its evolvement.

A) The beginnings: 1940s 1960s

The Concept of Extension Education mainly associated with agriculture though the concept
was also used in other developmental areas such as health and nutrition.

Characteristics of Extension Education

a) Selection of an extension officer who was basically a technician skilled in one developmental
area only, e.g. nutrition, artificial insemination in animals, family planning, or coffee growing
and nothing else. His business was to EXTEND the skills he had in that one area of his/her
competence to the people.
b) His/her first task on entering the community was to seek the acceptance and approval of the
natural leaders then offer these leaders the skills e.g. literacy, use of fertilizer, etc with
the hope that the people would learn from the leaders and the adopt the practices/skills in
their own farms, etc.

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c) This Extension Model of Community Development was attempted in Kenya in the 1960s,
with the best example being that of the progressive farmer, whose characteristics generally
were

i) A person usually with a bigger farm that the rest of the neighbours. A portion of the farm
would be set aside for demonstration of a new crop or method. The neighbours would be
invited to learn and hopefully practice this in their own small places. For demonstration
to succeed the government normally injected technical skills and resources far higher
than the progressive farmer or the neighbours could normally afford.
ii) A person who was quicker in adapting new ideas and technology perhaps because he
has some education; had been or still was a government officer (teacher, chief, etc)
iii) A person who usually had extra cash or resources that he could use to purchase new
implements; equip his home to receive local and foreign visitors who were often brought
to see the progress of the new extension services.

d) The result of all this effort was generally negative with the whole project having limited
effect for the following reasons
i) The progressive farmers became even richer and more empowered
ii) Other farmers felt disempowered: they could never be like them they had no resources
or education, they did not have nice homes to be visited, etc
iii) The extension officer had knowledge of only one crop and could not help those with
different needs. In fact there were too many extension officers, each with his/her own
one-subject agenda, resulting in people being exhausted and eventual fizzling away of the
whole concept.

(See Notes B) on Paulo Freires critique of the Concept of Extension at the end of these
lecture notes. He contends that the very philosophy of extension is demeaning and
domesticating. It assumes that some know and its their business to extend ready-
made ideas, solutions, etc to others who do not know)

B) THE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT MODEL

The term CD was first used in 1955 at a British conference for adult educators, and since then
became associated with decolonization in British and French colonies and also with the poorer
communities in the USA and its colonies, as we have noted.

By 1960s, the CD model has become accepted as the strategy of addressing problems of poverty
especially in the newly independent societies. For instance, the establishment of Community
Development departments in all those countries under the British rule became the order of the
day. CD was seen as the process in which peoples efforts would be united with those of the
government with the purpose of improving peoples quality of life; and also contributing to
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national development. Hence, from the very beginning CD was seen as both an educational and
organizational process requiring organizational skills, development of leadership, etc and many
such training courses in many subjects were offered at Community Development Centres,
Farmers Training Centres, etc, not just for the leaders but also for ordinary members.

In fact these efforts lead to huge improvements of peoples lives. Examples include improved
herds through artificial insemination, general animal disease control and feeding methods;
introduction of high breed maize varieties; introduction of fish ponds in non-fish eating districts;
general improvement in human health through better nutrition and disease control, introduction
of tin roofs on houses (resulting in availability followed of clean water from these roofs and
hence greatly improving community health, besides freeing women from lengthy treks in such
for this vital commodity); digging of pit latrines in most rural areas; and improved literacy rate
and impressive reduction in fertility, etc

The Collapse
However, the CD processes utilized had major flows. The main player remained a benevolent
government that appointed officers from anywhere and posted them anywhere, with the belief
and practice that the farther from home and familiar ground the better! Hence these officers had
very limited tangible interest in the success or failure of their efforts, and in case, they were
transferred from place to place quit often. All the planning was done in the head office and the
peoples needs and capabilities were never the priority.

All these efforts in fact disempowered the people instead of the opposite. The people were never
helped to own the projects that they considered as belonging to the government and often
waited for the owner to do even small things such as repairs that demanded little technical
skills or recourses. The result was that many of the projects came to a halt and quality of life
reverting to its previous levels and even worse.

Example from Tanzania

This kind of failure also confronted Tanzania. Julius Nyerere, while introducing his ideas on
African Socialism in what came to be known as the Arusha Declaration of 1976, regretted past
attempts on rural development in his country. He was concerned about the fact that
development was more on things rather than about people and that the people themselves were
kind of spectators in their own development with leadership being in the hands of unconcerned
outsiders. The Declaration was supposed to change all this. (See Note C) Julius Nyerere on
Arusha Declaration at the end of these lecture notes)

C) CURRENT THINKING

16
A major shift occurred from 1980s (after the fall of communism) both in thinking and practice in
community development; and this has continued to be cemented in most aspects of peoples lives
throughout the world. This has been due to two interrelated phenomena. The first has been that
the role of the government in directing things is no longer central and hence government is no
longer the major player in directing peoples lives. Instead, the people have taken over the
direction of their own development.

Examples of this phenomenon in our country include the huge development of the civil society
and community based groups in virtually every field of peoples endeavour. These organizations
seem to have real power that the government dare not ignore. That arises not only from the
groups own assertiveness, but also from the international solidarity that they have cultivated and
that ensures cross-learning and empowerment and also that happenings in one place are known
all over the world and the necessary pressure put on any offending authority.

This development is totally at variance with the old KANU idea of the government takes
development to the people, that resulted in there being too much government that controlled
every aspect of life, with regular hand-outs; that was intrusive and suffocating; and also that
ended up stifling peoples initiatives to develop themselves.

Paulo Freire called this KANU approach domesticating as opposed to another approach that
would be liberating. A liberating approach would help answer questions such as: Is what is
happening help the people realize who they are and the power they have to liberate themselves?
Does it give the people the power to do things for themselves or does it make them even more
dependent on others? Does it make the people learn how to sustain themselves even as donors
leave? (These ideas of Freire will be explored in later lectures)

NOTES FROM THE WEB AND OTHER SOURCES

A) From The History of Community Organization

Following the American Civil War, there was a rapid rise in the number of charitable agencies
designed to lend assistance to those displaced, disabled, or impoverished by the war. Many of
these organizations were progressive in philosophy, even by the standards of the early twenty-
first century, and they provided services to or activities for, children and teens. The late 1800s
also saw an expansion of the public school system, along with the creation of hundreds of
orphanages, hospitals, settlement houses, and other charity services. Due to the rapid rise of such
organizations, and a lack of government oversight, the distribution and coordination of services
soon became problematic. The term community organization was coined by social workers in

17
this era to address the problem of coordinating charity-based services, thus reflecting the
structural perspective of community.

The next phase in the evolution of community organization stressed cooperative planning among
privately run community-service agencies. Efforts were geared toward specialization of services
and centralization of decisions regarding these services. By the late 1940s, community
organization became professionalized in the field of social work. Community organization theory
stressed organizing as a process where a professional organizer worked with communities to help
develop leadership within a community.

In the 1960s, new realizations about the context of American communities - particularly the vast
social and economic underclass and the inability of the welfare bureaucracy to adequately
address the needs of the poor - influenced the orientation of community organization efforts to
deal more closely with community organizing. It was during this period that the concepts of
community organization and community organizing became more interconnected. The emphasis
on organizing, rather than organization, led to an emphasis on citizen participation and
empowerment.

During the 1980s and 1990s, community organizations expanded to the point of being referred to
as a movement, and the process of community organizing expanded into many community
organizations. One struggle that emerged in this period was the awareness of power shifting from
local communities to regions, nations, and international corporations. The process of
globalization has raised new questions about the efficacy of local organizations in addressing
problems caused by large-scale economic forces.

Types of Community Organization

Categorizing community organizations is difficult, because they may range from voluntary
organizations to professional service agencies to informal groups. These organizations are often
considered to include churches, unions, schools, health care agencies, social-service groups,
fraternities, and clubs. Community organizations are predominantly conceptualized as nonprofit,
but broader conceptions of community sometimes include all organizations, including for-profit
enterprises. Service agencies are frequently termed community-based agencies because their
service has shifted from centralized institutional settings to dispersed geographical locations
providing greater access to residents. Social-service agencies have received criticism because,
although their geographic placement has improved resident access, their hierarchical social
practices retain social- and cultural-access barriers.

There is a further distinction to be made, between volunteer and professional organizations.

Volunteer organizations often have professional or paid staff, but volunteers perform the vast
majority of these organizations' efforts. These organizations are frequently advocacy-oriented,

18
and they apply community-organizing strategies to accomplish their goals. In contrast,
professional organizations are usually staffed by experts who provide services with little or no
volunteer input. These service-oriented organizations usually have greater resources than
volunteer organizations, and they interface with residents based on professional norms and
standards, whereas volunteer organizations have a more egalitarian orientation.

Another type of community organization is the informal group. These groups are represented by
informal networks of friends and neighbors that exist throughout communities. The growth or
decline in the number of these groups has been debated. While some argue that informal groups,
such as bowling leagues, are declining, there is also evidence that other groups, such as self-help
groups or small support groups, have proliferated.

Ecological Perspectives on Community Organizations

To understand the role of community organization in the lives of children and teens, it is
important to understand these organizations from the perspective of the ecology of community
life. There are numerous perspectives that may be considered ecological or structural, and a
number of these will be looked at here.

Notes B) Freire, Paulo (1973) Extension or Communication. New York: The Seabury Press.

Review by Jenny Lee (UCLA)

In the essay Extension or Communication, Paulo Freire, internationally renowned educator,

applies his philosophy of human consciousness into the domain of rural extension in Latin
America. Specifically, he refers to agrarian reform to explain how "extension" is contrary to
"communication", thus incomparable with education. Education, according to Freire, is for the
purpose of humanizing others through conscious action for the purposes of transforming the
world. Whereas communication is characterized as liberating, extension is depicted as enslaving
and domesticating, thereby hindering human consciousness and impeding lasting change.
Throughout this important essay he details his rationale and compares possible implications of
extension versus communication. While his views offer profound insight, his rationale raises
some questions, which I hope will provoke further inquiries on to communication issues.

Freire begins with a semantic analysis of the word "extension". He specifically focuses on its
usage as extending something to. The role of the extension agent is construed as extending one's
knowledge and technical capacities. As opposed to directly improving a given situation,
extension, like communication, involves other people and their relationship with the world in
order for them to change the world. The point of divergence between these two concepts is that

19
communication involves mutual dialogue whereas extension involves transplanting knowledge, a
process Freire describes as a "direct contradiction to a truly humanist outlook" (p. 94). He
analyzes the meanings of extension, and explains that those who extend are imposing their
understanding of reality upon another. While others might argue that extension is educative,
Freire disagrees. He refers to associative fields, which are associative relationships within the
field of meaning of words. Some associated fields he derives from the term extension include
"transmission", "superiority", and "cultural invasion" (p.95). By way of the association process
he determines extension as contrary to education. He states, "...for true education incarnates the
permanent search for people together with others for their becoming more fully human in the
world in which they exist" (p. 96). Moreover, his version of true education involves "the practice
of freedom" (p. 97).

In this analysis, Freire makes some assumptions that warrant further discussion. First, all
recipients of extension, according to Freire's own definition of extension, are demeaned as not
only passive, but incapable of questioning. His definition of the term 'extension' assumes an
inability of the recipients to choose to adopt or to refuse new knowledge. The usage of this term
in reference to agrarian reform implies vulnerability in the peasants as being defenseless from
any persuasion. Second, the suitability of associated fields leaves room for further questioning.
Associated fields explain the term but do not justify the labeling of any activity. First, he
negatively labels a given phenomenon (i.e., a method of agrarian reform is extension). Then, he
negates the phenomenon by associating the word with similar associated words (i.e., superiority,
messianism, cultural invasion, etc). This reasoning is not persuasive. By choosing a word and
associating it with other words, the activity is still based on the initial label. Any activity is
relative to different labels, depending on the perspective of the participant or observer. The
association only helps to understand the term that was used to originally label the activity, but
does not justify the usage of the term to explain the activity. Furthermore, Freire does not extend
the same process of association to the term "education". One may reason that while extension
may not encompass education, education may be understood as a broader term that encompasses
extension.

Freire then proceeds to question the staticity of knowledge. If knowledge is not absolute, it
should not be treated as a static object. He views knowledge as transforming and a result of
continual interaction with the world. The task of knowing is of the subjects, not of the objects,
which places both the teacher and the students as subjects and consequently, the object as the
mediator between subjects. A necessary question that arises is how does one determine progress,
if objective knowledge is relative? Further, the concept of relative knowledge is not necessarily
universal and may be offensive to a particular culture's fundamental principle in absolutes. In this
case, imposing communication can be viewed as extension. Therefore, communication with any
culture would require an assessment of the culture's acceptance of relativistic thinking rather than
automatically assumed.

20
Freire also discusses reasons for resistance to new knowledge. He focuses on the peasant
community and magic aspects of their culture. Superimposing another thought stimulates a
natural defensive reaction of mistrust and rejection. New techniques and ideas have tremendous
implications on changes in the culture, including language and social perceptions. Therefore,
Freire stresses the importance of the educator to be familiar with and involved in the learner's
view of the world. What may appear as a physical problem to the observer may be of deeper
cultural meaning to the learner. Wrongful extension comes into play when the observer
superimposes his/her own equally cultural perception upon the other. Again this begs the
question, can't the act of communication itself be viewed as offensive to a culture? And if it is
deemed as offensive, would Freire suggest forcing dialogue?

In chapter 2, Freire further outlines the shortcomings of the extension process. He describes it to
be "anti-dialogical" and thus, not equivalent to a true education. He considers an anti-dialogical
theory of action as a form of cultural invasion that reduces the people as mere objects rather than
subjects of change. This can be understood as an issue of positionality, in which the objects of
extension are forcibly domesticated according to the culture and beliefs of the oppressor. In the
process, the former culture is nullified and replaced. Freire further states that true humanism
requires genuine, loving dialogue, rather than manipulative propaganda or slogans. Through
dialogue, there is no one exclusive agent of change. Rather, members of the culture are
empowered to make decisions and promote lasting, continual reformation.

In defense of the objection regarding time being "wasted" in dialogue, Freire states such a
question is indicative of a lack of faith in people and a false belief that the people's ignorance is
absolute. This is a true and appropriate response. On the other hand, what Freire may not
recognize is that his own premises from his criticisms on extension are grounded in assumptions
about the ignorance in people, namely peasants. As previously mentioned, his opposition to
extension is that the oppressor is forcibly imposing his/her own belief systems on vulnerable
peoples incapable of discernment. Freire later asserts that such a vertical relationship, in which
there is no dialogue, means the peasants' refusal towards dialogue and is indicative of attitudes of
mistrust towards those who attempt any dialogue and towards a mistrust of themselves. This
appears contradictory. He is opposed to extension and implies, according to its definition, an
inability for its recipients to respond. He then later states that a vertical relationship will instigate
a negative reaction.

Freire responds to another critique regarding the impossibility of communication on scientific or

technical information. In retort, he states that the methods of dialogue are to include a
confrontation of technical knowledge to their physical reality it its relation to their lives. In terms
of agrarian reform, Freire stresses the intermix of technology and culture. Technical trainers
become agents of change as they participate in relationships with human beings and nature. In
his own words, "all development is modernization, not all modernization is development" (p.
130).
21
In chapter 3, Freire stresses intersubjectivity or intercommunication as the "primordial
characteristic of this cultural and historical world" (p. 136). The act of knowing requires a
relation of communication between subjects with reference to a knowable object, rather than a
simple relation between a subject and knowable object. Interestingly, he points out that the goal
of thinking is not the object itself, but the act of communication between subjects. Without
communication, the object cannot have meaning. Further, he explains that knowledge must be
mediated between subjects, rather than one subject depositing his/her thinking into another. The
means of communication is linguistic, not necessarily emotional.

Freire warns of two erroneous ways that can produce false views of education. One understands
all objective reality as subjective and asserts that each individual creates his or her own reality.
The other views humans as uninvolved beings, incapable of transforming the environment.
According to these views, education would lead to nothing. Education should be towards a
constant process of liberation. A basic preoccupation requires a consciousness of themselves and
their relationship with the world. Therefore, the educator can provide options, but cannot
prescribe them. Otherwise, they would be manipulating and thus, domesticating. He is opposed
to what he terms as "technical aid", that is, memorized knowledge, which prevents critical
thinking. The difference can be characterized as "domination" versus "liberation". My question at
this point is: if Freire is opposed to all reality being subjective and against memorization of
technical information, does he propose any required, common foundation in science for dialogue
and progress in technology? Or else, is the process of liberation then subjective?

Instead of "technical aid", Freire suggests that the task of the educator is to pose problems and in
this act, the educator is problematized as well. Educators are then "re-entered into" the problem,
and thus also learning. The problematizing cannot isolate the content from reality, but must
center on the being and the world. He further states that education is not permanent, except in the
sense that it is a permanent process, a constant interplay between cultural permanence and
change. In addition, the point of departure of the dialogue is the quest for curriculum. The
methodology itself ought to be dialogical. Thus, the content of knowledge springs from the
educatees. Unlike animals, humans have the ability to separate themselves from the activity and
see it as separate from themselves. Because of this, education should involve "de-coding", or
entering into prior perceptions of what is real. This is process peasants recognize themselves as
transformers of the world. This is an important claim. According to this explanation, Freire
proposes constant challenge and growth for both the educator and the educatee. Growth is a
constant lifetime process for all participants in discussion. At the same time there remains a
question of any hierarchy of knowing. Freire implies the two subjects are on equal levels; there is
no expert. Otherwise, one subject can be viewed as further along in knowing and therefore able
to transmit, or extend, their knowledge unto the other. If this is the case, there remains the
question as to how two subjects can determine progress if knowledge is relative.

22
 In conclusion, this essay not only provides important insight, but also provokes some responses
that call for questioning. My closing critique to this essay is this: is not this essay a form of
"extension", according to Freire's definition? Can this text be considered just another form of
propaganda that makes assumptions and imposes views of communication without actual
dialogue with the reader? Perhaps that was the intention of this author, to make assumptions that
call for further dialogue. Interestingly, this essay can be viewed as a form of extension or
communication, depending upon the reader's response to contemplate and question his views.
Overall, Extension or Communication is an important contribution to the field of education and
more importantly, to understand and improve the world in which we live.

C) JULIUS NYERERE ON THE ARUSHA DECLARATION

It is particularly important that we should now understand the connection between freedom,
development, and discipline, because our national policy of creating socialist villages
throughout the rural areas depends upon it. For we have known for a very long time that
development had to go on in the rural areas, and that this required co-operative activities by the
people . . .

When we tried to promote rural development in the past, we sometimes spent huge sums of
money on establishing a Settlement, and supplying it with modern equipment, and social
services, as well as often providing it with a management hierarchy . . . All too often, we
persuaded people to go into new settlements by promising them that they could quickly grow
rich there, or that Government would give them services and equipment which they could not
hope to receive either in the towns or in their traditional farming places. In very few cases was
any ideology involved; we thought and talked in terms of greatly increased output, and of things
being provided for settlers.

What we were doing, in fact, was thinking of development in terms of things, and not of
people. . . As a result, there have been very many cases where heavy capital investment
has resulted in no increase in output where the investment has been wasted. And in most
of the officially sponsored or supported schemes, the majority of people who went to settle lost
their enthusiasm, and either left the scheme altogether, or failed to carry out the orders of the
outsiders who were put in charge and who were not themselves involved in the success or
failure of the project.

