Effective Community Participation Strategies Management Essay

Effective fellowship Participation Strategies Management Essay accessionCommunity sectionalizationnership is the creation of opportuni guides to enable solely members of a friendship to actively devote to and influence the emergence process, while sharing equitably in the fruits of development (UN 1981). Midgley, H altogether, Hardiman and Narine (1986) define troth booking as the steer interest group of ordinary state in topical anaesthetic anesthetic anaesthetic affairs. Community employment can be summed up as a means of educating citizens in order to increase their competence. Reid (2000) defines familiarity participation as a vehicle for influencing finiss that affect lives of citizens and an avenue for transferring political power. However, it can also be a mechanism for ensuring accountability, receptivity and sensitivity of social answers to topical anaesthetic communities. sure-fire union participation allows confederacy members to act in reply to r eality concerns, empowers association members to openly give their views ab fall out decisions that affect them and to actively feature responsibility for changes in their league.Importance of Community ParticipationAccording to WHO (2002), union participation helps communities to target resources more than utilely and efficiently, allowing concourse to become more responsive to lodge needs and take responsibility. Communities have a riches of untapped resources and energy that can be harnessed and mobilized with confederation participation.Community participation methods empower populate to creatively develop skills and pass on competencies and capacities inside communities. Furthermore, advance and more sustainable decisions ar make by involving communities in decision devising because familiarity participation is a course of extending the democratic process by opening up governance and redressing contrast in power. It offers new opportunities for creative thinking, innovative planning and development (WHO 2002). Heberlein (1976) notes that better community decisions are the ones that involve citizens at community level and they are generally more acceptable to local anesthetic mountain. organise (1975) argues that citizen participation in community affairs serves to check and balance political activities by allowing overfull access to benefits of a democratic society. This increases democracy and combats exclusion. WHO (2002) points out that community participation in decision making, planning and implantation is a human right. It is whence important to implement new constructions of governance that transcend citizens creation viewed as passive recipients of services provided by agencies and decided by few representatives. This leave alone open up genuine community participation at grassroots, authority of local communities and create a understanding of citizenship.Community participation ensures will power and sustainabilit y of programs, provides a source of information, knowledge as comfortably as give birth and eliminates deficiencies in the society, empowering members to put emphasis on problem solving (Christensen and Robinson 1980). Cahn and motor home (1968) suggest that merely knowing that one can inscribe in community development and become accountable for development of a local community promotes dignity and self sufficiency within the individual. Interestingly, Cook (1975) points out that community participation can legitimise a program, its plans, actions and leadership, which brings the difference amongst conquest and failure of the program. Programs that lack community nip and tuck end up failing while the ones embraced by the community become sure-fire. WHO (2002) views community participation as an essential tool for ensuring that layventions and programs aimed at promoting health, wellbeing, quality of life and environmental protection are sustainable.Reid (2000) argues that a ctive community participation is the key to construction an empowered community. Participating communities are open to involvement by all chemical groups and responsibilities are divided with an aim of engaging special talents and interests of contri besidesing organizations and individuals so decentralising power and responsibilities. Participating communities carry out their activities openly and publicise them widely. The citizens are well informed about community work as well as their opportunities for personal involvement in meaningful roles (Reid 2000 and Cook 1975). Successful community participation involves alive(p) communities that do not divide against each other. Such communities willingly offer themselves to community involvement and serve their activities with an open mind. They are not controlled by any single organization, group or philosophy and their leadership is used to facilitate discussion of renewal of viewpoints instead of pushing for its own agenda.Wha t Makes Effective Community ParticipationCommunity participation requires going beyond consulting to make citizens an integral part of decision making and action process. It should not be viewed as a solution to initiatives or agendas from politicians and professionals (WHO 2002). Spiegal (1968) notes that citizen participation is the only process that can meaningfully tie community development programs to members of local communities. The participation programs involve a remarkable number of hoi polloi in situations or actions that conjure up their well being. It involves peoples income, their security, time, commitment, skills and even their self esteem.According to Brager, Specht and Torczyner (1987) there are trio major aspects to be considered for successful community participation, namely the kind of community participation under consideration, type or nature of people participating and how the participation takes coif. Evans (1974) also points out the significance of i ssues such as, who