Marie Weil & Mikki Sager
School of Social Work, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Presentation for Institute of Social Work and Research Students,
University of Pune, Ahmednagar
January 22, 2014
C-B Social Planning
–
™ Does Community-Based
Social Planning Matter
to INDIA?
We will explore this in the Presentation
C-B SP Engages Community Practitioners Directly
With Community Members:
–
In Work to Improve the
QUALITY OF THEIR LIVES
THEIR
OPPORTUNITIES AND
THEIR
COMMUNITY’S WELL-BEING
The FOCUS of C-B SP
Involves:
–
Work with
Members of Communities,
Local Organizations, and Local Agencies in
SOCIAL,
ECONOMIC, and
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
AS WELL AS In-–
Work with COMMUNITIES, AGENCIES and
NEIGHBORHOODS in
PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT and/or in
COMPREHENSIVE COMMUNITIY INITIATIVES
SCOPE—Community-Based
Social Planning Takes Place
–
™ IN RURAL AREAS
™ IN VILLAGES
™ IN LARGER COMMUNITIES, and
™ IN URBAN NEIGHBORHOODS
™ WHAT TYPES OF COMMUNITIES ARE YOU
INVOLVED IN WORKING WITH? Show of Hands.
WHAT ARE THE GOALS OF YOUR WORK?
Examples?
Participatory Planning
–
™ Is a critical means to help people come together,
assess their situation and environment, set priorities,
and formulate a responsive and flexible plan to
guide action for social, community, and economic
development as well as environmental protection –
in order to promote citizen participation and
sustainable development.
™ It can focus on either or both community planning
and planning for welfare services that are relevant to
context and community culture.
For Context & Culture
–
™ It is important to honor local context and
culture
™ And ALSO to work to assure that
Professional Values of:
– INCLUSION ACROSS GENDER, CLASS,
CASTE, RELIGION,AND ETHNIC/
RACIAL GROUPINGS are woven into all
communityplanning work
Community Practitioners
–
™ Employ PARTICIPATORY Assessments, Planning
and Implementation Strategies, and Research
grounded in Goals to build EMPOWERMENT AND
INCREASE SOCIAL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL
POWER FOR POOR, VULNERABLE, or
MARGINALIZED COMMUNITIES
™ AND OFTEN INCLUDES ASSISTING
COMMUNITIES AND AGENCIES IN MOBILIZING
RESOURCES—BOTH LOCAL AND EXTERNAL
Most Simply,
–
™ Community-Based Planning involves the ability to
work with people to envision a future that is better
than the present and to formulate priorities,
directions and activities to achieve the goals they
have set.
™ Groups of citizens that voluntarily work to solve
social problems are the heart of democratic,
multicultural societies and often are the best means
to effect positive change for sustainable social and
economic development.
Supporting Theory
–
™ Community Planning now relates to Global,
National, and Local Perspectives promoting positive
“bottom-up development” & Government Support
™ Because of the long, negative legacy of colonially
focused, extractive development, it is important to
employ Alternative Development Theory
(Friedmann, 1992) that supports participatory social,
community, and economic development that builds
on indigenous knowledge and ALSO supports
Gender Equality and Human Flourishing.
New Social Transformation Model Builds on
Alternative Development Theory and Blends:
–
™ Sustainable
Development Theory
™ Human Development
Theory
Combines Social and Economic
Development
Environmental Protection
THE TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE
& Environmental Sustainability
—present into future for
coming generations
(Estes, Shiva, Hart)
Amartya Sen, Mahbub ul Hug
and Marcia Nussbaum have
codified new H.D. Theory
focusing on:
Developing Human Capacities;
Enlarging of Peoples’ Skills &
Choices; and
Promoting FREEDOM &
EMPOWERMENT
Community Planning Strategies to Increase Access to Bases of Social Power
–
Competing Streams of Development Theory
–
Planning for Transformation
through Micro Planning
–
™ Micro Planning and mapping can help to make
Planning transformational for communities through
assessment and planning focused for positive change
employing:
–  SOCIAL MAPPING,
–  RESOURCE MAPPING, and
–  POLITICAL POWER MAPPING, and
–  GIS MAPPING
How and Where have you used mapping & micro planning?
Shelter Associates & GIS
–
™  Working with Urban Poor in several cities of Maharashtra State,
Shelter Associates works with informal federations, Baandhani, in
informal settlements to make urban planning processes inclusive
and to provide technical support for community-managed
housing, sanitation, and development projects.
Shelter Associates pioneered use of GIS for mapping poverty in
1999 creating a spatially organized data base of slum communities
that has become critical for urban planning and development of
infrastructure to provide services for these communities. Members
of Baandhani assisted in collecting data and demanded
improvements in sanitation and environmental hygiene. Landmark
mapping was conducted in Pune.
Shelter Associates & GIS
–
™  As far as can be documented Shelter Associates’ efforts mark
the first time that low-income community members have engaged
in and achieved the goals of combining GIS mapping of lowincome areas with community-based participatory research,
assessment, and documentation of area needs that have been
incorporated into the official planning maps and data systems of a
large city.
How can you employ participatory community mapping and
perhaps GIS mapping in your community development
work?
Resourceful Communities
–
™ Resourceful Communities Presentation:
™ Mikki Sager– Separate PowerPoint Presentation of
Resourceful Communities’ Grassroots Development
Work
™ Employing their Triple Bottom Line Approach:
–  stewardship of natural resources,
–  sustainable community economic development, and
–  social justice
PRADAN Case Example
–
™ “Having access to sustainable livelihood
opportunities , the poor become less vulnerable to
adverse natural and man-made forces. Control over
their source of livelihood improves the poor’s image
of themselves. Livelihood is a tangible instrument
around which rural poor people can be organized,
opportunities to deal with outside systems can be
created, and greater impact on the fight against
poverty can be attained.” (PRADAN, 2012),
PRADAN –Case Example, and
YOUR PRACTICE
–
™ Have any of you been involved with a PRADAN
Project? (Share)
™ Has anyone visited one of their sites? (Share)
™ Tell us a bit about what they do and their approach.
™ For Everyone: How do you assess the relevance of
PRADAN’s Approach and Strategies?
™ Do they apply to your own work?
™ Is there a part of PRADAN’s Strategy or Approach
that you would want to test or adopt?
In our discussion we
will consider
–
™  Process Skills: How
can you help people in
communities work together democratically
and productively
™  Task Skills: How can you help community
groups, organizations and agency staff
–  ASSESS & PLAN for the tasks that need to be accomplished,
–  IMPLEMENT THE PLAN
–  EVALUATE THE RESULTS? and
™  use Technical Skills to advance and support the work
FINAL
–
™ What questions or ideas to you have about
Community-Based Social Planning?
™ What questions or ideas to you have about
employing—
–  Process Skills
–  Tasks Skills, and
–  Technical Skills in your own planning and
development work?