It is important, therefore, to realize that the policy of ujamaa is not intended to be merely a
revival of the old settlement schemes under another name. The Ujamaa village is a new
conception, based on the post Arusha Declaration understanding that what we need to develop
is people, not things, and that people can only develop themselves. . Ujamaa villages are

23
intended to be socialist organizations created by the people, and governed by those who live and
work in them. They cannot be created from outside, nor governed from outside. No one can be
forced into an Ujamaa village, and no official at any level can go and tell the members of
an Ujamaa village what they should do together, and what they should continue to do as
individual farmers . . .

It is important that these things should be thoroughly understood. It is also important that the
people should not be persuaded to start an Ujamaa village by promises of the things which will
be given to them if they do so. A group of people must decide to start an Ujamaa village because
they have understood that only through this method can they live and develop in dignity and
freedom, receiving the full benefits of their co-operative endeavour . . .

Unless the purpose and socialist ideology of an Ujamaa village is understood by the
members from the beginning at least to some extent it will not survive the early difficulties.
For no-one can guarantee that there will not be a crop failure in the first or second year there
might be a drought or floods. And the greater self-discipline which is necessary when working in
a community will only be forthcoming if the people understand what they are doing and why . . .

Nyerere on The Arusha Declaration (Freedom and Socialism: A Selection from Speeches and
Writings 1965-67, Dar-es-Salaam, OUP (1973)

LECTURE FOUR: COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

Objectives

At the end of this lecture to should be able to

a) Define the community empowerment

b) Develop and use codes as tools of analysis in popular education

Definition of Community Empowerment

Empowerment is a process that takes time to achieve. Paulo Freire, (1921-1997) developed his
ideas about critical awareness as he worked with and studied the poor and the oppressed in Brazil
in the 1960s. Through this exposure, he developed a philosophy of education and development
and also a practical method of self-empowerment that gets groups actively involved in their own
development and self-liberation.

With such liberation, the poor and the oppressed are able to break through the culture of
silence and apathy. They are therefore able to develop critical awareness of the causes of the

24
 problems that they might be facing. Furthermore, the liberative education that Freire suggested
gave the people the tools that they needed to conquer such obstacles. He therefore placed
emphasis on the need for the educator to transform the learning environment into an empowering
one by having the learners discover things for themselves. All these insights have helped turn
education and development programs upside down since they were first proposed almost 40
years ago. In some literature, this approach is called the psychosocial method.

THE DEVELOPMENT AND USE OF CODES AS TOOLS OF ANALYSIS IN

POPULAR EDUCATION

Paulo Freire had a lot of faith in the peoples ability and willingness to do things for
themselves. He believed in peoples potential and purpose as agents of change. Empowering
people to see themselves as cultural actors is the basis of his approach and literacy is
presented as a tool with which to transform the world, through peoples ability to read not
just the word, but also their world .

Reading the word as opposed to reading the world

Reading the word = literacy, that is the ability to read and write and also use numbers to
solve every day problems that demand such ability.

Reading the world: The ability to read ones world is a different matter from reading the
word. Not only does reading the world demand the literacy skills, but it also requires one to
use the skills to analyse ones situation and the forces that shape that situation. Literacy is
therefore seen as the sin qua non in reading the world. Literacy should

a) give one the ability to understand and critique ones environment;

b) questioning what is presented; and
c) Learning from it to enable one respond adequately to similar situations in the future.

(Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed p105)

However, he acknowledges the central place of critical consciousness since the ability of
ordinary people to shape their reality is often crushed by social forces and is largely
determined by their historical context.

So as to help the people read their world the code is an essential learning tool. The
following process is normally employed in the development of codes. It is expected that if

25
the themes were appropriately chosen and presented, the discussion and analysis of the
themes would draw useful lessons for the communities in tackling similar issues as
presented in the codes.

STEPS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CODES

a) Step 1: Community Survey

You start by doing a community survey to come up with what is called generative
themes, that is, themes that seem to be of greatest concern to the communities
involved.

b) Step 2: Development of Codes

The themes you come up with should now be turned into codes, that is, pictorially in terms
of pictures or posters; dramatically in terms of short plays, scenarios from a film or songs;
as case studies.

We give you here below examples of such codes (Picture, case study, role play and a song)

Code 1: Picture

26
Code 2: A Case Study

Mambojana was under colonial rule for a century and gained her independence about 50 years
ago after a bitter armed struggle.

Although the colonialists had overstayed, they nevertheless created credible infrastructure and
institutions that the new nation inherited. In fact, for some time after independence, and based on
these colonial relics, the country prospered.

But that was yesterday: anyone who has eyes and memory can testify that the country is much
poorer than it was 30 years ago. Not only has the infrastructure deteriorated, but it seems as if
nothing new and of value was being erected. Whatever is new is either foreign owned or belongs
to a few well-connected individuals. Yet, no one talks about such things: they only whisper, since
anything louder could be dangerous!

It has also been noted that although the country claims to be democratic, with national elections
held religiously every five years, nothing changes, not even the leadership. Somehow, the same
people, or members of their families, get elected as leaders time after another usually with huge
majorities, or hold key positions in various state institutions.

Code 3: Role Play

27
28
Code 3: A song

Nchi ya kitu kidogo

Ni nchi yo watu wadogo, etc.

Step 3: Application of the codes

You are now ready to use the code to empower the community in finding solutions to
the problems identified in the codes.

There are six basic steps that form the framework for discussion of codes. Since the
steps are normally framed in a logical manner, they help the communities start
thinking logically as they tackle the issues facing them.

The six steps are as follows:

1. What do you see happening? (Description/Reading the picture)

2. Why is it happening? (First Analysis)
3. Does this also happen to you/ where have you experienced this? (Relating to
real life)
4. What problems does it cause? (Interconnection)
5. What are real causes of this? (Deeper Analysis)
6. What can we do about it? (Self reliant action planning)

It is suggested that you memorize these steps. It is easy to do so since the steps are logically set.

29
LECTURE V: EDUCATION AS A TOOL FOR COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT

5. 1 Introduction

Welcome to our fifth lecture that looks at education as a tool for community empowerment
through considering the works of Paulo Freire and of Julius Nyerere. The lecture is
anchored on Freire six key principles of education, but supplements these principles with
Nyereres thinking about education as a tool for self-reliance. The lecture is closely related
to the work on empowerment that we have already done.

5.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to

a) Explain the role of education as a tool in community

empowerment as popularized by Paulo Freire

b) Discuss the concept of education for self-reliance as

expounded and Julius Nyerere

5.3 Power of education in the transformation of society

Throughout human history, education has been used for socialization of communities so
that they can play the various roles as determined by society. While it is true that children
are the ones who are easily influenced through education, mainly due to their lack of
previous experience on which to base their current decisions, it is also a fact that adults are
also quite vulnerable.

30
 5.4 Activity

Think of your community.

a) Write down the kind of education that was employed to socialize boys and
girls into their roles in society.

b) Record the key areas where education is used today to transform young
people into more responsible members of society.

c) What educational programs targeting adults are you familiar with?

d) What should be the main role of such programs?

Reading our first paragraph above, it should not be surprising that Freire had a lot of faith
in the power of education in transforming people: regrettably the direction of the
transformation was largely determined by the originator of the educational process and the
content. Be that as it may, Freire believed that through the employment of empowering
methods, even the marginalized people can rise to the occasion and liberate themselves.
Nyerere on his part spoke of the role of adult education that stretched far beyond the
classroom, and was anything which enlarges the persons understanding, activates them,
and helps them to make their own decisions and to implement those decisions for
themselves.

5.5 Six Key Principles of Education

We now consider in details Freires six distinctive but interrelated principles meant to
guide popular (meaning peoples) education and hence release peoples potential for
transformation. In some literature, these ideas are presented in what is commonly referred
to as psycho-social approach to development.

5.5.1 No education is ever neutral

31
 In Freires thinking, education was designed for a purpose. There are two purposes.

5.5.1.2. Activity

Please write down in your notebook what you think the two purposes of
education could be

e)

a) The first purpose for which education is normally designed is to domesticate people, that
is,

i) to maintain the existing situation; and also

ii) Imposing on the people the values and culture of the dominant class, that is, those in
power.

Even at the teacher/educator level, domestication is ever present. All of us are conditioned
by our backgrounds, experiences, values, judgment and expectations: it is these that shape
how we behave with our learners.

In general life, we normally domesticate animals. Domesticated beings are normally at the
mercy of the domesticator who virtually controls their thinking and directs their action at
his/her whim.

b) On the other hand, education could be designed to liberate people, that is,

i) Helping them to become critical, creative, free, active and responsible members of society.

ii) Such education helps people shed fear and be critical; not only in real life but also in the
learning situations.

32
It is important that our classes and all learning situations reflect what we preach: that they
become venues full of openness and freedom to enquire without fear of sanction.

c) In those countries where the authorities had strong central planning, particularly those
that practiced socialism, the direction and the purpose the state wished the education to
take or satisfy were clearly stated. What Freire is actually telling us is that planners, even
in those countries that preached freedom of action, perhaps many times sub-consciously,
directed their education provision in either of the two ways.

d) These are the same issues with which Nyerere was wrestling in the first years of
Tanzanias independence when he advocates for an education that counteracted the
colonialist assumptions and practices of the dominant, formal (as opposed to non-formal)
means of education that he saw as enslaving and oriented to western interests and norms.

5.5.1.3 Activity

In your note book, write down examples of

these western interests and norms could be

He said: We have not until now questioned the basic system of education which we took over
at the time of Independence. We have never done that because we have never thought about
education except in terms of obtaining teachers, engineers, administrators, etc. Individually
and collectively we have in practice thought of education as training for the skills required to
earn high salaries in the modern sector of our economy (Nyerere, 1968).

5.5.1.4 Back to reading the world

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Based on the discussion above, it seems fair to agree with Freire that all education is
designed for a purpose and hence cannot be neutral.

Yet, there are those facts that we all need to have in order to understand the world; and
also to participate in it meaningfully. However, facts by themselves would have little value
unless they are looked at in relation to the whole. In our reading the world, we need to
connect issues and see their relationships. For example, a malnutrition figure of 70% is just
a figure until you put it side by side with, say, increased military budget. In such a
situation, it would be unusual then not to ask searching questions about national priorities.

5.5.2 Education must be relevance

The second key principle of education has to do with relevance of the education offered.

5.5.2.1 In text Question

What is relevant education and who should

decide on the relevance of education provided
to the communities?

5.5.2.2 National Commissions

In Kenya, we are fond of forming commissions to decide on the content of formal

education. When we do that we assume that the education that the commission proposes is
relevant. We then go ahead to develop the curriculum, train teachers, develop learning
materials, etc. Even where no commissions are set, for example, at the tertiary level,

34
 departments engage in a similar exercise. It is the same thing even for adult learning
programs: the relevant organs decide what to be offered.

Nations, institutions and even individual educators believe that they know what their
learners educational needs are. Hence they consider what they offer to be relevant.

5.5.2.3 Generative Themes

In the past we have talked about education that helps the communities participate in
national or community development efforts. That is the kind of education that is decided by
agencies who believe their mission is to develop the communities.

While many educators and development agencies now agree that communities themselves
must choose the content of their education, at the end of the day, even such progressive
agencies tend to decide for the people.

Freire is convinced that the people themselves should decide on the content of their own
education. He proposes that for community education to be of value, it should be based on
survey of generative themes as we saw in Lecture 4. These are

i) those issues that communities have strong feelings about; and are

ii) The issues that give the community joy and hope; fear, worry, anger and sorrow.

The bringing of such issues to the surface is an important step in breaking the culture of
silence, apathy and powerlessness that normally paralyses the poor and the marginalized.
While some issues, such as lack of employment or corruption might be raised freely, others,
such as incest, HIV/AIDS, etc will be suppressed due to fear or taboo thus continuing to
cement the culture of silence and apathy. However,

i) through a thorough community situational analysis; and the resultant

ii) collection of generative themes; and

iii) presenting these themes using empowering methods and tools such as codes,

35
People might unearth new life for themselves. As we will note when we study Maslow later
in these lecture series, people will always struggle to better their lives. However, there are
always strong forces that work in the opposite direction, thus stifling peoples efforts to
liberate themselves; and if such negative forces are too strong, people may sink into apathy.

To counteract such strong but negative forces, Nyerere advocates a liberating education
that creates a self-reliant person. Such a person is not only aware of who he/she is and
proud of it, but is also aware of his/her potential as a human being, and is in a positive, life-
enhancing relationship with him/herself, his/her neighbours and his/her environment.
(Nyerere, 1968)

5.4.2.4 Timing

Another important consideration about relevance is timing. Education should help the
communities tackle those issues they feel are of importance NOW. The usual clich that
tomorrow will take care of itself is relevant in this discussion: we tackle todays issues
now and tomorrows then. As an aside, how can one be sure that what is learned today will
be relevant tomorrow and hence not obsolete? Yet, most of the education offered in all
formal education setting ignores this strong point.

5.4.2.5 In text Question

If most of what is offered in formal education could be

obsolete even before a young person completes the set
curriculum, what then should we be offering at our
learning institutions?

It has been suggested that the curriculum should be strong on how to learn: that is,

36
 how to find the sources of new information;

how to interpret this information logically in ones situation; and

How to apply the curriculum to ensure ones survival and development.

Even the how to learn skills call for constant upgrading: nothing is at a standstill!

The role of the educator is to present to the people in a challenging form the issues they
themselves have raised in a confused form: Mao Tse Tung

5.4.3 Problem-posing verses problem solving

The third key principle of education is a contrast between two opposed philosophical
thoughts: problem posing as opposed to problem solving. We will also consider the role of
the ideal facilitator under the problem solving approach.

In text Question

Differentiate problem solving and problem solving

education

5.4.3.1 Problem-posing

From the very beginning, the problem posing approach recognizes all participants as
thinking, creative people with the capacity for action. Assured of this recognition, people at
all levels will devote time and energy to solve whatever problem that they have identified as

37
 important. Hence, the whole of education and development become a common search for
solutions to problems.

One effective strategy of having a community act with enthusiasm on its problems is
through the use of codes. We have already agreed as follows about codes:

a) First, we collect generative themes.

b) Second, we turn the themes into codes.

c) Finally, we present the coded themes back to the originating community in the form of
codes.

When appropriately presented to groups for discussion, codes generate a level of energy
and contribution that no lecture or abstract questioning can generate. The fact that the
adult participants are the originators of the subject matter means that their discussion is
focused on issues of value to the community. Done this way, codes link emotions to facts.

5.4.3.2 Banking approach

Before reading the text below, look at this code. Using the six questions on the
interpretation of codes, as given in Lecture 4, write in your note book answers to questions
1) and 3).

38
 The problem posing approach that we have just described can be contrasted with the old
'banking approach' to education based on transmission of information from teacher to
pupil. Under this approach, that regrettably, is heavily exercised even with adult learners
whereby:

a) The teacher is seen as possessing all essential information. He/she then passes this
information to the learners as and when he/she deems it appropriate. In normal
education institutions, learners are expected to one day, during examination, reproduce
all this virtually as was presented.

b) The pupils are seen as empty vessels' needing to be filled with knowledge. As we have
already discussed, usually the source of this knowledge is determined elsewhere by
education officials, donors, etc

c) Teacher talks while the learners listen and absorb whatever is given passively.

5.4.3.3 The role of the facilitator

The scenario just described is common in education institutions and also in many adult
learning encounters where experts dominate the situation. Many times, even when adults
are aware of this belittling of their adulthood, they often sit there patiently and let it go.
Things do not have to be that way, however.

39
In adult learning, and while it is accepted that the facilitator is not really a member of the
discussion group, he/she nevertheless has a crucial role to play.

a) First, through targeted questions, he/she keep leading the group to deeper analysis of the
cause roots of the emerging issues from the discussion. Questions such as: Why and why
not? How? Who? Become the order of the day.

b) Second, as the group struggles, he/she offers alternative possibilities picked from similar
groups elsewhere as and when necessary.

c) Third, the facilitator keeps challenging the group to keep focused towards useful
conclusions of the issues coming up.

d) There is a fourth role: that of the audience outside the group. The facilitator is the
bouncing board on which the group will bounce their ideas for evaluation and expected
feedback and reinforcement. While in adult learning other adult learners may on occasions
also act as bouncing boards for their colleagues, the role is generally recognized as that of
the facilitator.

Just to repeat ourselves: in this process, the role of the facilitator is not to give answers. The
facilitators role is to set up the process through which the group can search for answers
themselves in a systematic way. However, even in this limited role, the facilitator should be
aware of his/her vulnerability and prejudices. These could be based on gender, ethnic
background, class, and even on the educators own ignorance and fears especially when
new to the issues at hand or some of the audience is better prepared or can perform far
beyond educators own capability.

5.4.4 Dialogue

Let us now consider dialogue, the fourth key principle of education as proposed by Freire.
As stated at the very beginning, all these principles are very closely related, and hence
supportive of one another. So, do not be too concerned by the fact that a lot of repetition is
taking place.

40
No one knows everything or is expected to know everything. As already mentioned,
however, tradition school education has been seen as the process through which those who
know pass their pre-determined education to those who do not know. This banking
education is similar to the extension education that we discussed in Lecture 2 and
concluded that it was demeaning.

To discover valid solutions everyone needs to be both a learner and a teacher. Education
must be a mutual learning process. The role of the facilitator is to set up a situation in
which genuine dialogue can take place - a real learning community where each shares their
experience - listens to, and learns from, the others. This learning together is important
because, on many occasions, especially in the field of development, a lot of expert advice
has been faulty and has led to greater poverty.

It is no longer necessary to justify that local knowledge and participation by as many

stakeholders as are interested are crucial for effective development of affected
communities. This does not deny that the experts also know and that their knowledge is
valuable to communities. But they too must be prepared to be learners so that together with
the communities they can draw insights from collective dialogue as both search for
solutions. In the history of the struggle to liberate oppressed communities, the role of some
committed individuals from what Freire calls the dominant class has been crucial,
particularly as they bring in new ideas and also often act as advocates for the oppressed.
Nevertheless, these individuals must have faith in the peoples ability to liberate themselves,
failure to which these experts generosity could be as harmful as that of any oppressor.
(Hope et al Book I 1996 p. 18)

41
5.4.5 Reflection and action (praxis)

Reflection and action is the fifth educational principle as proposed by Freire. As shown in
the diagram below, Freire proposes that it is the facilitators responsibility to provide a
situation in which the learners can

stop, reflect critically upon what they are doing,

identify any new information or skills that they need,

get this information from the library, experts or through training, and

42
 Then use the information to plan action.

Often the first plan of action will solve some aspects of the problem, but not deal deeply
enough with the root causes of the problem. By setting a regular cycle of reflection and
action in which a group is constantly celebrating their successes, and analyzing critically
the causes of mistakes and failures, they can become more and more capable of effectively
transforming their daily life.

This reflection and action model was popularized by David Kolb, American educationist, in
his Experiential Learning Model composed of 4 elements namely

a) concrete experience,

b) observation of and reflection on that experience,

c) formation of abstract concepts based upon the reflection,

43
 d) testing the new concepts,

e) (Repeat).

These four elements are the essence of a spiral of learning that can begin with any one of
the four elements, but typically begins with a concrete experience. Paulo Freire defines
praxis in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as "reflection and action upon the world in order to
transform it." Through praxis, oppressed people can acquire a critical awareness of their
own condition, and, with their allies, struggle for liberation.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxis_(process: downloaded on 19 July 2010)

External Input

Look at the praxis diagram to note an external input during the period of reflection and
thinking.

Intext Question

What do you think the input arrow

represents?