participates, the nature of activities that people participate in, why they participate and how the activities they are participating in contribute to principles that they value as a community. Sharing community responsibilities, assuming technical intentions for all stake holders involved in community initiatives and affirming the community strengths brings one to the community and creates effective community participation.According to WHO (2002), valuing participatorship between local communities and sponsors of a community initiative and confirming benefits of the initiative is a decisive tool for effective community participation. Local communities do not indispensableness to be treated as being helpless. Treating them with respect no event how poor they are, listening to them and learning from them boosts their morale to participate and own the community initiatives (UNCHS 1986). Smithies and Webster (1998) argue that successful community participation m ust have support at community grassroots level, with full consultation and involvement of local communities in planning and execution of instrument of such initiatives. Research has shown that community initiatives implement through resourcing grassroots work and local action with both geographic communities and communities of interest as the starting point for community initiatives has yielded great success and proved effective and sustainable. This process has often led to establishment of assurance and mutual respect between communities and professionals intending to work with such communities to achieve desire objectives.WHO (2002) identifies networking for the offers of facilitating development of community and professional infrastructure as an integral part of effective community participation. Networking gives an fortune to communities, professionals and all those involved in community projects to manage common experiences, strengthen competencies and build alliances that focus on realization and realisation of potential people in organizations working to ensure effectiveness, capabilities and adaptability within the context of community participation.Effective community participation involves planning of concept, process, structure and content Smithies and Webster (1998). This ensures meaningful and long-term community participation at all stages of community projects. This requires an effective two way communication to ensure that the views of community members are incorporated into strategic plan.Spiegal (1968) observes that local communities should be given an opportunity and responsibility to manage their own resources, define their needs, aspirations and make decisions affecting their well being. An effective community participation program is therefore established on the basis that local people have the innate capametropolis to visit and act on their own problems. The approach of such initiatives should be people centered and consensus drive and involve vulnerable groups of such as people with disabilities and the elderly. They should also have a gender balance.Cahn and Camper (1968) argue that sustainable and inclusive community participation should aim at developing community infrastructures, whereby formal arrangements for communication, consultation, collaboration as well as informal networks for inter agency liaison should be developed with a shared instinct and a common purpose. All stakeholders should work in partnership to share skills and be committed to mutual learning and joint training as they appreciate and acknowledge resources that communities have in terms of expertise. Barriers to community involvement should be addressed by availing resources and taking positive approach towards construct effective communication among all stake holders and adequate information management. in that respect should be good governance and transparency in decision making to avoid prejudice.Barriers to Effective Co mmunity ParticipationUSAID (2000) notes that community initiatives are super likely to fail in societies where there is unfair distribution of benefits of community participation or community work among local members. Highly individualist societies where there is little or no sand of community partnership are faced with lack of cooperation, selfishness, corruption and at times misdirection of resources that could benefit the entire community.Bass (1995) observes that community initiatives that lack policies, laws and institutions that encourage, support, manage and yield local participation in planning and development process are faced with challenges of failing. The success of any community participation initiative is by and large dependent upon the precise strategy scope, goals and likely participants. Political and cultural tidy sum dictate the extent in which community initiatives succeed. Community initiatives influence by bad governance and political interference never ben efit the locals but are only used by politicians as political milestones.mayonnaise and Craig (1995) note that communities need an appropriate organisational structure put in place for them to express their interests and build effective community participation. People are loth to join community initiatives whose organisational structures are cumbersome, time consuming, dictatorial or grossly insufficient. Communities that have little knowledge or limited information on the nature and benefits of community initiatives withdraw their participation and often oppose the initiatives because they are hardly involved in their planning and decision making. cutting StudiesCase Study 1 Newcastle City CouncilNewcastle metropolis council works through partnership with other organisations such as police, universities, health service providers, all groups and individuals from community, involuntary and private sectors to ensure that community initiatives influence the future prosperity of the c ity (Newcastle city council). The council has a variety of