The external input is important. It is not necessary that every group invents the wheel
all the time. Learning from experience of others outside the group, including expert advice,
experience on similar situations from elsewhere, research and further reading etc., should
always be welcome. However, such external input should be given as possibilities for
further dialogue and not as the final truth or the definitive answers; and only as requested
for by the people as they struggle to find solutions to their problems.

44
5.4.6 Radical transformation

Radical transformation of life in local communities and the whole society is the final key
principle from Freire. Transformative type of education is a process that aims at involving
whole communities actively in transforming the quality of life of individuals, their
communities and the whole society.

Jack Mezirow, a well-known American educator, puts it this way:

Transformative learning may be understood as the epistemology of how adults learn to

think for themselves rather than act upon the assimilated beliefs, values, feelings and
judgments of others. Central to this process is critical reflection on assumptions and
critical-dialectical discourse. (Mezirow, 2003)

5.4.6.1 Exposing the new enemy within

In his contribution, Nyerere discusses the role of education in this transformation process.
Writing in 1968, he noted that although nations were now free from colonial rule, injustice
still reigned. During colonialism, the enemy was easy to identify: it was the colonizer.
However in the now liberated societies, an education that would help in identifying the new
enemy within was needed. Liberating education should help communities recognize this
new enemy as basically those systems they may include individual persons that create
conditions that perpetuate injustice, poverty, disease and ignorance. He saw no difference
between these new enemies and the old slavery and colonialism since they equally degraded
ones humanity. It was therefore imperative that they must be resisted with the same vigour
as was expended against those past evils.

In expanding this thinking by Nyerere, it seems reasonable to actually consider these

enemies within as a worse evil than colonialism, etc. This is because they have betrayed the
trust the people including the very humble in society have bestowed on them. It is for

45
this reason that empowerment of the people, that is, the ordinary men and women so
that they can read their world is imperative. Thus empowered, the reading of their world
will most likely include selection of visionary and transformative leadership.

With this kind of thinking, it is easy to note that radical transformation is a dynamic
process in which education and development are totally interwoven.

5.4.7 Summary

In this lecture we have continued to discuss community

empowerment. We have agreed that empowerment is a process that
takes time to be accomplished. We have also noted that while it is
only the people who can empower themselves, external inputs in
terms of appropriate information, education and other inputs are
necessary. We have also noted that much as education has been
misused to domesticate communities, education remains the key
empowerment tool for helping in their liberation process. It is
therefore necessary that educators see themselves as transformative
agents whose key responsibility is to help communities develop a
critical and questioning mind that will help the communities in
identifying and dealing with those ever-present forces that benefit
from exploiting them.

5.5 References

1) Freire, Paulo (1970). Cultural Action For Freedom. Harvard

Educational Review and Center for the Study of Development and Social
Change: Cambridge, Massachusetts (Review by Tamara Oyola (UCLA)

2) Anne Hope and Sally Timmel: Training for Transformation, Book 1,

Training For Transformation Institute, South Africa 1994 and 1995

46
3) Umtapo Centre: African Peace, Human Rights and Anti-Racism
Education: A resource manual for educators and trainers (1994), Durban,
South Africa

4) J K.Nyerere (1978) Education for Self Reliance: Education for

Liberation and Development: The Tanzania Experience, Case Study 5,
UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg, 1982 p.17-32)

(5) Jack Mezirow, (2003), Epistemology of Transformative Learning

47
LECTURE SIX

PAULO FREIRE'S WORK ON CRITICAL AWARENESS

6.1 Introduction

Why do many people, especially the poor, seem just not to care about changing or improving
their situation and instead they just accept their situation as given? This truth perplexed Freire
and made him take time to study the poor especially the dock workers in Brazil. He therefore
started thinking of what he or any field educator could do to help such people awaken to their
own possibilities. In this lecture we will discuss Freires findings and see how this corresponds
to our own experiences.

6.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture you should be able to

a) Describe the characteristics of the people in Freires three levels of

awareness

b) Explain strategies of helping the people become more conscious of

possibilities to shape their lives

the

6.3 On Being Critically Conscious

People anywhere have the purpose and the potential to shape and transform their own lives. As
we have already noted, however, the ability of ordinary people to shape their reality is

48
a) firstly, often crushed by the social forces around them; and
b) Secondly, is largely determined by their historical context.

Look at a country such as Kenya, as an example, and answer the two questions below.

6.4 In text Questions

a) What do you think is the effect of the colonial experience in the

peoples struggle to have sustainable democracy today?

b) What is the effect of the manipulative advertising in shaping our

thinking?

Freire postulates that to get out this trap, marginalized people needed to achieve what he calls a
critical level outlook on their world. Such an outlook would do two things:

a) First, it would enable them read their reality correctly; and

b) Second, it would help them move from a reactionary to a progressive position where they can
shape that reality they have read correctly.

6.5 The three levels of awareness

In his essay, Education for Critical Consciousness (1973), Freire hypothesizes that people lived
at 3 levels of awareness (consciousness) - conscientizao in Portuguese, the language of his
writing - and that they acted differently at each of these levels.

The three levels of awareness are:

a) the magic level of awareness,

b) the nave level of awareness, and
c) the critical level of awareness

49
Let us go through these three levels one by one. It is suggested that

a) You look at the three picture codes below one by one in the order they are presented.
b) Decode each picture by answering questions presented under each picture. The first
question What do you see happening? is picked from Lecture Four on discussion of
the code.
c) Write down in your note book the answer to the questions
d) After writing, you may move to the next picture code and repeat the process.

Note that the three picture codes are in sequence and that all the six actors in the three codes are
the same.

6.5.1 The Magic Level of Awareness

a) Study the picture code below using the questions provided as the guide.

Code 1

50
 i) What do you see in this picture? To answer this question properly, look at the two
parties, that is, the one person and the group, and describe each in turn.
ii) Who are the two parties and what would you say is the relationship between the
two parties/sides?
iii) From your experience, what does bowing ones head signify?
iv) What do you think the man on the right is telling the group?
v) The leader of the group to the left is responding, but his response has been erased.
Write down what you think his reply is to the statement of the single person.

b) Now that you have done the requested activity, look only at the first complete diagram at the
end of this lecture. Compare your responses with what appears in the complete diagram.

c) Paulo Freire said that the people who behave this way as at the magic level of awareness.
They would have the following characteristics:

51
 i) They explain the events and forces that shape their lives in terms of myths, magic, or
powers beyond their understanding and control. They therefore tend to be fatalistic,
passively accepting whatever happens to them as fate or 'God's will'.

ii) Usually they blame no one for the hardships and abuses they suffer. They endure these as
facts of life about which they cannot (and should not) do anything. Although their
problems are great - poor health, poverty, lack of work, general abuse, etc. - they
commonly deny them.

iii) They are exploited, but are at the same time dependent upon those with authority or
power, whom they fear and try to please.

iv) They conform to the image of themselves given to them by those on top. They consider
themselves inferior, unable to master the skills and ideas of persons they believe are
'better' than themselves.

Activity
In your note book, do the following exercise

a) F a) From you experience, name at least two groups known to you who are at at the
magic level of consciousness.

b) b) What are their characteristics and what are the causes of their situation?

c) Why do you think they do nothing to ameliorate their undesirable situation?

6.4.2 The Nave level of Awareness

52
a) Now that you have successfully studied code 1 and done the requested activity, you should be
ready to move to the second code. Repeat the activities as below, remembering that the pictures
are in sequence in other words, that the actors are the same.

Code 2

i) What do you see in this picture? Start by explaining what you see as the most
significant thing that has occurred between codes 1 and 2.
ii) The gentleman who is smoking is talking to the group on the left side, but his statement
has been erased. What do you think he is telling the group?

b) Now that you have done the requested activity, look at the complete diagram at the end of this

53
lecture. Compare your responses with what appears in the complete diagram.

6.4.3 The nave are not stupid (may be greedy)

In this section of the lecture, we will concentrate on the two who have moved over to the other
side.

a) In your analysis, you should have come up with two important points.

i) The first is that the two have crossed the floor not just physically but also
psychologically.
ii) Hence, secondly, they now think different from the folks they left behind and feel
closer to the one on the other side.

b) Freire describes people at this level of consciousness as nave. One who is nave bases his/her
actions on incomplete understanding. Such persons would have the following characteristics:

i) They no longer passively accept the hardships of being 'on the bottom' as those at the
magic level would most likely do. Rather, they try to adapt so as to make the best of the
situation in which they find themselves.

ii) However, due to well-executed socialization by the system and those in power, they
willingly accept the values, rules, and social order defined and passed down by those
on top (civic, cultural and also religious authorities, big landowners, etc.). In fact, they
try to imitate those on top as much as possible. For example, they may adopt the
clothing, hair styles and language of outsiders, or choose to bottle feed rather than
breast feed their babies.

iii) At the same time, they tend to reject or look down upon their own people's customs and
beliefs. Like those on top, they blame the hardships of the poor on their ignorance and
'lack of ambition'.

iv) Significantly, they make no attempt to critically examine or change the social order.

54
 6.4.4 Activity
The people at the nave level are both adaptors and adopters.
See how these two words have been used in the text in this section.

Discuss the meaning and the difference between the two words.

v)
6.4.5 Food for Thought

As we complete this section of the lecture, let us ponder over the following thought. It is the
desire and ambition of most people to climb the ladder: to be managers, supervisors, etc at their
places of work. For such a climb to take place, we expend a lot of energy, time and other
resources on being well educated and trained and also serve unreservedly at our institutions for
quite some time. It has been claimed that such expectations and the resultant promotions and
other rewards place those concerned at a level of consciousness akin to the nave level described
above.

6.4.6 Activity
a) Do you agree that you and I are at the nave level of
consciousness? Justify your answer.
b) It has been claimed in this section that the people at
this level make no attempt to change the social
order. Why do you think they act this way?

55
 If these claims are true, then most of the people taking this Masters course and many of us in
positions of responsibility in society would fall at this level (and when you read the next
section on critical awareness you might be persuaded that this claim is not farfetched!). Then
important questions need to be asked.

a) How can such people (you and I) be conscientized to be agencies for empowerment of those
who work with us or who look up to us, (and by extension most of society) instead of merely
using their shoulders for us to climb even higher in our careers?
b) When is enough, enough? Do we just think of feathering our nests and when will it be
payback time for those of us who have gained so much from society?

6.5 The Critical Level of Awareness

We will now consider the last level of consciousness, that is, the critical level.

6.5.1 Analysis of the code

Study the Code 3 and answer the relevant questions as posed.

Code 3

56
a) What do you see in this picture? As you did for code 2, describe the most
significant happening that has taken place between codes 2 and 3.
(Did you say that the most significant happening is that the two defectors in
code 2 have returned home?)

b) Look at the body language of the players on both sides and describe what they are
telling us.
c) For example, what does pointing at ones chest signify in a conflict situation?
d) Did you notice that the group is no longer looking down? What does looking up at
the opponents eyes signify?
e) One of the workers at the back is still holding his jembe (hoe) as he has done in all
the codes. What does this symbolism tell you?
(The point being sought is the fact that the workers still wish to continue working
for the boss, because that is their livelihood, at least for the time being. However,
they now insist on being consulted about the conditions of their engagement).

f) What do you think the representative of the group to the left is telling the person on
the other side? (The speakers statement has been cleaned out).
g) Look at the single person on the right. What would his left hand signify in a
confrontation such as the one he is now involved? Did you also notice that
everything with him represented by the paper in his hand and the cigarette

57
 seems to be falling apart?

6.5.2 Characteristics of People at the Critical Level of Awareness

In the following discussion of the code, we will be concerned with the group on the left in code
3. Freire says that the behavior being depicted by this group now is that of people who have
started developing critical awareness. Such people would normally display the following
characteristics:

i) They make use of scientific process observation, critical thinking, etc to explain
their world, for example, the causes of poverty and other human problems. This is
as opposed to those at Level 1 who explained their situation through magic and
myth.
ii) They start to question the values, rules and expectations passed down by those in
control. They want to know the value of those rules, etc and whom they are meant
to benefit. Is the benefit for only a few in power or for the general society?
iii) They discover that not individuals, but the social system itself, is responsible for
inequality, injustice, and suffering; and that even the bosses that wield power
over them are themselves also victims of the system that also dehumanizes them.
(You certainly will remember Marxist Theory in Lecture 1 that postulates that
inequality in resources distribution is the single most serious source of conflict in
the world).
iv) Hence, they start reaching the conclusion that it is only through a radical
transformation of the norms and procedures of organized society including a
fairer distribution resources and exercise of power can the most serious ills of
both the rich and the poor be corrected.

6.5.2.1 Self awareness and growth

v) As their awareness deepens, persons who are critically aware begin to feel better
about themselves, taking new pride in their origins and traditions.
vi) Yet they are self-critical and flexible: they carefully evaluate their culture, retaining
what is of value and discarding what is retrogressive; while at the same time
picking from other cultures practices that would enrich what they have retained,
and then dovetailing these two to create a new dynamic culture.

58
 vii) As their self-confidence grows, they begin to work with others to change what is
unhealthy in the social system. Their observations and critical reasoning lead them
to positive action: that is, doing what is needed to make society better; and, perhaps
more importantly, doing this peacefully, that is, in a manner that makes all feel
winners.

6.5.2.2 A note of caution

As you read the seven points in 6.5.1 and 6.5.2.1 on this section on critical level of awareness,
you will notice the cautionary manner in which the points have been written, with word and
phrases such as they start and as their awareness or confidence deepens.

6.5.3. Intext Question

What do you think the caution in the text is telling

you?

You are being warned that critical consciousness, like empowerment and peace, are ideals that
human beings struggle to achieve. Such struggle takes time: in fact it takes a lifetime. Even the
gurus of this earth never claimed to have reached the zenith of these ideals.

6.6 The pedagogy of hope

Yet, these gurus never gave up, even in times of great difficulty and personal risk. They believed
that their ideals were of value to humanity and hence were worth the struggle; and they hoped
that at the end of the day they would succeed.

59
Freire in his Pedagogy of Hope (1994) continues with this theme of hope when he asserts that
hope helps us to understand human existence, and the struggle needed to improve it. Without
hope, any struggle would be weak and wobbly, and hence directionless. In other words, hope
inspires us to reaffirm our commitment to a new world based on justice and freedom for all
struggling people, but particularly for the poor and marginalized. Perhaps Freire is leading us to
a key question: that is, without hope, is life worth living?

6.7 Summary

In this lecture, we have looked at the three level of awareness as postulated by

Paulo Freire and, through the use of codes; we have discussed the characteristics
of people at each level. While, mainly due to schooling and other interventional
measures, people do not have to follow these steps progressively, generally this
is the route.

We have noted that it is human nature for people to want to be better off that
they are currently, even to reach the elusive critical level of awareness. For this
reason, appropriate interventional action is needed at each level, especially at the
magic level, to help people improve their quality of life and, in cooperation with
other human beings, live more meaningful and satisfying lives.

While all this will not be easy, it is always necessary to have the hope that a
better world is possible

In t

Freire, Paulo (1973). Education for Critical Consciousness. New York, NY: Continuum
International Publishing.
Freire, Paulo (1994). Pedagogy of Hope: Reliving Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York:
Continuum Publishing Company

Umtapo Centre: African Peace, Human Rights and Anti-Racism Education:

A resource manual for educators and trainers (1994), Durban, South Africa

60
TMA

1) Discuss the reasons why people at the magic level of awareness seem to just accept
their situation despite their difficulties.

2) a) What is code?
c) Discuss why appropriately selected and constructed codes are an effective tool for
transformation and empowerment
Use this diagram to check your answers from the 3 codes.

Levels of Awareness

61
LESSON 7: CHARACRERISTICS OF AN EMPOWERED COMMUNITY

7.1 Introduction

Other than its definition, we have also noted in previous lectures three important facts about
empowerment, and these are:

a) Empowerment is a process that takes time;

b) Every human experience has a contribution to make towards that empowerment; and that
c) While individuals and communities are at the end of the day responsible for their own
empowerment, external inputs too have value.

In this lecture we will be discussing characteristics of an empowered community over time;

communitys role in its own development; and also the role of external input, especially that of
peoples government, in this empowerment process.

7.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to

a) explain the characteristics of an empowered community

b) discuss the role of the people in their won empowerment;
and
c) Discuss what should be the role of the government (and
donors) in support of the people in their own empowerment.

7.3 Characteristics of an empowered community

62
There are four characteristics that an empowered person or community should display. These
characteristics are progressive in their arrangement and hence it should be easy to remember
them. The four characteristics are

a) the ability to understand ones reality and to analyze the factors that shape that reality;
b) the ability to decide what one wants to be;
c) the willingness to act to change the situation for the better; and
d) The ability to ensuring sustainability of those efforts.

Let us now consider these one by one. As we have said previously, you should not be surprised to
discover that you have covered some of these facts in one way or another during previous
lectures.

7.3.1 The ability to understand ones reality and to analyze the factors that shape that
reality

Many times communities, or even individuals, do not know who they are; and it is rare that they
would take time off to think about such an issue. Perhaps we are all too busy with living our
normal lives and for some this living is such struggle to make ends meet that the kind of
thinking proposed here would look a mere luxury. Others may be living in what psychologists
call a state of denial, that is the state of refusing to accept ones reality.

Perhaps a review of Freires three levels of awareness levels at which we all fall might help
us clarify our realities to some extent.

a) Do those at the magic level of awareness know that although they look so dependent and that
their bosses seem and pose to be powerful that these bosses are also totally dependent on
them? Do they know that if united they have power no system can withstand?

b) Do those at the nave level of awareness accept that they are mere servants of faceless and
brutal forces and systems and that they are totally dispensable? Do they also accept that due to
their privileged positions as managers in these foreign establishments, one of their key
responsibilities is to empower their subordinates to also climb the ladder?

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c) Do those at the critical level of awareness accept that they too still have a lot to learn? Yet, for
them, if they worked in unity and not as lone do-gooders, the sky is the limit, their possibilities
are limitless and that together they could turn this world around?

At whatever level, this understanding and acceptance of ones reality, is the first step in a journey
to empowerment.

7.3.2 The factors that shape our reality

An empowered community should have the ability to identify the following two crucial factors
that shape their reality:

its historical setting; and

The resultant social/cultural/economic system in which the community find itself.

7.3.2.1 Historical Setting

A community needs to understand its history past and also recent and how this has shaped its
reality. Let us take us Africans as an example of such a community in search of its reality.

a) It would be nave to dismiss colonialism (sometimes even the centuries ago slavery)
when considering the African reality. That history has been an important factor in shaping
not only our economic situation and relations between and among Africans and also with
other human beings, but even more crucially these past forces have also greatly
influenced how we take ourselves contributing especially to the reduced self-esteem as
a people; looking down on our institutions, religion and culture; and also the wholesale
adoption and love of anything foreign.

b) Our reality is also shaped by the way we have behaved as nations in the recent past, say,
since independence beginning in late 1950s. While this reality could not escape the
influence of our past history and also interference from external sources, it is the greed
and incompetence by our leadership at various levels that have been responsible for the
mismanagement of our politics and economies: and these are recent happenings. It might

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 be annoying to be reminded often that while the world economy grew by an average of
almost 2% per year between 1960 and 2002, that of Africa was negative for two full
decades between 1974 and mid-1990s. (Maathai W 2010, p.48). There has been no
recovery of note.

c) Earlier in Lecture 3 we discussed how, through misguided development policies, peoples

unprecedented development efforts in animal husbandry, agriculture, human health,
community development, care of the environment, etc in Kenya just fizzled away during
the period Maathai is talking about. This is our reality: we need to face it honestly as
squarely.

7.3.2.2 Social/cultural/economic situation

The second crucial factor in shaping a peoples reality is the social/cultural/economic situation in
which they find themselves.
a) Material resources: A community needs to explore the level of such material resources at
its command. In the Kenyan case, it would be sensible to consider the availability of good
fertile land for farming; water resources for farming and animal husbandry; mineral
resources for industrial development; wildlife, warm beaches, etc for local and foreign
tourism and enjoyment; etc.

b) The human resource: The community needs to look not only at the numbers of its human
resource but also at the quality of this crucial resource. Such numbers and quality need to
be synchronized with community current needs and also plans put in place to ensure
satisfaction of immediate future needs.

c) Technology/educational/health/water and sanitation: their availability, quality and equity

in distribution; including the communitys ability to acquire these resources as needed.
These factors give a community a quality life that makes general development possible.
Equity in resources distribution is a major contributor to community peace: a crucial
ingredient in community life and development.

d) Community unity of purpose and readiness for change: How well community members
are exposed to each other; the opportunities offered to both men and women to reach their
potential; whether all religious, ethnic and whatever other groupings are pulling to the
same direction; members readiness to accept and experiment with new technology and
ideas and also to let retrogressive ones go; and what could be the hindering and helping
forces in this effort.

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A study of these factors enables the community to look at it reality in a holistic manner, that is,
taking all factors in consideration in a balanced manner without undue assumptions/deceptions,
etc. An empowered community tells itself the truth about itself!

7.3.3 The ability to decide what the community wants to be

The ability to decide what one wants to be is the third aspect of an empowered community. Such
a community should have the ability to take three related actions:

a) The first action is to review its reality. If a community wishes to move on, its first reality is to
accept that its current situation is unsatisfactory, and to know why this is so. It will be asking
question such as:
Where are we now?
Why are we where we are?

b) Secondly, the community should be in a position to define developmental goals and to put
together a development plan to achieve this. Its questions include:
Where do we want to go?
What are our development goals?

c) Thirdly, the community should have the ability to execute that plan; and as we have already
agreed, by first utilizing its own resources (human and material) as this is the only way to
guarantee sustainability. At this level of its development, the community should be asking
itself:
What are the factors in our favour?
Who amongst us has the needed competence for this or that task?
What are the barriers that would prevent us from reaching those goals?

We will revert to this SWOT analysis in a future lecture.

7.3.4 The willingness to act to change the situation for the better

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The planning we have discussed above is normally a paper exercise, normally done in the office.
The community now needs action at the field level. Such action should generally be done
collectively, through community organization and action, e.g.
through development of savings and consumer cooperatives to raise resources,
trade unions and other community-based groups; and

The organization of peaceful mass action, demonstrations, etc where

necessary.
7.3.4.1 In text Question

Why do you think it is advisable to have collective

action rather than individual effort?

There are two reasons that it is advisable to act together rather than individually.
a) Such collective effort is more effective and is normally more sustainable, that is, longer
lasting.
b) It is also safer in case of an action against stronger forces e.g.
government or employers. Violence against demonstration, threats to sack
any strikers, including actual sacking, are real. But where numbers are
large, employers cannot afford to take too drastic an action else the whole
industry would be paralyzed.
7.3.4.2 Take note

There is no record in the world where the people, united for a just
purpose, ever failed even against brutal forces: think of the civil
rights movement in USA; struggle against colonialism; or, even
more recently, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

The question then is how motivated and empowered the communities are to take collective
action on matters they feel are important to their lives. It is not whether they can.
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7.3.5 The ability to ensuring sustainability of those efforts

The ability to ensure sustainability of community efforts towards its empowerment is out final
aspect. This is best guaranteed by

self-reliance and dependence on oneself; and on

The utilization of the available community resources; for the benefit of all, rather than
benefiting only a few.

7.3.5.1 Take note

Dependency on others for empowerment is dangerous since the

one who pays chooses the tune. It does not matter who the
benefactors are, be it government or donors: they will always wish
to direct how their resources are utilized

7.4 ROLE OF GOVERNMENT AND DONORS

We have said several times in these lectures that only people can develop themselves. To this
end, we have shown that taking development to the people or an attempt to develop others is a
philosophical fallacy. We have also said that the people should as much as possible use their own
resources to develop themselves; and we have given reasons why this is important.

However, communities, especially in the poorer parts of the country, will of course require
various kinds of support from the government and external donors to realize the development
goals that they have themselves set.

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 7.4.1 In text Question

If only the people can develop themselves, and basically using

their own resources, then what should be the role of government
in peoples development?

The government and donors have only two real roles.

7.4.2 Creation of an enabling environment for self-development

The first role is to create an enabling environment for the people to develop themselves and to
also remove external hindering forces. To this end, the government should create

progressive and non-intrusive regulations and laws that stimulate development

Security
Education opportunities including progressive extension and advisory services
Employment opportunities
Access to affordable credit
Access to local and external markets for produce (markets themselves, means of
communication such as telephones and passable roads)

7.4.3 Provision of technical and financial resources for self-development

The second role of the government and donors is to provide the necessary technical and financial
resources for development. Such provision however should be as per conditions below.

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 7.4.4 Take note

Such provision of development resources and also technical

services is not a favour to the people. The people have a contract
with their government for provision of various services, paid for
from the peoples own taxes

7.4.5 Government/donor assistance should be empowering

However, for people to develop themselves, to ensure sustainability while avoiding creation of
the culture of dependency, the following conditions that would guarantee community
empowerment should be adhered to:

i) Government and donor support should be determined by the people: people must get only
what they need, not what others think they should get;
ii) Government/donor support to be proportional to what people can support or sustain nothing
too grandiose or white elephants, or projects that people are forced to maintain at huge costs
though benefits are doubtful;
iii) Government/donor support should be the last resort, in other words, such support should be
requested for only when the community has exhausted what it has from its own resources;
iv) Government/donor support should be catalytic, that is, stimulator of development. As such,
the support should be for starting off and hence for a limited duration only so that the people
can resort to self-reliance.

7.5 People must contribute

No community is without resources for its own development! This bold assertion seems
supported by common sense: else a community with nothing would not be in existence! We
suggest two broad ways in which a community could contribute to its own development projects.
a) To avoid dependency, even when external support is available, the community must contribute
its own portion. Often poor communities have difficulties raising real cash: however, such
communities have plenty of labour and physical materials that they can bring forward for their
own development.

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b) Another general principle is that of ownership: the community must own the project and be
committed to it from the word go.

7.5.1 In text Questions

a) What do you think the concept of ownership entails?

b) If you owned a cow, what would be your expectations from the

cow; and

c) To achieve your expectations, what would be your responsibility to

the cow?

7.5.2 The concept of ownership

The in-text questions should lead you to agreeing that ownership has two related aspects:

a) The first is the expectation that the project will provide benefits (actual goodies such as daily
milk from the cow or even mere satisfaction of owning such a beautiful cow) to the community.

b) The second aspect has to do with community responsibility for the community to ensure that
the project performs at its optimum so as to satisfy the expectations. The cow must be properly
fed and given all care necessary for a good life: it is only then that maximum production should
be expected.

7.5.3 Responsibility for community-based projects

As far as community projects are concerned, the following responsibilities are necessary:

71
 a) The community will protect the projects from vandalism. In many of our societies, we
find, for example, school windows vandalized obviously by members of the same
communities. This is a sure sign that the community never thought of the school as theirs.

b) The community will ensure the completion of the started project, for example, if external
resources dried up prematurely. If the project was to size, and, even more importantly,
was of value to the community, this completion should not be impossible though it might
now take longer as it will require reorganization of available community resources.

c) The community will ensure that the projects are sustained, e.g. supply of spare parts for
tractors, vehicles, etc; supply of drugs if the project is a dispensary; repairs for buildings,
etc. Often, when projects are imposed from external sources, communities would wait for
the donor to rectify even small things that the community could have done itself.

7.6 Summary

In this lecture we have looked at four characteristics of an empowered

community. We have agreed that empowerment should be based on
self-reliance so as to avoid dependency syndrome and the resultant
control of community affairs by external forces. We have finally
discussed the concept of ownership and spelt out its two aspects:
expectations and responsibility

References

Maathai W. The Challenge for Africa (Arrow Books, London 2010)

In your groups or individually answer the following question:

Based on examples from Kenya and elsewhere, discuss why the notion of taking development to
the people is a fallacy

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LESSON 8: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

8.1 Introduction

Our world is faced with many challenges that include climate change, loss of biodiversity, abject
poverty and environmental degradation. That drastic steps need to be taken by all governments,
international agencies and individuals - to reverse this trend, is obvious. This lecture on
sustainable development discusses these challenges and the possible solutions to reverse the
destructive trend. The lecture urges that we learn from our past and that we have new faith in the
well-tried practices that have sustained our local communities for centuries.

8.2 Objectives
By the end of this lecture you should be able to
a) Explain the fragility of the earth and the need to protect it
b) Define sustainable development
c) Describe possible strategies to ensure sustainability of the earth

8.3 From One Earth to One World

In mid 20th C, we saw our planet from space for the first time. We noted that our earth, the solar
system, and even our galaxy are not at the centre of the universe, thus confirming the heliocentric
model view of the world that was proposed in the 1543 Nicolas Copernicus Revolution of
Celestial Spheres, as shown in 8.4.

8.4 Our earth in the solar system: the heliocentric model

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The Copernicus revolution challenged the centrality of the Earth and, by extension, of human
beings; leading to the realization that we, our planet, and indeed our solar system (and even our
galaxy) are quite common in the heavens and reproduced by myriads of planetary systems. The
medieval philosophy that put man next to God and hence superior to all creatures, an even gave
him dominion over them, has proved disastrous to the earth's environment as any casual observer
of the 20th century might confirm by simply looking about.

8.6 Our small and fragile earth

We present here below the earth (only the western hemisphere as it would be impossible to show
a full sphere on a flat plain) as taken from space.

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8.7 Activity
Look at the photograph of the earth from space
(showing the western hemisphere).

a) Write down what you see dominating the earth?

b) Compare what you see in the photo and what

you would see if you walked about your
neighbourhood.

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But what did we actually see from space?

As the Brundtland Commission report of 1987 would record, we saw that ours is a small and
fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice; but by a pattern of clouds, oceans,
greenery and soils. Obviously, these elements have moved in harmony for eternity.

However, when you move around your neighbourhood, you will notice a lot of human
interference and obvious inability for the human to fit its activities into that harmonious pattern
and thus causing many changes that are accompanied by life-threatening hazards.

This destruction of nature arises from two rather unfortunate assumptions that are related:
a) That man was supreme and hence he could use and misuse nature as he wishes obviously
still a medieval thinking in the 21st Century.
b) The second assumption is that to conquer nature rather than to live in harmony with her
was mans mission.

This is our new (but regrettable) reality, from which there is no escape. We need to recognized
this reality and do whatever it takes to manage it.

Our reality: a taste of the disaster

The World Commission on Environment and Development first met in October 1984, and
published its Report 900 days later, in April 1987. Over those few days:
a) The drought-triggered, environment-development crisis in Africa peaked with over 36
million people at risk, killing perhaps a million.
b) A leak from a pesticides factory in Bhopal, India left over 2,000 dead; while over 200,000
more were left blinded and injured.
c) Liquid gas tanks explode in Mexico City: 1,000 dead and 1000s left homeless.
d) The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in Russia: nuclear fallout across Europe,
increasing the risks of future human cancers.
e) Agricultural chemicals, solvents, and mercury flowed into the Rhine River during a
warehouse fire in Switzerland: millions of fish dead; drinking water in the Federal
Republic of Germany and the Netherlands threatened.
f) All over the world, an estimated 60 million people (mostly children) died of diarrhoeal
diseases due to unsafe drinking water and malnutrition through our own misguided
activities

The 3rd world has suffered most

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While the disasters recorded above were all over the world, it is known that usually it is the poor
and the marginalized in the countries hit by such disaster who suffer most. For example, when in
2005, the Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in Texas, in the United States; it was the poor
blacks who lived in the flooding-prone lower parts of the city and who did not have independent
means of transport to escape who suffered most.

It is the same story all over the world. The Brundtland report noted that, against common
thinking, poverty in the developing world was not the cause but was more a consequence of a
number of factors, key of them being
a) Contemporary environmental degradation mainly caused by misguided economic policies
of greed that pauperized people and natural systems.
b) Insensitive technology transfer (uncontrolled use of pesticides; building of big dams that
displace millions of families besides taking their water to capital cities; etc)
c) Unequal consumption coupled with exploitation of resources all over the world
without regard for others

If the entire world's people were to live like North Americans, a planet four times as large
would be needed. Only 'sustainable' development could blend the fulfillment of human needs
with the protection of air, soil, water and all forms of life - from which, ultimately, planetary
stability was inseparable.
(See also Friedman

UNESCO web site Decade for Ed for sustainable development

In recent years, socialist countries such as Cuba have come to understand and take the lead in
the struggle for sustainable development. This is exemplified by Fidel Castro's address to the Rio
Summit in 1992: "The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Every year
thousands of millions of tons of fertile soil end up in the sea. Numerous species are becoming
extinct. Population pressures and poverty trigger frenzied efforts to survive even when it is at the
expense of the environment. It is not possible to blame the Third World countries for this ...
Unequal terms of trade, protectionism, and the foreign debt assault the ecology and promote the
destruction of the environment. If we want to save mankind from this self-destruction, we have to
better distribute the wealth and technologies available in the world."

Now a new generation of environmental worries - global warming, deforestation, species loss,
and toxic wastes - had begun to capture scientific and popular attention. The world's natural
resources were being rapidly depleted, often in the name of development, but the poverty this
development was supposed to correct was as widespread as ever.

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And it was not they who were consuming the Earth's supply of fossil fuels, warming the globe
with their carbon emissions, depleting its ozone layer with their CFCs, poisoning soil and water
with their chemicals, or wreaking ecological havoc with their oil spills. In fact, their
consumption of the world's resources was minute compared to that of the industrialized world

A Misguided and Disastrous Notion of Development

A lot of thinking about development, especially in the developing countries before the 1980s, has
mainly been about increasing production. This very materialistic, narrowly economist and also
patriarchal and paternalistic notion of development has been misguided thinking for a number of
reasons.

First, there is an assumption that man could use resources as if they were inexhaustible.

b) It is based on the assumption that some countries and some people are already developed, and
that therefore they know what needs to be done and, that is, to extend developed from the
developed to the underdeveloped. In Lecture 3, we discussed the whole philosophy of extension
and we agreed that it is fallacious and demeaning. Development cannot be extended.

c) The thinking also treats the educated well-to-do elites as subjects of development and as the
know-ers and do-ers, while the ordinary people are objects or targets of development.

Take note

Target is a military term. A target is an object one aims at with a

weapon. The target is not a participant in the decision that it be
targeted; it has no choice on the kind of weapon to be used on it;
and obviously the whole exercise was not meant for the objects
benefit.

This section of the lecture sees no difference between the

philosophy behind the misguided notion of development that we
are discussing and a military exercise.

Top down notion of development

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A development based on such philosophy is inevitably top down. It concentrates on devoting
undue amount of resources on the strong and already privileged, and believing (or, at least
making others believe) and hoping that the benefits of development of the rich will trickle down
to the poor.

However, many studies have proven that the benefits of development never trickle down.
Instead, and in many cases, the benefits actually percolate up. It is no longer necessary to justify
that the gap between the rich and the poor be it between countries or between individuals
persons instead of becoming narrower, has been widening; and also that the power of the elite,
instead of becoming less, was becoming more. In fact what the elite, be it at the inter-national,
corporate or inter-personal level, has done is what Friedman (2009) refers to as privatizing gains
and socializing losses (p.19).

Intext Question

a) What do you think Friedman is talking about?

b) What local examples do you have of the

phenomenon of privatizing gains and socializing
losses or privatizing consumption and socializing
the payment for the consumption?

Compare your thinking with what follows.

In privatizing gains and socializing losses, the elite would ensure that the public that includes
people of very modest means pay for the greedy consumption of the well to do. This is exactly
what happened in USA and also in other countries in 2008 when governments (read the taxpayer)
had to bail out large financial institutions whose collapse would have impoverished the small
investor even more than they did. Yet as their companies sank, the directors still got their
terminal golden parachutes to jump off. It is the shareholders and the tax payers who paid the
bill. It is the same thinking that makes the Members of Parliament in Kenya vote themselves
huge salary increases and at the same time refuse to pay taxes like all other employed persons.
Their salaries are personal but the people will have to raise the necessary taxes for this
expenditure.

h) Obviously the top down/ trickle down notion of development was not working
c) Hence, new thinking needed challenging past assumptions and asserting:

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The need for peoples participation; that the people have to be the makers of their own destiny;
that development could not be and will not be extended; and also the need for structural changes
of the politics of development.

Sustainable development
a) Thus the concept of 'sustainable development; defined as social and economic advancement
to assure (present) human beings a healthy and productive life, but one that did not compromise
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
b) Where people especially the poor can build a future that is more prosperous, more just,
and more secure based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base;
c) In which we see the world as an interdependent system that connects space (pollution in North
America could affecting air quality in Asia); and a system that connects time (economic policies
of today will have adverse effects on lives of generations to come).

Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts

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Our Common Future: the Brundtland Commission

Sustainable development: together we can do it

The problems are complex and serious: created by us in a rather selfish-dont care manner.
But that was yesterday: today we must act; and we have the capacity knowing that the solution is
collective effort; with assurances that we are all in it together; with sufficient control on each
other to keep our selfishness at bay.

Need to have a long term responsibility for our actions we have to return the earth to our
children better than we got it.

But, while governments and the world bodies do their own thing, there is the need to empower
grassroots not only to act responsibly, but to also create appropriate local groups to monitor the
big boys and to raise the alarm as necessary

a) Learning from the past

The new ideas about sustainable development are still controlled elsewhere: greed and self-
interest control the world. No Marshall Plan for Africa; Hullaballoo about China; Misgivings
about Unites States of Africa; etc. Hence the need for Africa to be self-reliant, and ask herself
searching questions, based on its experience.

Some questions

What could be alternative models that could lead to sustainable development and holistic
development a development that creates as it uses? A development that benefits all? What can
we do to protect our common interests? How do we empower the local levels to take charge of
own development?

The development tree

We now know that development is like a tree. A tree of development must grow from below
upwards; it cannot be imposed from above; it can only fully survive and fully grow if it has been
selected to suit the local conditions, the local atmosphere. It must also draw its sustenance
locally; it cannot live on distant feeding and nurturing.

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 Activity
On a large manila paper, draw and label a
development tree

Lessons from the local level

We know that the ordinary and toiling women and men not only want to, but also can participate
in their own development if they can decide what this development should be. We know that they
can be effective leaders and planners of their own development; we know that once their
creativity is unleashed it cannot be contained.

Empowering the powerless

Development essentially means the powerless getting empowered. As power comes through
unity, development means the poor getting organized to fight for their rights; the poor tilting the
balance of power in their own favour; local people controlling local resources; and equitable
distribution of all available resources.

Holistic development
a) Development also means respecting diversity, thus providing for the growth of self-reliant
communities; decentralization of power at all levels; and democratization of families,
communities, societies and nations.
b) Development also has to be integrated and multi dimensional thus requiring linkages,
networking and solidarity between and among like-minded people doing different things.

c) Development must also mean the abandonment of relentless pursuit for surplus and looking
instead for sustainability; being more preoccupied with search for qualitative changes instead of
quantitative ones; that even more critically - we shift the focus from a developmental
philosophy dominated and directed by male , to a women centered development. (Difference?)