community participation initiatives that have been sooner successful such as building schools for future, whose principal(prenominal) vision is to raise aspirations, opportunities and achievements of all Newcastle residents and to create a culture of learning that enhances creativity and sparing prosperity. Other Newcastle city council initiatives include the rough sleepers initiative and housing initiatives.The main objectives of Newcastle city council are to develop and sustain opportunities for local people and groups for the purpose of influencing what goes on within their communities, to create opportunities aimed at shaping and influencing quality service economy to local communities, to manage and coordinate engagement activities for consistency, quality and partner participation. The Newcastle city council aspires to ensure that community development activities provide opportunities for entire community to partici pate in community programs and share their skills (Newcastle city council).These objectives have been achieved through priorities such as successful coordination and leadership of participatory community initiatives, development of protocols, toolkits and performance management framework. The council has a web based resource for effective consultation as well as inclusive ward committee structures to establish views of all community groups, to improve coordination with partners in engagement activities and to enhance skills and expertise in community development participation (Newcastle city council). from each one ward in Newcastle has a neighborhood resolution manager and a neighborhood response team to ensure that views of residents are incorporated in service delivery. Most of the decisions are do through effective consultation with local community groups, which are then involved in effectuation of such decisions through active participation in service delivery (Newcastle ci ty council). Newcastle city council has been a successful community initiative through active participation of local communities at grassroots,Case Study 2 The Tsunami ProjectFollowing the Tsunami disaster, several groups of grant makers such as the American Jewish society, globular fund for children, Global green grants fund, Oxfam America and Global fund for women among others positively responded to assist the affected communities. However, a closer weigh at available literature on Tsunami shows that the central role of local organisations such as mechanisms for ensuring local participation is widely recognised passim the Tsunami community initiatives. However, it is evidently clear that grassroots participation in Tsunami response was insignificant, this forced local communities to compete for resources and recognition (Roper and Harvey 2006).The Tsunami initiatives seem to have been driven by what grant makers had planned and purposed to deliver instead of being driven by t he needs of local communities involved. The initiatives were planned and implemented without consultations with local communities. This made it difficult for more sensitive issues emerging afterwards the disaster to be addressed because beneficial roles could only be achieved through tapping into existing community groups, focusing on marginalised groups to strengthen their capabilities, building solidarity across social divides, funding women- led initiatives to promote gender equality and giving local people an opportunity in coordinating performance of temporary shelter (Roper and Harvey, 2006).The objectives of Tsunami response by several organisations were not well defined to members of the local community, there was little involvement of local communities in planning and implementation of Tsunami initiatives and this made the local communities feel like they were left out of the projects, without a sense of ownership hence it was difficult to address the real problems facin g communities after the Tsunami disaster.ConclusionThis research paper started by defining and discussing community participation initiatives and what makes community participation initiatives to be successful. Community strategies and initiatives are only successful when the local communities are fully involved in planning and implementation of such initiatives. Participatory community initiatives bring psychological satisfaction to members of the local communities, giving them a sense of ownership to community initiatives while tapping into the boundless potential of skills and knowledge from local communities.Through the two case studies discussed, Newcastle city council has been a successful community initiative because local communities are actively involved in planning and implementation of community initiatives. This gives them a sense of ownership and the ability to identify with the initiatives and contribute to the total well being of the entire community through particip ation. They are not afraid of religious offering their expertise because they know the benefits of being involved in community initiatives. On the other hand, local communities were not given a chance to participate in planning and implementation of Tsunami project. The implementing agencies viewed communities as desperate people and did not give them an opportunity to air their views or become involved in planning and implementation of the project. This led to unfruitful results in implementation of the community initiative, with massive failure of the projects and even increased risks to local communities after implementation of the projects.Community participation is not an idle principle. Communities that have chosen to come in it find that not only do they derive more satisfaction from the joy that comes from open community involvement, but they also achieve more results, more rapidly and with greater benefit to the community as a whole. In short, participating communities su cceed better than those that only pay mouthpiece service to this important principle.