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 Redefinition of the Role of Voluntary Organizations

a) With the new understanding of development, the role and activities of the supportive voluntary
organizations changes too.
b) From being preoccupied with direct delivery of services to helping people create their own
organizations; in order to define their own development plans, and to get their rightful share in
resources and decision making.

c) To be watchdogs vis--vis mainstream development, thus influencing government policies and

legislations.
d) Through their experiments, to continue proving that participatory development is possible,
that the poor are more than capable of running their own lives, of planning their own
development.
e) To keep proving that poor rural women are the best managers of scarce resources, and that
once unleashed, the creativity and potential of ordinary men and women is extra-ordinary.

g) To challenge those development policies and programs that marginalized the poor further, that
cause damage to the environment, and that further empower the rich.
(E.g. Wangaris opposition of Nyayo monument at Uhuru Park; struggles against big dams,
missiles bases in India, demos against rearming in South Africa, etc)

a) These are significant and necessary shifts. For, if development itself becomes like an elephant
That destroys nature, that tramples on small people, and that wipes out diversity;
b) Then, instead of forever trying to rehabilitate the victims, it is necessary to stop the elephant
from creating havoc.

c) There are many examples in the world where people power has stopped the elephant from
destroying them and it too.

Some relevant quotes

One just needs to read this powerful statement by Bishop Tutu to the Minister of Bantu Affairs

I told Mr. Volk: You know you have lost.You know it from your own history. You believed you
were being oppressed by the British; you fought against the British and in the end you became
free. The lesson you must have learned from your own history is that when people decide to be
free, nothing, just nothing, absolutely nothing can stop them. (Allen J (p 302)

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 Web: mind tools rs forcefield

Teaching and learning for a Sustainable Future, UNESCO 2005

A sustainable community is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough to

maintain its natural, economic, social, and political support systems.

This is how the city of Olympia in the USA defines a sustainable community. The people of neighbouring
Thurston County define it this way:

A sustainable community continues to thrive from generation to generation because it has:

A healthy and diverse ecological system that continually performs life sustaining
functions and provides other resources for humans and other species

A social foundation that provides for the health of all community members,
respects cultural diversity, is equitable in its actions, and considers the needs of
future generations

A healthy and diverse economy that adapts to change, provides long-term security
to residents, and recognizes social and ecological limits.

Group Assignment
Development is like a tree, says Kamla Bhasin.
On a large manila paper, draw and label such a development tree.
On one page, justify your answer

References
Friedman, T.L Hot, Flat and Overcrowded, Penguin Books, London, 2009

Our Common Future: the Brundtland Commission, (Report of the World

Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987) (retrieved 4

(Sustainable development for all in Collapse of Soviet Union, 1989-1991 retrieved

27.5.2010

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 John Allen: Desmond Tutu: Rabble-Rouser for Peace, by p302

LESSON 9: The Role of the Community Educator in Empowering the Community

(Community Educator as an Enabler, Facilitator, Broker, Advocate and Teacher)

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to

a) Restate the purpose of development

b) Describe the role and characteristics of an empowering community development
motivator/officer

Introduction

In our previous lectures, we have insisted that the people are willing and able to develop
themselves. We also have agreed that such a capacity is highly dependent on the kind of
education one gets: domesticating or liberating. This means that, although the people are
responsible for their own empowerment and development, the community educators role is
central to this empowerment. In this lecture we will scrutinize the characteristics and the role of
the ideal educator in peoples education and empowerment.

Limitless Capacity to Learn

Today, empirical and scientific evidence suggests that the human capacity to learn is limitless.
When circumstances are favorable, and once people have been freed from the yoke of de-valuing
their own history and culture, their creativity and energy become unleashed. This makes them
capable of learning almost everything and tackling almost every problem. They are also capable
of learning at vastly different speeds and in different ways. This belies the assumption and the
practice in customary (traditional) educational settings that tend to place learners in categories
that blur their differences and creativity, and as a result virtually all of them never realize their
full potential. In such settings, one habitually uses only a tiny fraction of ones learning
capacities. (Adapted from Umtapo Centre (1994) p. 29)

The Purpose of Development

85
Studies on development especially in the 1960s and 1970s have confirmed two basic truths. First,
that the people are the makers of their own destiny. Second, and as a consequence of the first,
that the empowerment of the people must be the central subject of any development effort.
Ignoring these two truths could be costly. Julius Nyerere laments the failure of the first attempts
on rural development in Tanzania thus:

When we tried promoting rural development in the past, we sometimes spent huge sums of the
money on establishing a settlement, and supplying it with modern equipment, and social
services, as well as often providing it with a management hierarchy

What we are doing in fact, was thinking of development in terms of things and not of people

As a result, there have been very many cases where heavy capital investment has resulted in no
increase in output where the investment has been wasted. And in most of the officially sponsored
or supported schemes, the majority of people who went to settle lost their enthusiasm, and either
left the scheme altogether, or failed to carry out orders of the outsiders (administrators from other
communities) who were put in charge and who were not themselves involved in the success or
failure of the project. (From Arusha Declaration 1967)

The primary task of development then becomes initiating the process:

a) Of awareness building,
b) Of offering relevant and up-to-date education and
c) Of people forming their own organizations to define, create and demand what they need to
lead a decent life.

Characteristics and the Role of an Empowering Community Motivator

For setting in motion this kind of participatory and sustainable development we need very
sensitive workers:

a) Who work as partners with the people and not as their bosses
b) Who believe in peoples potential to develop themselves,
c) Who respect the peoples knowledge base, and
d) Who recognize the peoples contribution to nation building

Educators/activists/motivators who are interested in genuine development must have faith in the
people. They must believe in the peoples ability to learn, to analyze, to act and to bring
about radical changes. They must be able to convey their faith in the people through their
behavior, speech and action. If activists have faith in people, they will not try to decide for them
all the time. The people will then be able to take responsibility to run their own organizations.

86
The role of these workers is not to extend ready-made knowledge and solutions of the
communities. Their primary roles are

a) To help set in motion a process of collective reflection and decision making.

b) To be committed to the cause of the oppressed;
c) To believe in the need for a radical change in the present unjust, social, economic and
political structures.
d) To help people form their own organizations to fight for their rights.

This implies that it is not enough for workers to have only some technical skills. They must also
possess social skills to work with people, to elicit their participation.

Such workers or activists have to become a part of the peoples struggle. They are not people
who try to lead all the time. Actually they have to be like a wave in the sea which rises when
circumstances demand it and merges with the rest of the water soon after. They are waves that
encourage other waves to rise too.

Another important role of a development activist is to help people shed fear, regain confidence,
believe in themselves and trust others in the group. This role is quit crucial because often the
exploited men and women lose self- confidence; they start devaluing their own capacities and
capabilities.

Activists also have to help people to analyze their situation and clarify issues in order to evolve
strategies and action plans for development. In this regard, the activists most valuable
contribution should be that of raising questions and providing a wider perspective. On the basis
of studies undertaken by the activists and the experience and knowledge they might have of other
struggles, they can help people to broaden their understanding as well as to see their struggle in
the context of the larger struggles.

Activists must possess a scientific method of analysis and study and should try to inculcate
scientific spirit and temper in the people they work with. Such scientific thinking will result in
the people basing their arguments on facts and on focusing their energies on what they have
discovered as their main issues of concern.

The relationship between the activists and the community has to be a two-way relationship.
Activists have to learn from the people and the people from the activists. Together the people and
the activists must strive to extend the limits of their knowledge and understanding.

Just as activists would like the people to be open and willing to learn, the activists should also be
open and willing to learn from the people and from the interaction that takes place between them
and the people. If they start believing

87
 a) That theirs is the correct ideology;
b) That they know solution to all problems; and
c) That all the people have to do is to learn from them;

Then there can be no scope for any genuine dialogue between the people and the activists.

The task of an activist also has to be to help people reach their own conclusions and not
necessarily always the conclusions of the activists. By working and struggling together the
consciousness of the activists and the people should change and reach higher levels. An activist
helps in setting in motion a process of thinking, reflection and action.

Activists with such qualities and skills are required to help in the process of empowering the
exploited men and women. The main task of development now is the development of the human
potential and human creativity. In addition, there is the task to augment physical development
and delivery of services and to create peoples organizations.

Such development requires changes not only in attitudes, behavior, knowledge and skills of
people in the communities, but it also requires basic changes in the activists or development
workers and in everyone else involved in development.

Prof. David Macharia EBS

Adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica, Kamla Bhasins Participatory Development Demands

Participatory Training, and Other Sources

November 2007

Umtapo Centre: African Peace, Human Rights and Anti-Racism Education:

A resource manual for educators and trainers (1994), Durban, South Africa

LESSON 9: The Role of the Community Educator in Empowering the Community

(Community Educator as an Enabler, Facilitator, Broker, Advocate and Teacher)

By the end of this lesson, you should be able to

88
 c) Restate the purpose of development
d) Describe the role and characteristics of an empowering community development
motivator/officer

Introduction

In our previous lectures, we have insisted that the people are willing and able to develop
themselves. We also have agreed that such a capacity is highly dependent on the kind of
education one gets: domesticating or liberating. Generally, the he educator is generally crucial
in the decision of what is learned, the people have the responsibility for their own
empowerment and development, the community educators role is central to this
empowerment. In this lecture we will scrutinize the characteristics and the role of the ideal
educator in peoples education and empowerment.

Limitless Capacity to Learn

Today, empirical and scientific evidence suggests that the human capacity to learn is limitless.
When circumstances are favorable, and once people have been freed from the yoke of de-valuing
their own history and culture, their creativity and energy become unleashed. This makes them
capable of learning almost everything and tackling almost every problem. They are also capable
of learning at vastly different speeds and in different ways. This belies the assumption and the
practice in customary (traditional) educational settings that tend to place learners in categories
that blur their differences and creativity, and as a result virtually all of them never realize their
full potential. In such settings, one habitually uses only a tiny fraction of ones learning
capacities. (Adapted from Umtapo Centre (1994) p. 29)

The Purpose of Development

Studies on development especially in the 1960s and 1970s have confirmed two basic truths. First,
that the people are the makers of their own destiny. Second, and as a consequence of the first,
that the empowerment of the people must be the central subject of any development effort.
Ignoring these two truths could be costly. Julius Nyerere laments the failure of the first attempts
on rural development in Tanzania thus:

When we tried promoting rural development in the past, we sometimes spent huge sums of the
money on establishing a settlement, and supplying it with modern equipment, and social
services, as well as often providing it with a management hierarchy

What we are doing in fact, was thinking of development in terms of things and not of people

As a result, there have been very many cases where heavy capital investment has resulted in no
increase in output where the investment has been wasted. And in most of the officially sponsored
or supported schemes, the majority of people who went to settle lost their enthusiasm, and either

89
left the scheme altogether, or failed to carry out orders of the outsiders (administrators from other
communities) who were put in charge and who were not themselves involved in the success or
failure of the project. (From Arusha Declaration 1967)

The primary task of development then becomes initiating the process:

d) Of awareness building,
e) Of offering relevant and up-to-date education and
f) Of people forming their own organizations to define, create and demand what they need to
lead a decent life.

Characteristics and the Role of an Empowering Community Motivator

For setting in motion this kind of participatory and sustainable development we need very
sensitive workers:

e) Who work as partners with the people and not as their bosses
f) Who believe in peoples potential to develop themselves,
g) Who respect the peoples knowledge base, and
h) Who recognize the peoples contribution to nation building

Educators/activists/motivators who are interested in genuine development must have faith in the
people. They must believe in the peoples ability to learn, to analyze, to act and to bring
about radical changes. They must be able to convey their faith in the people through their
behavior, speech and action. If activists have faith in people, they will not try to decide for them
all the time. The people will then be able to take responsibility to run their own organizations.

The role of these workers is not to extend ready-made knowledge and solutions of the
communities. Their primary roles are

e) To help set in motion a process of collective reflection and decision making.

f) To be committed to the cause of the oppressed;
g) To believe in the need for a radical change in the present unjust, social, economic and
political structures.
h) To help people form their own organizations to fight for their rights.

This implies that it is not enough for workers to have only some technical skills. They must also
possess social skills to work with people, to elicit their participation.

90
Such workers or activists have to become a part of the peoples struggle. They are not people
who try to lead all the time. Actually they have to be like a wave in the sea which rises when
circumstances demand it and merges with the rest of the water soon after. They are waves that
encourage other waves to rise too.

Another important role of a development activist is to help people shed fear, regain confidence,
believe in themselves and trust others in the group. This role is quit crucial because often the
exploited men and women lose self- confidence; they start devaluing their own capacities and
capabilities.

Activists also have to help people to analyze their situation and clarify issues in order to evolve
strategies and action plans for development. In this regard, the activists most valuable
contribution should be that of raising questions and providing a wider perspective. On the basis
of studies undertaken by the activists and the experience and knowledge they might have of other
struggles, they can help people to broaden their understanding as well as to see their struggle in
the context of the larger struggles.

Activists must possess a scientific method of analysis and study and should try to inculcate
scientific spirit and temper in the people they work with. Such scientific thinking will result in
the people basing their arguments on facts and on focusing their energies on what they have
discovered as their main issues of concern.

The relationship between the activists and the community has to be a two-way relationship.
Activists have to learn from the people and the people from the activists. Together the people and
the activists must strive to extend the limits of their knowledge and understanding.

Just as activists would like the people to be open and willing to learn, the activists should also be
open and willing to learn from the people and from the interaction that takes place between them
and the people. If they start believing

d) That theirs is the correct ideology;

e) That they know solution to all problems; and
f) That all the people have to do is to learn from them;
Then there can be no scope for any genuine dialogue between the people and the activists.

The task of an activist also has to be to help people reach their own conclusions and not
necessarily always the conclusions of the activists. By working and struggling together the
consciousness of the activists and the people should change and reach higher levels. An activist
helps in setting in motion a process of thinking, reflection and action.

Activists with such qualities and skills are required to help in the process of empowering the
exploited men and women. The main task of development now is the development of the human
potential and human creativity. In addition, there is the task to augment physical development

91
and delivery of services and to create peoples organizations.Such development requires changes
not only in attitudes, behavior, knowledge and skills of people in the communities, but it also
requires basic changes in the activists or development workers and in everyone else involved in
development.

Prof. David Macharia EBS

Adapted from Encyclopedia Britannica, Kamla Bhasins Participatory Development Demands

Participatory Training, and Other Sources

November 2007

Umtapo Centre: African Peace, Human Rights and Anti-Racism Education:

A resource manual for educators and trainers (1994), Durban, South Africa

Theory of Human Nature: What is a human being? How does it differ from other species?
What are the limits of human potential?

The ability of humans to plan and shape the world for their future needs is what separates man
from animals. The oppressed majority must be taught to imagine a better way so that they can
shape their future and thereby become more human.

Growing to us is something more than growing to the trees or the animals that, unlike us, cannot
take their own growth as an object of their preoccupation. For us, growing is a process in which
we can intervene. The point of decision of human growth is not found in the species. (Page 94)

We are ... the only beings capable of being both the objects and the subjects of the relationships
that we weave with others and with the history that we make and that makes and remakes us.
Between us and the world, relationships can be critically, naively, or magically perceived, but we
are aware of these relationships to an extent that does not exist between any other living being
and the world. (Page 75)

.. because we are "programmed to learn," we live, or experience, or we find ourselves open to

experience the relationship between what we inherit and what we acquire. We become genetic-
cultural beings. We are not only nature, nor are we only culture, education, and thinking. (Page
94-95)

One can really perceive the absurdity of the authoritarianism that claims that all these spaces
belong to the educational authorities, to teachers. (This claim of ownership is not based on
adulthood, since cooks, janitors, security guards, and cleaning staff are also adults but, because
they are mere servers within school space, that space does not belong to them any more than it
belongs to students.) It is as if learners were in the space but not with the space. (Page 52)

92
Freire, Paulo; Teachers as Cultural Workers - Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, Translated by
Donoldo Macedo, Dale Koike, and Alexandre Oliveira, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1998.

Lecture 10

Techniques of Community Analysis and Mobilization

10.1 Introduction

In this lecture we will be discussing the techniques of mobilizing the community for change. We
start by discussing the techniques of entering the community, doing community needs analysis,
and what to do to have the ideas we might have accepted. Finally, we will be introduced to
Participatory Action Research, an effective research technique recommended for community
mobilization.

10.2 Objectives

On Entering and Understanding the Community

Let us begin with a code by taking ourselves back to Lecture 4. You will remember that in
Lecture 4 we agreed on the following facts that crucial in this new lecture:

That a code has a hidden message and that learning occurs through the decoding effort;

That out of the 6 questions for decoding (Lecture 4), 3 of the questions are crucial.

MOBILIZING THE COMMUNITY FOR CHANGE: A CASE STUDY

After completing her one year post-graduate diploma in Community Development and
Empowerment course at Kenya Institute for Peoples Education (KIPE), Jacque returns to her
community full of enthusiasm to empower her community. Jacque identified the main reason for the
very serious level of marginalization of the community to be its adherence to practices that she
considered outdated and retrogressive, and that obviously needed immediate overhauled. These
included long-held practices such as the payment of dowry, violent against women, polygamy and
FGM. Noting that women as a group were the most affected by most of these practices, she decided
that they would be the first group to start with.

93
Although there were other groups that were involved in similar programs, no one else in the
community had ever attended the well-respected KIPE course. Jacque also considered the
approaches employed by these agencies as outdate and certainly not too empowering. She would
have nothing to do with such groups. Also, she has a 15 months deadline agreed to with her donor
agency that needed to be met. Speed was therefore of essence. Quickly, therefore, she put together a
vocal group made up of her university colleagues and relatives. Within no time, women of all ages
and social classes, many with a multitude of urgent problems, and others offering to be volunteers,
were attending her meetings every Saturday afternoon. Within no time, numbers multiplied and
meetings were now taking place also on Sunday afternoons and most evenings. Every available
space, including place such as public social halls and hotels, where women never visited previously
on their own, was now being utilized.

maintenance and divorce came up. The women leaders decided to publicly expose the offenders in
posters that started appearing at strategic places all over the community and in a newsletter that they
distributed widely inside and outside the community. To add insult to injury, as one local leader
commented, the women were now raising funds to prosecute such cases in court and for legal
defense for any woman in need.

Jacques stature catapulted and within no time she was being referred to as Ms Empowerment and
Community Savoir! It was also campaigned that she and her group be joint recipients of the coveted
Presidential National Achievers Award. All this gave her and her group more enthusiasm and many
programs mushroomed all over the community. Other women groups outside the community started
inviting Jacque and her team as guest speakers: thus raising anxiety all over the place.

As would be expected, not everyone was pleased with all these happenings. Many husbands
objected to these meetings saying that their wives were becoming too difficult to live with; and that
even their daughters were now asking questions never heard of before in the community.
Community leaders accused Jacque and her group of misleading women, especially the youth, on
their culture. On their part, religious leaders objected to women meeting on Sunday and, worse still,
in public places without their husbands; and further they claimed that their authority to lead the
people to God was being challenged. They threatened to excommunicate anyone who continued
with these meetings. The donor was accused of having plans to destabilize the community and its
workers were often threatened. The pressure was such that the donor withdrew, the numbers
attending dwindled and within no time the meetings ceased.

Discussion Questions

a) Do you think Jacque was well prepared for the task?

b) What do you think Jacque should have done to ensure success of this crucial project?

94
Community Situational Analysis

Class Activity

a) Study in groups the Case Study on Mobilizing the Community for Change
b) Give group reports bringing out salient points reflected in the case.
c) Emphasize also the importance of a thorough and holistic understanding of the
community.

i) For such an in depth understand, one will need to live with the community. Briefcase
consultants (Through Africa in 30 Days) affair will not do.
ii) Take your time as you enter the community; resist the temptation of coming to
conclusions too quickly no matter how logical they may appear. Decisions taken at this
initial stage may have a long term bearing - both positively and negatively.
For example,
With whom do you associate and what effect does this have on how people perceive the
kind of person you are?
Are you and they - considered persons of integrity?

iii) But also have faith in your previous experience and draw from it answering questions
such as:
Have I worked in this kind of situation before?
What did I learn from that experience?
What prejudices am I bringing to the current situation? (Jacques their approach is
outdated!)

iv) Come to know at the very beginning the power relationships within the community
both formal and informal and how these relate to and influence each other

v) Be known to all and as much as possible be on the right side of these powers to get access
at least to begin with

vi) Have the widest possible consultation so as to bring on board everyone, especially the
administrators, opinion leaders and other important stakeholders

vii) Provide for participation of all relevant bodies from the very beginning so as to create
ownership of the project

viii) Utilize existing channels of communication in the community.

ix) Appreciate and respect peoples culture and norms and see how you could work within
these. (For example, the newly introduced rite of passage activities as opposed to
FGM)

95
x) Avoid being seen as a rival so as to keep opposition at bay until you have learnt how to
handle it.

II) Community Situational Analysis: Factors to Identify for Community Analysis

Class Activity:

Why is it necessary to do a Community Situational Analysis?

Who should do the CSA and why?

What factors do we need to identify?

Note

a) It is important that any community study is an empowering tool for the community
involved.
For far too long, communities have been studied, they never see the study report, and
many times the study was never meant for the communitys benefit.
b) Help the community identify both its assets and liabilities.

(Why is this crucial as an empowering process?)

c) We need to collect both hard and soft data. However, in many situations, only the hard
data get identified. We need to also identify the soft data.

1) The hard data:

i) Political/administrative situation (How is the community led? Who are the different
categories of leaders? What are the powers of each and how do they relate?)
ii) Demographic details population size and how it is stratified (what proportion is
made of dependent children and the aged, wage earners, men and women, etc)
iii) Economic situation availability of various natural resources, e.g. rich agricultural
land, minerals, tourism attractions, produce, trade, interactions, etc

96
 iv) Social stratification and cultural details relations between men and women,
religions and their interactions, relations between various communities (ethnic,
cultural, religious, etc)
v) Education access to education by all; organization and quality of that education;
value given to being educated, etc.
vi) Health and sanitation the general well-being of the people; access to health services,
quality of that service, etc.

2) The soft data

i) Peoples general articulateness on issues facing them and also possible solutions
ii) Their general readiness for change, that would be
positively influenced by their level of education and general empowerment, and
negatively influenced by their conservatism, lack of political space in the country, etc
iii) The level of peoples emotions and commitment to whatever cause, especially matters of
value and survival (their driving forces)

Class Activity

To compare the ideas above on soft data with those expressed by Paulo Freire on various levels
of consciousness

3) Survey of Community Developmental Needs

Through Participatory Action Research, do a thorough survey of the communitys
developmental and learning needs. "Essentially Participatory Action Research (PAR) has
the following features:
a) It is research which involves all relevant parties in actively examining together
current action (which they experience as problematic) in order to change and improve
it.
b) They do this by critically reflecting on the historical, political, cultural, economic,
geographic and other contexts which make sense of it.
c) As opposed to other types of research that are hoped to be followed by action, PAR
is action which is researched, changed and re-researched, within the research process
by participants.
d) As opposed to researches done by experts and consultants, PAR is active co-research,
by and for those to be helped and tries to be a genuinely democratic or non-coercive
process whereby those to be helped, determine the purposes and outcomes of their
own inquiry

97
e) Done this way, there is very high likelihood that the recommendations of the research
will be implemented as they will be tackling genuine community needs that have
been identified by the people themselves.

(See more notes on PAR as attachment)

98
99
Lecture 11

Techniques of Community Analysis and Mobilization

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

11.1 Introduction

We continue to explore techniques of community analysis and mobilization. In this lecture we

will explore the work of Abraham Maslow, especially his five-stage Hierarchy of Needs that has
been extensively employed in understanding human motivation, management training, and
personal development. In our specific situation, we will interrogate this theorys relevance to
community mobilization for own development.

11.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture you should be able to

a) diagrammatically demonstrate Maslows five-stage

hierarchy of needs
b) explain the applicability of the hierarchy of needs theory
in everyday life
c) demonstrate the relevance of the hierarchy of needs theory
in community development

11.3 Development of the 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs model

Most, if not all, of us have come across Abraham Maslows famous 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs
model. He developed his model based on the 1940-50's USA situation by initially studying
rhesus monkeys. The theory, first published in 1954, remains valid today for understanding
human motivation, management training, and personal development. For example, the
responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables

100
employees to fulfill their own unique potential (self-actualization) are today more relevant than
ever.

Maslow's Motivation and Personality, published in 1954 (second edition 1970) introduced the
Hierarchy of Needs. He extended his ideas in other works, notably his later book Toward a
Psychology of Being, later revised in recent times by Richard Lowry, who is in his own right a
leading academic in the field of motivational psychology.

The 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs model is as shown below. As the model is hierarchical and
logical, it is easy to understand and to memorize. It is suggested that you do just that.

The 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs

i) Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
ii) Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

iii) Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

101
iv) Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance,
prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

v) Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal

growth and peak experiences.

11.4 Adaptation of the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model has been extended through interpretation of his work
by other people, though it is not clear in literature as to who did the adaptation. For example, in
1970s, two new needs were added as follows:

Number 5: Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc; and

Number 6: Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc

Again, in the 1990s, Number 8: Transcendence needs was added

Hence, the adapted Hierarchy of Needs would read as below:

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige,

managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.

6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.

7. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal

growth and peak experiences.

8. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.

A closer study of the new additions will reveal that there is actually nothing new and hence the
original model remains quite adequate for its purpose. Arguably, the original five-level model
includes the later additional sixth, seventh and eighth ('Cognitive', 'Aesthetic', and
'Transcendence') levels within the original 'Self-Actualization' level 5, since each one of the 'new'

102
motivators concerns an area of self-development and self-fulfillment that is rooted in self-
actualization 'growth', and is distinctly different to any of the previous 1-4 level 'deficiency'
motivators. For many people, self-actualizing commonly involves each and every one of the newly
added drivers. As such, the original five-level Hierarchy of Needs model remains a definitive
classical representation of human motivation; and the later adaptations perhaps serve best to
illustrate aspects of self-actualization. (www.businessballs.com website)

11.5 Interpreting Maslows Theory

Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of
thousands of years. Of course other needs arise as we go through life. Abraham Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us all.

a) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we satisfy our needs cumulatively: starting with the
first need that deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.
b) Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we
concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.

c) Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer
concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.

11.6 Activity

From experience, record in your notebook possible experiences

that could overturn the tables so that one is forced to come down
the ladder of needs.

As it concerns the activity in 11.6, we hope that you recorded job loss, loss of spouses or general
providers, accidents and even civil commotions that may highly reduce ones material or
emotional situation. Under such circumstances, one would normally revert to satisfying ones
basic needs and hope to move up the ladder again when the situation changes.

11.6 The complexity of human nature

103
The common broad-brush interpretation of Maslow's famous theory suggests that once a
particular need is satisfied the person moves onto the next higher level need, and to a large extent
this is entirely correct. We have also noted in Lectures 3 and 4 two important things:

a) that a community needs to see itself developing as time goes by; and also
b) That when this happens, the community is motivated to keep contributing time and other
resources to sustain this upward development.

However, we know something else: human nature and its motivational sets are very complex. As
such, an overly rigid interpretation and application of the hierarchy of needs model will produce
a rigid analysis, and certainly go against common sense.

11.7 Need for flexibility in interpreting the hierarchy of needs model

So while it is broadly true that people move up (or down) the hierarchy, depending on what's
happening to them in their lives, it is also true that most people's motivational 'set' at any time
comprises elements of all of the motivational drivers.

Let us give a number of examples:

a) Self-actualizers (at Level 5) are mainly focused on self-actualizing but are still motivated to
eat (Level 1) and to socialize (Level 3).
b) Similarly, homeless folk whose main focus is feeding themselves (Level 1) and finding
shelter for the night (Level 2) can also be, albeit to a lesser extent, still concerned with social
relationships (Level 3), how their friends perceive them (Level 4), and even the meaning of
life (Level 5).

This idea of being in Level 5 for those persons who in all other ways should be in Level 1
deserves a little more thought.

Can we say that despite being poor and needy, the people at the lower levels still
consider themselves humans with their dignity also intact? If, for example, they were
Christians, (or belonged to other religions with similar beliefs) they would certainly
consider themselves to have been made in the image of God: this in spite of the quite
unacceptable conditions in which they find themselves.
What would you say about the beggar who, although he accepts the miserable K.shs
five (5) that you place in his plate, still gives a contemptuous looks obviously asking
what you think he could buy with that amount in todays Kenya?

And a bit of digression that is certainly a key theme in these lecture series: should the
realization of this truth about the humanity of the other person not be a motivating

104
 factor for those better endowed to actively participate in helping these other Gods
creatures get out of their misery? paltry

c) It is also true that many poor people with little to themselves (Level 1) have gone out of their
way to selflessly and meaningfully help others certainly a self-actualization (Level 5)
behavior. For example, how would you classify the obviously poor rural mothers who always
had food in their homes for whoever came visiting?

It is for such considerations that, like any model that tries to interpret a complex subject such as
human behaviour, Maslow's model is not a fully responsive system. It is however a guide that
requires some interpretation and thought, given which, it remains extremely useful and
applicable for understanding, explaining and handling many human behaviour situations.

11.8 Relevance of the Maslows model to community development

Let us now conclude this lecture by considering the relevance of the hierarchy of needs model to
community development. The section will affirm some facts we already know besides bringing
in new ones.

11.8.1 The desire to improve ones quality of life

It is human nature for an individual or a community to desire to improve its quality of life as
time goes by. We have also said that people will work hard to realize this desire. People also
seem to admire those they perceive as better off than they are and hence desire or wish to be like
them.

In text Question

Based on this truth, then what needs to be done to motivate the

community?

It is suggested that a reasonable answer to the above question is to present to the struggling
community successful role models for it to emulate. For example, visits to see what communities
are doing; discussions with other successful communities, etc could help. Such role modeling

105
should be within the communitys means: anything beyond the communitys means would most
likely de-motivate the people.

11.8.2 A highly felt need

People are also motivated to work towards achieving a need that they feel they have. The more
acutely they feel the need the more willing they are to work towards meeting that need. It is for
this reason that communities should be exposed to experiences that could in a reasonable time
earn the community a higher value than it currently have.

Activity

In your note book write possible exposures of value that you could suggest
to a community known to you to motivate it to forgo something today
for a better future

We have an example or two for you.

Forgoing cutting down trees for charcoal burning and replanting forests for the future
survival.
Investing in children education instead of using the children as cheap labour at home for
a more educated future labour force
Investing in girls education to ensure better care of communitys children

11.8.3 Communities are at different levels of development

We now invite you to revisit Lecture 6 on Freires three (3) levels of awareness. What did we
learn in Lecture 6 that is relevant to this section of our lecture?
We learnt that different communities (or even members of the same community) will be
at different levels of development and awareness at any one time.
We learnt that a communitys behavoiur is heavily influenced by first its history and
second by various forces around it.

In such circumstances, we expect that a community will most likely behave differently not only
from other communities, but, even more telling, also from your expectation as a community
development officer. It is for such reasons then that it would be unreasonable to expect a

106
community that is struggling with its basic survival to be enthusiastic about altruistic pursuits
such as
value of a vote,
environmental degradation, or
World peace.

Likewise, it should not surprise you to see some well-off communities petitioning the local
authorities to close footpaths through their neighbourhoods for security reasons!

11.8.4 Lessons for the community development worker

Let us now conclude this lecture with the following two points.
a) For effectiveness, a community development worker needs to note the bear in mind the facts
about the complexity of human nature as he/she interacts with the community. Failure to do so
will result in his/her frustration and also most likely being a stumbling block to the communitys
empowerment and own development.

But we also know something more positive. With the appropriate support such as provision of
enabling conditions and removal of hindering ones; and also provision of financial and technical
support), the community is however not only willing, but also able to uplift itself.

11.8.5 Summary

In this lecture we have discussed A. Maslows five stage hierarchy of

needs model and noted its great relevance in analyzing and also
mobilizing communities for their own development. We have however
cautioned that, since human beings and their motivational sets are
complex, community development workers should interpret the model
flexibly.

www.businessballs.com website.

11.8.6 Questions
a) Without referring to your notes, draw and label Maslows 5-stage model of hierarchy
of needs

b) Discuss the relevance of the model to community development paying particular attention to
the complexity of human nature and its motivational set.

107
Extra notes For Lecture 9

Theory of Human Nature: What is a human being? How does it differ from other species?
What are the limits of human potential?

The ability of humans to plan and shape the world for their future needs is what separates man
from animals. The oppressed majority must be taught to imagine a better way so that they can
shape their future and thereby become more human.

Growing to us is something more than growing to the trees or the animals that, unlike us, cannot
take their own growth as an object of their preoccupation. For us, growing is a process in which
we can intervene. The point of decision of human growth is not found in the species. (Page 94)

We are ... the only beings capable of being both the objects and the subjects of the relationships
that we weave with others and with the history that we make and that makes and remakes us.
Between us and the world, relationships can be critically, naively, or magically perceived, but we
are aware of these relationships to an extent that does not exist between any other living being
and the world. (Page 75)

... because we are "programmed to learn," we live, or experience, or we find ourselves open to
experience the relationship between what we inherit and what we acquire. We become genetic-
cultural beings. We are not only nature, nor are we only culture, education, and thinking. (Page
94-95)

One can really perceive the absurdity of the authoritarianism that claims that all these spaces
belong to the educational authorities, to teachers. (This claim of ownership is not based on
adulthood, since cooks, janitors, security guards, and cleaning staff are also adults but, because
they are mere servers within school space, that space does not belong to them any more than it
belongs to students.) It is as if learners were in the space but not with the space. (Page 52)

Freire, Paulo; Teachers as Cultural Workers - Letters to Those Who Dare Teach, Translated by
Donoldo Macedo, Dale Koike, and Alexandre Oliveira, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1998.

Lecture 10

108
Techniques of Community Analysis and Mobilization

10.1 Introduction

In this lecture we will be discussing the techniques of mobilizing the community for change. We
start by discussing the techniques of entering the community, doing community needs analysis,
and what to do to have the ideas we might have accepted. Finally, we will be introduced to
Participatory Action Research, an effective research technique recommended for community
mobilization.

10.2 Objectives

On Entering and Understanding the Community

Let us begin with a code by taking ourselves back to Lecture 4. You will remember that in
Lecture 4 we agreed on the following facts that crucial in this new lecture:

That a code has a hidden message and that learning occurs through the decoding effort;

That out of the 6 questions for decoding (Lecture 4), 3 of the questions are crucial.

MOBILIZING THE COMMUNITY FOR CHANGE: A CASE STUDY

After completing her one year post-graduate diploma in Community Development and
Empowerment course at Kenya Institute for Peoples Education (KIPE), Jacque returns to her
community full of enthusiasm to empower her community. Jacque identified the main reason for the
very serious level of marginalization of the community to be its adherence to practices that she
considered outdated and retrogressive, and that obviously needed immediate overhauled. These
included long-held practices such as the payment of dowry, violent against women, polygamy and
FGM. Noting that women as a group were the most affected by most of these practices, she decided
that they would be the first group to start with.

Although there were other groups that were involved in similar programs, no one else in the
community had ever attended the well-respected KIPE course. Jacque also considered the
approaches employed by these agencies as outdate and certainly not too empowering. She would
have nothing to do with such groups. Also, she has a 15 months deadline agreed to with her donor
agency that needed to be met. Speed was therefore of essence. Quickly, therefore, she put together a
vocal group made up of her university colleagues and relatives. Within no time, women of all ages
and social classes, many with a multitude of urgent problems, and others offering to be volunteers,
were attending her meetings every Saturday afternoon. Within no time, numbers multiplied and

109
meetings were now taking place also on Sunday afternoons and most evenings. Every available
space, including place such as public social halls and hotels, where women never visited previously
on their own, was now being utilized.

The issues under discussion also multiplied and women were never let down. Issues such as
maintenance and divorce came up. The women leaders decided to publicly expose the offenders in
posters that started appearing at strategic places all over the community and in a newsletter that they
distributed widely inside and outside the community. To add insult to injury, as one local leader
commented, the women were now raising funds to prosecute such cases in court and for legal
defense for any woman in need.

Jacques stature catapulted and within no time she was being referred to as Ms Empowerment and
Community Savoir! It was also campaigned that she and her group be joint recipients of the coveted
Presidential National Achievers Award. All this gave her and her group more enthusiasm and many
programs mushroomed all over the community. Other women groups outside the community started
inviting Jacque and her team as guest speakers: thus raising anxiety all over the place.

As would be expected, not everyone was pleased with all these happenings. Many husbands
objected to these meetings saying that their wives were becoming too difficult to live with; and that
even their daughters were now asking questions never heard of before in the community.
Community leaders accused Jacque and her group of misleading women, especially the youth, on
their culture. On their part, religious leaders objected to women meeting on Sunday and, worse still,
in public places without their husbands; and further they claimed that their authority to lead the
people to God was being challenged. They threatened to excommunicate anyone who continued
with these meetings. The donor was accused of having plans to destabilize the community and its
workers were often threatened. The pressure was such that the donor withdrew, the numbers
attending dwindled and within no time the meetings ceased.

Discussion Questions

c) Do you think Jacque was well prepared for the task?

d) What do you think Jacque should have done to ensure success of this crucial project?

Community Situational Analysis

Class Activity

110
b) Study in groups the Case Study on Mobilizing the Community for Change
c) Give group reports bringing out salient points reflected in the case.
d) Emphasize also the importance of a thorough and holistic understanding of the
community.

i) For such an in depth understand, one will need to live with the community. Briefcase
consultants (Through Africa in 30 Days) affair will not do.
ii) Take your time as you enter the community; resist the temptation of coming to
conclusions too quickly no matter how logical they may appear. Decisions taken at this
initial stage may have a long term bearing - both positively and negatively.
For example,
With whom do you associate and what effect does this have on how people perceive the
kind of person you are?
Are you and they - considered persons of integrity?

iii) But also have faith in your previous experience and draw from it answering questions
such as:
Have I worked in this kind of situation before?
What did I learn from that experience?
What prejudices am I bringing to the current situation? (Jacques their approach is
outdated!)

iv) Come to know at the very beginning the power relationships within the community
both formal and informal and how these relate to and influence each other

v) Be known to all and as much as possible be on the right side of these powers to get access
at least to begin with

vi) Have the widest possible consultation so as to bring on board everyone, especially the
administrators, opinion leaders and other important stakeholders

vii) Provide for participation of all relevant bodies from the very beginning so as to create
ownership of the project

viii) Utilize existing channels of communication in the community.

ix) Appreciate and respect peoples culture and norms and see how you could work within
these. (For example, the newly introduced rite of passage activities as opposed to
FGM)

x) Avoid being seen as a rival so as to keep opposition at bay until you have learnt how to
handle it.

111
II) Community Situational Analysis: Factors to Identify for Community Analysis

Class Activity:

Why is it necessary to do a Community Situational Analysis?

Who should do the CSA and why?

What factors do we need to identify?

Note

d) It is important that any community study is an empowering tool for the community
involved.
For far too long, communities have been studied, they never see the study report, and
many times the study was never meant for the communitys benefit.
e) Help the community identify both its assets and liabilities.

(Why is this crucial as an empowering process?)

f) We need to collect both hard and soft data. However, in many situations, only the hard
data get identified. We need to also identify the soft data.

4) The hard data:

vii) Political/administrative situation (How is the community led? Who are the different
categories of leaders? What are the powers of each and how do they relate?)
viii) Demographic details population size and how it is stratified (what proportion is
made of dependent children and the aged, wage earners, men and women, etc)
ix) Economic situation availability of various natural resources, e.g. rich agricultural
land, minerals, tourism attractions, produce, trade, interactions, etc

112
 x) Social stratification and cultural details relations between men and women,
religions and their interactions, relations between various communities (ethnic,
cultural, religious, etc)
xi) Education access to education by all; organization and quality of that education;
value given to being educated, etc.
xii) Health and sanitation the general well-being of the people; access to health services,
quality of that service, etc.

5) The soft data

iv) Peoples general articulateness on issues facing them and also possible solutions
v) Their general readiness for change, that would be
positively influenced by their level of education and general empowerment, and
negatively influenced by their conservatism, lack of political space in the country, etc
vi) The level of peoples emotions and commitment to whatever cause, especially matters of
value and survival (their driving forces)

Class Activity

To compare the ideas above on soft data with those expressed by Paulo Freire on various levels
of consciousness

6) Survey of Community Developmental Needs

Through Participatory Action Research, do a thorough survey of the communitys
developmental and learning needs. "Essentially Participatory Action Research (PAR) has
the following features:
f) It is research which involves all relevant parties in actively examining together
current action (which they experience as problematic) in order to change and improve
it.
g) They do this by critically reflecting on the historical, political, cultural, economic,
geographic and other contexts which make sense of it.
h) As opposed to other types of research that are hoped to be followed by action, PAR
is action which is researched, changed and re-researched, within the research process
by participants.
i) As opposed to researches done by experts and consultants, PAR is active co-research,
by and for those to be helped and tries to be a genuinely democratic or non-coercive
process whereby those to be helped, determine the purposes and outcomes of their
own inquiry

113
j) Done this way, there is very high likelihood that the recommendations of the research
will be implemented as they will be tackling genuine community needs that have
been identified by the people themselves.

(See more notes on PAR as attachment)

114
Lecture 11

Techniques of Community Analysis and Mobilization

Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

11.1 Introduction

We continue to explore techniques of community analysis and mobilization. In this lecture we

will explore the work of Abraham Maslow, especially his five-stage Hierarchy of Needs that has
been extensively employed in understanding human motivation, management training, and
personal development. In our specific situation, we will interrogate this theorys relevance to
community mobilization for own development.

11.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture you should be able to

d) diagrammatically demonstrate Maslows five-stage

hierarchy of needs
e) explain the applicability of the hierarchy of needs theory
in everyday life
f) demonstrate the relevance of the hierarchy of needs theory
in community development

11.3 Development of the 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs model

Most, if not all, of us have come across Abraham Maslows famous 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs
model. He developed his model based on the 1940-50's USA situation by initially studying
rhesus monkeys. The theory, first published in 1954, remains valid today for understanding
human motivation, management training, and personal development. For example, the

115
responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables
employees to fulfill their own unique potential (self-actualization) are today more relevant than
ever.

Maslow's Motivation and Personality, published in 1954 (second edition 1970) introduced the
Hierarchy of Needs. He extended his ideas in other works, notably his later book Toward a
Psychology of Being, later revised in recent times by Richard Lowry, who is in his own right a
leading academic in the field of motivational psychology.

The 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs model is as shown below. As the model is hierarchical and
logical, it is easy to understand and to memorize. It is suggested that you do just that.

The 5-stage Hierarchy of Needs

vi) Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.
vii) Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

116
viii) Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

ix) Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance,

prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

x) Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal

growth and peak experiences.

11.4 Adaptation of the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

The Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs model has been extended through interpretation of his work
by other people, though it is not clear in literature as to who did the adaptation. For example, in
1970s, two new needs were added as follows:

Number 5: Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc; and

Number 6: Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc

Again, in the 1990s, Number 8: Transcendence needs was added

Hence, the adapted Hierarchy of Needs would read as below:

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige,

managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Cognitive needs - knowledge, meaning, etc.

6. Aesthetic needs - appreciation and search for beauty, balance, form, etc.

7. Self-Actualization needs - realizing personal potential, self-fulfillment, seeking personal

growth and peak experiences.

8. Transcendence needs - helping others to achieve self actualization.

A closer study of the new additions will reveal that there is actually nothing new and hence the
original model remains quite adequate for its purpose. Arguably, the original five-level model

117
includes the later additional sixth, seventh and eighth ('Cognitive', 'Aesthetic', and
'Transcendence') levels within the original 'Self-Actualization' level 5, since each one of the 'new'
motivators concerns an area of self-development and self-fulfillment that is rooted in self-
actualization 'growth', and is distinctly different to any of the previous 1-4 level 'deficiency'
motivators. For many people, self-actualizing commonly involves each and every one of the newly
added drivers. As such, the original five-level Hierarchy of Needs model remains a definitive
classical representation of human motivation; and the later adaptations perhaps serve best to
illustrate aspects of self-actualization. (www.businessballs.com website)

11.5 Interpreting Maslows Theory

Each of us is motivated by needs. Our most basic needs are inborn, having evolved over tens of
thousands of years. Of course other needs arise as we go through life. Abraham Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs helps to explain how these needs motivate us all.

d) Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs states that we satisfy our needs cumulatively: starting with the
first need that deals with the most obvious needs for survival itself.
e) Only when the lower order needs of physical and emotional well-being are satisfied are we
concerned with the higher order needs of influence and personal development.

f) Conversely, if the things that satisfy our lower order needs are swept away, we are no longer
concerned about the maintenance of our higher order needs.

11.6 Activity

From experience, record in your notebook possible experiences

that could overturn the tables so that one is forced to come down
the ladder of needs.

As it concerns the activity in 11.6, we hope that you recorded job loss, loss of spouses or general
providers, accidents and even civil commotions that may highly reduce ones material or
emotional situation. Under such circumstances, one would normally revert to satisfying ones
basic needs and hope to move up the ladder again when the situation changes.

118
11.6 The complexity of human nature

The common broad-brush interpretation of Maslow's famous theory suggests that once a
particular need is satisfied the person moves onto the next higher level need, and to a large extent
this is entirely correct. We have also noted in Lectures 3 and 4 two important things:

c) that a community needs to see itself developing as time goes by; and also
d) That when this happens, the community is motivated to keep contributing time and other
resources to sustain this upward development.

However, we know something else: human nature and its motivational sets are very complex. As
such, an overly rigid interpretation and application of the hierarchy of needs model will produce
a rigid analysis, and certainly go against common sense.

11.7 Need for flexibility in interpreting the hierarchy of needs model

So while it is broadly true that people move up (or down) the hierarchy, depending on what's
happening to them in their lives, it is also true that most people's motivational 'set' at any time
comprises elements of all of the motivational drivers.

Let us give a number of examples:

d) Self-actualizers (at Level 5) are mainly focused on self-actualizing but are still motivated to
eat (Level 1) and to socialize (Level 3).
e) Similarly, homeless folk whose main focus is feeding themselves (Level 1) and finding
shelter for the night (Level 2) can also be, albeit to a lesser extent, still concerned with social
relationships (Level 3), how their friends perceive them (Level 4), and even the meaning of
life (Level 5).

This idea of being in Level 5 for those persons who in all other ways should be in Level 1
deserves a little more thought.

Can we say that despite being poor and needy, the people at the lower levels still
consider themselves humans with their dignity also intact? If, for example, they were
Christians, (or belonged to other religions with similar beliefs) they would certainly
consider themselves to have been made in the image of God: this in spite of the quite
unacceptable conditions in which they find themselves.
What would you say about the beggar who, although he accepts the miserable K.shs
five (5) that you place in his plate, still gives a contemptuous looks obviously asking
what you think he could buy with that amount in todays Kenya?

119
 And a bit of digression that is certainly a key theme in these lecture series: should the
realization of this truth about the humanity of the other person not be a motivating
factor for those better endowed to actively participate in helping these other Gods
creatures get out of their misery? paltry

f) It is also true that many poor people with little to themselves (Level 1) have gone out of their
way to selflessly and meaningfully help others certainly a self-actualization (Level 5)
behavior. For example, how would you classify the obviously poor rural mothers who always
had food in their homes for whoever came visiting?

It is for such considerations that, like any model that tries to interpret a complex subject such as
human behaviour, Maslow's model is not a fully responsive system. It is however a guide that
requires some interpretation and thought, given which, it remains extremely useful and
applicable for understanding, explaining and handling many human behaviour situations.

11.8 Relevance of the Maslows model to community development

Let us now conclude this lecture by considering the relevance of the hierarchy of needs model to
community development. The section will affirm some facts we already know besides bringing
in new ones.

11.8.1 The desire to improve ones quality of life

It is human nature for an individual or a community to desire to improve its quality of life as
time goes by. We have also said that people will work hard to realize this desire. People also
seem to admire those they perceive as better off than they are and hence desire or wish to be like
them.

In text Question

Based on this truth, then what needs to be done to motivate the

community?

120
It is suggested that a reasonable answer to the above question is to present to the struggling
community successful role models for it to emulate. For example, visits to see what communities
are doing; discussions with other successful communities, etc could help. Such role modeling
should be within the communitys means: anything beyond the communitys means would most
likely de-motivate the people.

11.8.2 A highly felt need

People are also motivated to work towards achieving a need that they feel they have. The more
acutely they feel the need the more willing they are to work towards meeting that need. It is for
this reason that communities should be exposed to experiences that could in a reasonable time
earn the community a higher value than it currently have.

Activity

In your note book write possible exposures of value that you could suggest
to a community known to you to motivate it to forgo something today
for a better future

We have an example or two for you.

Forgoing cutting down trees for charcoal burning and replanting forests for the future
survival.
Investing in children education instead of using the children as cheap labour at home for
a more educated future labour force
Investing in girls education to ensure better care of communitys children

11.8.3 Communities are at different levels of development

We now invite you to revisit Lecture 6 on Freires three (3) levels of awareness. What did we
learn in Lecture 6 that is relevant to this section of our lecture?
We learnt that different communities (or even members of the same community) will be
at different levels of development and awareness at any one time.
We learnt that a communitys behavoiur is heavily influenced by first its history and
second by various forces around it.

121
In such circumstances, we expect that a community will most likely behave differently not only
from other communities, but, even more telling, also from your expectation as a community
development officer. It is for such reasons then that it would be unreasonable to expect a
community that is struggling with its basic survival to be enthusiastic about altruistic pursuits
such as
value of a vote,
environmental degradation, or
World peace.

Likewise, it should not surprise you to see some well-off communities petitioning the local
authorities to close footpaths through their neighbourhoods for security reasons!

11.8.4 Lessons for the community development worker

Let us now conclude this lecture with the following two points.
a) For effectiveness, a community development worker needs to note the bear in mind the facts
about the complexity of human nature as he/she interacts with the community. Failure to do so
will result in his/her frustration and also most likely being a stumbling block to the communitys
empowerment and own development.

But we also know something more positive. With the appropriate support such as provision of
enabling conditions and removal of hindering ones; and also provision of financial and technical
support), the community is however not only willing, but also able to uplift itself.

11.8.5 Summary

In this lecture we have discussed A. Maslows five stage hierarchy of

needs model and noted its great relevance in analyzing and also
mobilizing communities for their own development. We have however
cautioned that, since human beings and their motivational sets are
complex, community development workers should interpret the model
flexibly.

www.businessballs.com website.

11.8.6 Questions
a) Without referring to your notes, draw and label Maslows 5-stage model of hierarchy
of needs

122
b) Discuss the relevance of the model to community development paying particular attention to
the complexity of human nature and its motivational set.

123
LESSON 7: CHARACRERISTICS OF AN EMPOWERED COMMUNITY

7.1 Introduction

Other than its definition, we have also noted in previous lectures three important facts about
empowerment, and these are:

d) Empowerment is a process that takes time;

e) Every human experience has a contribution to make towards that empowerment; and that
f) While individuals and communities are at the end of the day responsible for their own
empowerment, external inputs too have value.

In this lecture we will be discussing characteristics of an empowered community over time;

communitys role in its own development; and also the role of external input, especially that of
peoples government, in this empowerment process.

7.2 Objectives

By the end of this lecture, you should be able to

d) explain the characteristics of an empowered community

e) discuss the role of the people in their won empowerment;
and
f) Discuss what should be the role of the government (and
donors) in support of the people in their own empowerment.

124
7.3 Characteristics of an empowered community

There are four characteristics that an empowered person or community should display. These
characteristics are progressive in their arrangement and hence it should be easy to remember
them. The four characteristics are

e) the ability to understand ones reality and to analyze the factors that shape that reality;
f) the ability to decide what one wants to be;
g) the willingness to act to change the situation for the better; and
h) The ability to ensuring sustainability of those efforts.

Let us now consider these one by one. As we have said previously, you should not be surprised to
discover that you have covered some of these facts in one way or another during previous
lectures.

7.3.1 The ability to understand ones reality and to analyze the factors that shape that
reality

Many times communities, or even individuals, do not know who they are; and it is rare that they
would take time off to think about such an issue. Perhaps we are all too busy with living our
normal lives and for some this living is such struggle to make ends meet that the kind of
thinking proposed here would look a mere luxury. Others may be living in what psychologists
call a state of denial, that is the state of refusing to accept ones reality.

Perhaps a review of Freires three levels of awareness levels at which we all fall might help
us clarify our realities to some extent.

a) Do those at the magic level of awareness know that although they look so dependent and that
their bosses seem and pose to be powerful that these bosses are also totally dependent on
them? Do they know that if united they have power no system can withstand?

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b) Do those at the nave level of awareness accept that they are mere servants of faceless and
brutal forces and systems and that they are totally dispensable? Do they also accept that due to
their privileged positions as managers in these foreign establishments, one of their key
responsibilities is to empower their subordinates to also climb the ladder?

c) Do those at the critical level of awareness accept that they too still have a lot to learn? Yet, for
them, if they worked in unity and not as lone do-gooders, the sky is the limit, their possibilities
are limitless and that together they could turn this world around?

At whatever level, this understanding and acceptance of ones reality, is the first step in a journey
to empowerment.

7.3.2 The factors that shape our reality

An empowered community should have the ability to identify the following two crucial factors
that shape their reality:

its historical setting; and

The resultant social/cultural/economic system in which the community find itself.

7.3.2.1 Historical Setting

A community needs to understand its history past and also recent and how this has shaped its
reality. Let us take us Africans as an example of such a community in search of its reality.

d) It would be nave to dismiss colonialism (sometimes even the centuries ago slavery)
when considering the African reality. That history has been an important factor in shaping
not only our economic situation and relations between and among Africans and also with
other human beings, but even more crucially these past forces have also greatly
influenced how we take ourselves contributing especially to the reduced self-esteem as
a people; looking down on our institutions, religion and culture; and also the wholesale
adoption and love of anything foreign.

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 e) Our reality is also shaped by the way we have behaved as nations in the recent past, say,
since independence beginning in late 1950s. While this reality could not escape the
influence of our past history and also interference from external sources, it is the greed
and incompetence by our leadership at various levels that have been responsible for the
mismanagement of our politics and economies: and these are recent happenings. It might
be annoying to be reminded often that while the world economy grew by an average of
almost 2% per year between 1960 and 2002, that of Africa was negative for two full
decades between 1974 and mid-1990s. (Maathai W 2010, p.48). There has been no
recovery of note.

f) Earlier in Lecture 3 we discussed how, through misguided development policies, peoples

unprecedented development efforts in animal husbandry, agriculture, human health,
community development, care of the environment, etc in Kenya just fizzled away during
the period Maathai is talking about. This is our reality: we need to face it honestly as
squarely.

7.3.2.2 Social/cultural/economic situation

The second crucial factor in shaping a peoples reality is the social/cultural/economic situation in
which they find themselves.
e) Material resources: A community needs to explore the level of such material resources at
its command. In the Kenyan case, it would be sensible to consider the availability of good
fertile land for farming; water resources for farming and animal husbandry; mineral
resources for industrial development; wildlife, warm beaches, etc for local and foreign
tourism and enjoyment; etc.

f) The human resource: The community needs to look not only at the numbers of its human
resource but also at the quality of this crucial resource. Such numbers and quality need to
be synchronized with community current needs and also plans put in place to ensure
satisfaction of immediate future needs.

g) Technology/educational/health/water and sanitation: their availability, quality and equity

in distribution; including the communitys ability to acquire these resources as needed.
These factors give a community a quality life that makes general development possible.
Equity in resources distribution is a major contributor to community peace: a crucial
ingredient in community life and development.

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 h) Community unity of purpose and readiness for change: How well community members
are exposed to each other; the opportunities offered to both men and women to reach their
potential; whether all religious, ethnic and whatever other groupings are pulling to the
same direction; members readiness to accept and experiment with new technology and
ideas and also to let retrogressive ones go; and what could be the hindering and helping
forces in this effort.

A study of these factors enables the community to look at it reality in a holistic manner, that is,
taking all factors in consideration in a balanced manner without undue assumptions/deceptions,
etc. An empowered community tells itself the truth about itself!

7.3.3 The ability to decide what the community wants to be

The ability to decide what one wants to be is the third aspect of an empowered community. Such
a community should have the ability to take three related actions:

d) The first action is to review its reality. If a community wishes to move on, its first reality is to
accept that its current situation is unsatisfactory, and to know why this is so. It will be asking
question such as:
Where are we now?
Why are we where we are?

e) Secondly, the community should be in a position to define developmental goals and to put
together a development plan to achieve this. Its questions include:
Where do we want to go?
What are our development goals?

f) Thirdly, the community should have the ability to execute that plan; and as we have already
agreed, by first utilizing its own resources (human and material) as this is the only way to
guarantee sustainability. At this level of its development, the community should be asking
itself:
What are the factors in our favour?
Who amongst us has the needed competence for this or that task?
What are the barriers that would prevent us from reaching those goals?

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We will revert to this SWOT analysis in a future lecture.

7.3.4 The willingness to act to change the situation for the better

The planning we have discussed above is normally a paper exercise, normally done in the office.
The community now needs action at the field level. Such action should generally be done
collectively, through community organization and action, e.g.
through development of savings and consumer cooperatives to raise resources,
trade unions and other community-based groups; and

The organization of peaceful mass action, demonstrations, etc where

necessary.
7.3.4.1 In text Question

Why do you think it is advisable to have collective

action rather than individual effort?

There are two reasons that it is advisable to act together rather than individually.
a) Such collective effort is more effective and is normally more sustainable, that is, longer
lasting.
b) It is also safer in case of an action against stronger forces e.g.
government or employers. Violence against demonstration, threats to sack
any strikers, including actual sacking, are real. But where numbers are
large, employers cannot afford to take too drastic an action else the whole
industry would be paralyzed.

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 7.3.4.2 Take note

There is no record in the world where the people, united for a just
purpose, ever failed even against brutal forces: think of the civil
rights movement in USA; struggle against colonialism; or, even
more recently, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

The question then is how motivated and empowered the communities are to take collective
action on matters they feel are important to their lives. It is not whether they can.
7.3.5 The ability to ensuring sustainability of those efforts

The ability to ensure sustainability of community efforts towards its empowerment is out final
aspect. This is best guaranteed by

self-reliance and dependence on oneself; and on

The utilization of the available community resources; for the benefit of all, rather than
benefiting only a few.

7.3.5.1 Take note

Dependency on others for empowerment is dangerous since the

one who pays chooses the tune. It does not matter who the
benefactors are, be it government or donors: they will always wish
to direct how their resources are utilized

7.4 ROLE OF GOVERNMENT AND DONORS

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We have said several times in these lectures that only people can develop themselves. To this
end, we have shown that taking development to the people or an attempt to develop others is a
philosophical fallacy. We have also said that the people should as much as possible use their own
resources to develop themselves; and we have given reasons why this is important.

However, communities, especially in the poorer parts of the country, will of course require
various kinds of support from the government and external donors to realize the development
goals that they have themselves set.

7.4.1 In text Question

If only the people can develop themselves, and basically using

their own resources, then what should be the role of government
in peoples development?

The government and donors have only two real roles.

7.4.2 Creation of an enabling environment for self-development

The first role is to create an enabling environment for the people to develop themselves and to
also remove external hindering forces. To this end, the government should create

progressive and non-intrusive regulations and laws that stimulate development

Security
Education opportunities including progressive extension and advisory services
Employment opportunities
Access to affordable credit
Access to local and external markets for produce (markets themselves, means of
communication such as telephones and passable roads)
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7.4.3 Provision of technical and financial resources for self-development

The second role of the government and donors is to provide the necessary technical and financial
resources for development. Such provision however should be as per conditions below.

7.4.4 Take note

Such provision of development resources and also technical

services is not a favour to the people. The people have a contract
with their government for provision of various services, paid for
from the peoples own taxes

7.4.5 Government/donor assistance should be empowering

However, for people to develop themselves, to ensure sustainability while avoiding creation of
the culture of dependency, the following conditions that would guarantee community
empowerment should be adhered to:

v) Government and donor support should be determined by the people: people must get only
what they need, not what others think they should get;
vi) Government/donor support to be proportional to what people can support or sustain nothing
too grandiose or white elephants, or projects that people are forced to maintain at huge costs
though benefits are doubtful;
vii) Government/donor support should be the last resort, in other words, such support should be
requested for only when the community has exhausted what it has from its own resources;
viii) Government/donor support should be catalytic, that is, stimulator of development. As
such, the support should be for starting off and hence for a limited duration only so that the
people can resort to self-reliance.

7.5 People must contribute

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No community is without resources for its own development! This bold assertion seems
supported by common sense: else a community with nothing would not be in existence! We
suggest two broad ways in which a community could contribute to its own development projects.
a) To avoid dependency, even when external support is available, the community must contribute
its own portion. Often poor communities have difficulties raising real cash: however, such
communities have plenty of labour and physical materials that they can bring forward for their
own development.

b) Another general principle is that of ownership: the community must own the project and be
committed to it from the word go.

7.5.1 In text Questions

a) What do you think the concept of ownership entails?

b) If you owned a cow, what would be your expectations from the

cow; and

c) To achieve your expectations, what would be your responsibility to

the cow?

7.5.2 The concept of ownership

The in-text questions should lead you to agreeing that ownership has two related aspects:

a) The first is the expectation that the project will provide benefits (actual goodies such as daily
milk from the cow or even mere satisfaction of owning such a beautiful cow) to the community.

b) The second aspect has to do with community responsibility for the community to ensure that
the project performs at its optimum so as to satisfy the expectations. The cow must be properly

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fed and given all care necessary for a good life: it is only then that maximum production should
be expected.

7.5.3 Responsibility for community-based projects

As far as community projects are concerned, the following responsibilities are necessary:

d) The community will protect the projects from vandalism. In many of our societies, we
find, for example, school windows vandalized obviously by members of the same
communities. This is a sure sign that the community never thought of the school as theirs.

e) The community will ensure the completion of the started project, for example, if external
resources dried up prematurely. If the project was to size, and, even more importantly,
was of value to the community, this completion should not be impossible though it might
now take longer as it will require reorganization of available community resources.

f) The community will ensure that the projects are sustained, e.g. supply of spare parts for
tractors, vehicles, etc; supply of drugs if the project is a dispensary; repairs for buildings,
etc. Often, when projects are imposed from external sources, communities would wait for
the donor to rectify even small things that the community could have done itself.

7.6 Summary

In this lecture we have looked at four characteristics of an empowered

community. We have agreed that empowerment should be based on
self-reliance so as to avoid dependency syndrome and the resultant
control of community affairs by external forces. We have finally
discussed the concept of ownership and spelt out its two aspects:
expectations and responsibility

References
134
Maathai W. The Challenge for Africa (Arrow Books, London 2010)

In your groups or individually answer the following question:

Based on examples from Kenya and elsewhere, discuss why the notion of taking development to
the people is a fallacy

LESSON 8: SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

8.1 Introduction

Our world is faced with many challenges that include climate change, loss of biodiversity, abject
poverty and environmental degradation. That drastic steps need to be taken by all governments,
international agencies and individuals - to reverse this trend, is obvious. This lecture on
sustainable development discusses these challenges and the possible solutions to reverse the
destructive trend. The lecture urges that we learn from our past and that we have new faith in the
well-tried practices that have sustained our local communities for centuries.

8.2 Objectives
By the end of this lecture you should be able to
a) Explain the fragility of the earth and the need to protect it
b) Define sustainable development
c) Describe possible strategies to ensure sustainability of the earth

8.3 From One Earth to One World

In mid 20th C, we saw our planet from space for the first time. We noted that our earth, the solar
system, and even our galaxy are not at the centre of the universe, thus confirming the heliocentric
model view of the world that was proposed in the 1543 Nicolas Copernicus Revolution of
Celestial Spheres, as shown in 8.4.

8.4 Our earth in the solar system: the heliocentric model

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The Copernicus revolution challenged the centrality of the Earth and, by extension, of human
beings; leading to the realization that we, our planet, and indeed our solar system (and even our
galaxy) are quite common in the heavens and reproduced by myriads of planetary systems. The
medieval philosophy that put man next to God and hence superior to all creatures, an even gave
him dominion over them, has proved disastrous to the earth's environment as any casual observer
of the 20th century might confirm by simply looking about.

8.6 Our small and fragile earth

We present here below the earth (only the western hemisphere as it would be impossible to show
a full sphere on a flat plain) as taken from space.

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8.7 Activity
Look at the photograph of the earth from space
(showing the western hemisphere).

a) Write down what you see dominating the earth?

b) Compare what you see in the photo and what

you would see if you walked about your
neighbourhood.

137
But what did we actually see from space?

As the Brundtland Commission report of 1987 would record, we saw that ours is a small and
fragile ball dominated not by human activity and edifice; but by a pattern of clouds, oceans,
greenery and soils. Obviously, these elements have moved in harmony for eternity.

However, when you move around your neighbourhood, you will notice a lot of human
interference and obvious inability for the human to fit its activities into that harmonious pattern
and thus causing many changes that are accompanied by life-threatening hazards.

This destruction of nature arises from two rather unfortunate assumptions that are related:
a) That man was supreme and hence he could use and misuse nature as he wishes obviously
still a medieval thinking in the 21st Century.
b) The second assumption is that to conquer nature rather than to live in harmony with her
was mans mission.

This is our new (but regrettable) reality, from which there is no escape. We need to recognized
this reality and do whatever it takes to manage it.

Our reality: a taste of the disaster (Give actual dates)

The World Commission on Environment and Development first met in October 1984, and
published its Report 900 days later, in April 1987. Over those few days:
g) The drought-triggered, environment-development crisis in Africa peaked with over 36
million people at risk, killing perhaps a million.
h) A leak from a pesticides factory in Bhopal, India left over 2,000 dead; while over 200,000
more were left blinded and injured.
i) Liquid gas tanks explode in Mexico City: 1,000 dead and 1000s left homeless.
j) The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion in Russia: nuclear fallout across Europe,
increasing the risks of future human cancers.
k) Agricultural chemicals, solvents, and mercury flowed into the Rhine River during a
warehouse fire in Switzerland: millions of fish dead; drinking water in the Federal
Republic of Germany and the Netherlands threatened.
l) All over the world, an estimated 60 million people (mostly children) died of diarrhoeal
diseases due to unsafe drinking water and malnutrition through our own misguided
activities

The 3rd world has suffered most

138
While the disasters recorded above were all over the world, it is known that usually it is the poor
and the marginalized in the countries hit by such disaster who suffer most. For example, when in
2005, the Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in Texas, in the United States; it was the poor
blacks who lived in the flooding-prone lower parts of the city and who did not have independent
means of transport to escape who suffered most.

It is the same story all over the world. The Brundtland report noted that, against common
thinking, poverty in the developing world was not the cause but was more a consequence of a
number of factors, key of them being
d) Contemporary environmental degradation mainly caused by misguided economic policies
of greed that pauperized people and natural systems.
e) Insensitive technology transfer (uncontrolled use of pesticides; building of big dams that
displace millions of families besides taking their water to capital cities; etc)
f) Unequal consumption coupled with exploitation of resources all over the world
without regard for others

If the entire world's people were to live like North Americans, a planet four times as large
would be needed. Only 'sustainable' development could blend the fulfillment of human needs
with the protection of air, soil, water and all forms of life - from which, ultimately, planetary
stability was inseparable.
(see also Friedman
UNESCO web site Decade for Ed for sustainable development

In recent years, socialist countries such as Cuba have come to understand and take the lead in the
struggle for sustainable development. This is exemplified by Fidel Castro's address to the Rio
Summit in 1992: "The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Every year thousands
of millions of tons of fertile soil end up in the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct.
Population pressures and poverty trigger frenzied efforts to survive even when it is at the expense
of the environment. It is not possible to blame the Third World countries for this ... Unequal
terms of trade, protectionism, and the foreign debt assault the ecology and promote the
destruction of the environment. If we want to save mankind from this self-destruction, we have
to better distribute the wealth and technologies available in the world."

g)
Now a new generation of environmental worries - global warming, deforestation, species
loss, and toxic wastes - had begun to capture scientific and popular attention. The world's
natural resources were being rapidly depleted, often in the name of development, but the
poverty this development was supposed to correct was as widespread as ever.

139
And it was not they who were consuming the Earth's supply of fossil fuels, warming the
globe with their carbon emissions, depleting its ozone layer with their CFCs, poisoning soil
and water with their chemicals, or wreaking ecological havoc with their oil spills. In fact,
their consumption of the world's resources was minute compared to that of the
industrialized world

A Misguided and Disastrous Notion of Development

A lot of thinking about development, especially in the developing countries before the 1980s, has
mainly been about increasing production. This very materialistic, narrowly economist and also
patriarchal and paternalistic notion of development has been misguided thinking for a number of
reasons.

First, there is an assumption that man could use resources as if they were inexhaustible.

b) It is based on the assumption that some countries and some people are already developed, and
that therefore they know what needs to be done and, that is, to extend developed from the
developed to the underdeveloped. In Lecture 3, we discussed the whole philosophy of extension
and we agreed that it is fallacious and demeaning. Development cannot be extended.

c) The thinking also treats the educated well-to-do elites as subjects of development and as the
know-ers and do-ers, while the ordinary people are objects or targets of development.

Take note

Target is a military term. A target is an object one aims at with a

weapon. The target is not a participant in the decision that it be
targeted; it has no choice on the kind of weapon to be used on it;
and obviously the whole exercise was not meant for the objects
benefit.

This section of the lecture sees no difference between the

philosophy behind the misguided notion of development that we
are discussing and a military exercise.

Top down notion of development

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A development based on such philosophy is inevitably top down. It concentrates on devoting
undue amount of resources on the strong and already privileged, and believing (or, at least
making others believe) and hoping that the benefits of development of the rich will trickle down
to the poor.

However, many studies have proven that the benefits of development never trickle down.
Instead, and in many cases, the benefits actually percolate up. It is no longer necessary to justify
that the gap between the rich and the poor be it between countries or between individuals
persons instead of becoming narrower, has been widening; and also that the power of the elite,
instead of becoming less, was becoming more. In fact what the elite, be it at the inter-national,
corporate or inter-personal level, has done is what Friedman (2009) refers to as privatizing gains
and socializing losses (p.19).

Intext Question

a) What do you think Friedman is talking about?

b) What local examples do you have of the

phenomenon of privatizing gains and socializing
losses or privatizing consumption and socializing
the payment for the consumption?

Compare your thinking with what follows.

In privatizing gains and socializing losses, the elite would ensure that the public that includes
people of very modest means pay for the greedy consumption of the well to do. This is exactly
what happened in USA and also in other countries in 2008 when governments (read the taxpayer)
had to bail out large financial institutions whose collapse would have impoverished the small
investor even more than they did. Yet as their companies sank, the directors still got their
terminal golden parachutes to jump off. It is the shareholders and the tax payers who paid the
bill. It is the same thinking that makes the Members of Parliament in Kenya vote themselves
huge salary increases and at the same time refuse to pay taxes like all other employed persons.
Their salaries are personal but the people will have to raise the necessary taxes for this
expenditure.

h) Obviously the top down/ trickle down notion of development was not working
c) Hence, new thinking needed challenging past assumptions and asserting:

141
The need for peoples participation; that the people have to be the makers of their own destiny;
that development could not be and will not be extended; and also the need for structural changes
of the politics of development.

Sustainable development
a) Thus the concept of 'sustainable development; defined as social and economic advancement
to assure (present) human beings a healthy and productive life, but one that did not compromise
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
b) Where people especially the poor can build a future that is more prosperous, more just,
and more secure based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base;
c) in which we see the world as an interdependent system that connects space (pollution in North
America could affecting air quality in Asia); and a system that connects time (economic policies
of today will have adverse effects on lives of generations to come).

Scheme of sustainable development: at the confluence of three constituent parts

142
Our Common Future: the Brundtland Commission

Sustainable development: together we can do it

The problems are complex and serious: created by us in a rather selfish-dont care manner.
But that was yesterday: today we must act; and we have the capacity knowing that the solution is
collective effort; with assurances that we are all in it together; with sufficient control on each
other to keep our selfishness at bay.

Need to have a long term responsibility for our actions we have to return the earth to our
children better than we got it.

But, while governments and the world bodies do their own thing, there is the need to empower
grassroots not only to act responsibly, but to also create appropriate local groups to monitor the
big boys and to raise the alarm as necessary

b) Learning from the past

The new ideas about sustainable development are still controlled elsewhere: greed and self-
interest control the world. No Marshall Plan for Africa; Hullaballoo about China; Misgivings
about Unites States of Africa; etc. Hence the need for Africa to be self-reliant, and ask herself
searching questions, based on its experience.

Some questions

What could be alternative models that could lead to sustainable development and holistic
development a development that creates as it uses? a development that benefits all? What can
we do to protect our common interests? How do we empower the local levels to take charge of
own development?

The development tree

We now know that development is like a tree. A tree of development must grow from below
upwards; it cannot be imposed from above; it can only fully survive and fully grow if it has been
143
selected to suit the local conditions, the local atmosphere. It must also draw its sustenance
locally; it cannot live on distant feeding and nurturing.

Activity
On a large manila paper, draw and label a
development tree

Lessons from the local level

We know that the ordinary and toiling women and men not only want to, but also can participate
in their own development if they can decide what this development should be. We know that they
can be effective leaders and planners of their own development; we know that once their
creativity is unleashed it cannot be contained.

Empowering the powerless

Development essentially means the powerless getting empowered. As power comes through
unity, development means the poor getting organized to fight for their rights; the poor tilting the
balance of power in their own favour; local people controlling local resources; and equitable
distribution of all available resources.

Holistic development
a) Development also means respecting diversity, thus providing for the growth of self-reliant
communities; decentralization of power at all levels; and democratization of families,
communities, societies and nations.
b) Development also has to be integrated and multi dimensional thus requiring linkages,
networking and solidarity between and among like-minded people doing different things.

c) Development must also mean the abandonment of relentless pursuit for surplus and looking
instead for sustainability; being more preoccupied with search for qualitative changes instead of
quantitative ones; that even more critically - we shift the focus from a developmental
philosophy dominated and directed by male , to a women centered development. (difference?)

144
 Redefinition Of The Role Of Voluntary Organizations

a) With the new understanding of development, the role and activities of the supportive voluntary
organizations changes too.
b) From being preoccupied with direct delivery of services to helping people create their own
organizations; in order to define their own development plans, and to get their rightful share in
resources and decision making.

c) To be watchdogs vis--vis mainstream development, thus influencing government policies and

legislations.
d) Through their experiments, to continue proving that participatory development is possible,
that the poor are more than capable of running their own lives, of planning their own
development.
e) To keep proving that poor rural women are the best managers of scarce resources, and that
once unleashed, the creativity and potential of ordinary men and women is extra-ordinary.

g) To challenge those development policies and programs that marginalized the poor further, that
cause damage to the environment, and that further empower the rich.
(E.g. Wangaris opposition of Nyayo monument at Uhuru Park; struggles against big dams,
missiles bases in India, demos against rearming in South Africa, etc)

a) These are significant and necessary shifts. For, if development itself becomes like an elephant
that destroys nature, that tramples on small people, and that wipes out diversity;
b) Then, instead of forever trying to rehabilitate the victims, it is necessary to stop the elephant
from creating havoc.

c) There are many examples in the world where people power has stopped the elephant from
destroying them and it too.

One just needs to read this powerful statement by Bishop Tutu to the Minister of Bantu Affairs

I told Mr. Volk: You know you have lost.You know it from your own history. You believed you
were being oppressed by the British; you fought against the British and in the end you became
free. The lesson you must have learned from your own history is that when people decide to be
free, nothing, just nothing, absolutely nothing can stop them. (Allen J (p 302)

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 Web: mind tools rs forcefield

Teaching and learning for a Sustainable Future, UNESCO 2005

A sustainable community is far-seeing enough, flexible enough, and wise enough to

maintain its natural, economic, social, and political support systems.

This is how the city of Olympia in the USA defines a sustainable community. The people of neighbouring
Thurston County define it this way:

A sustainable community continues to thrive from generation to generation because it has:

A healthy and diverse ecological system that continually performs life sustaining
functions and provides other resources for humans and other species

A social foundation that provides for the health of all community members,
respects cultural diversity, is equitable in its actions, and considers the needs of
future generations

A healthy and diverse economy that adapts to change, provides long-term security
to residents, and recognizes social and ecological limits.

Group Assignment
Development is like a tree, says Kamla Bhasin.
On a large manila paper, draw and label such a development tree.
On one page, justify your answer

References
Friedman, T.L Hot, Flat and Overcrowded, Penguin Books, London, 2009

Our Common Future: the Brundtland Commission, (Report of the World

Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987) (retrieved 4

(Sustainable development for all in Collapse of Soviet Union, 1989-1991 retrieved

27.5.2010

146
John Allen: Desmond Tutu: Rabble-Rouser for Peace, by p302

In recent years, socialist countries such as Cuba have come to understand and take the lead in the
struggle for sustainable development. This is exemplified by Fidel Castro's address to the Rio
Summit in 1992: "The forests are disappearing. The deserts are expanding. Every year thousands
of millions of tons of fertile soil end up in the sea. Numerous species are becoming extinct.
Population pressures and poverty trigger frenzied efforts to survive even when it is at the expense
of the environment. It is not possible to blame the Third World countries for this ... Unequal
terms of trade, protectionism, and the foreign debt assault the ecology and promote the
destruction of the environment. If we want to save mankind from this self-destruction, we have
to better distribute the wealth and technologies available in the world." (Sustainable development
for all in Collapse of Soviet Union, 1989-1991 retrieved 27.5.2010

References

(Our Common Future: the Brundtland Commission, 1987)

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