THE EAGLE STORY

One day while walking in the forest, a farmer saw a baby eagle. He brought it home and reared it in the
chicken coop. The eagle grew and learnt the ways of a chicken.
One fine day, a nature lover saw the eagle and asked the farmer why the eagle was not flying. The
farmer told him that the eagle never learned to fly. The eagle was acting like other chickens. The nature
lover said that the eagle could fly if it was given the opportunity and training.

I THE PURPOSE OF COMMUNITY ORGANISING

The main purpose of Community Organizing is to build awareness among the people about the realities
that is happening around them and to create new structures based on people.
- Bringing Out New Awareness
- Create new structures

The greatest enemy of community organizing is apathy.

2. DEFINED…

Community Organizing – it is described as a social developmental methodology used to develop self-

reliant and self-sustaining communities with the people as the center.

Community participation – is identified as a fundamental process to achieve resiliency and sustainable

development changing the conditions within the community and behaviors of the people in it.

Community Organization
- A process
- The community identifies its needs or objectives, order these needs and objectives, develop
confidence and will to work at these needs and objectives, finds the resource to deal with these
needs.
- Bringing about desired improvement
- Leading to empowerment

ORGANIZING IS ABOUT POWER BUILDING

3. EMPOWERMENT
- as “the process by which local organizations obtain power and authority in managing and
controlling local resources and in increasing their capability for decision-making and problem
solving through increased membership, linkages, and level of participation.”

- is “when people gain control of their own lives in the context of participating with others to
change their social and political realities.”

- is the ability of the community to be able to critically assess the social, political, economic, and
contextual causes that contribute to their level of disempowerment.
 - as “the process of increasing the assets and capabilities of individuals or groups to make
purposive choices and transform these choices into desired actions and outcomes”

Empowered Community are defined as:

1. Having abilities to identify their own problems and equity or capacity to solve these problems
(Braithwaite and Lythcott 1989 and Naparstek et al. 1982)
2. Having increased participation in community activities (Chavis and Wandersman 1990)
3. Having control over the determinants of health & welfare (Health Promotion 1986)

4. PRINCIPLES OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

the following are principles that should guide you as a community organizers:
1) It involves consciousness-raising through experiential learning. Central to the community
organizing process is the development of awareness and motivation among the people to act
upon their problems. As conscientization is achieved through practice, community organizing
therefore emphasizes learning that emerges from concrete actions.
2) It is participatory and mass-based. It involves the whole community in organizing experiences
and is primarily directed towards and biased in favor of the poor.
3) It is based on democratic leadership. It is group-centered, not leader-oriented. Leaders emerge
and are tested through concrete action, not externally appointed or selected. Hence, leaders are
accountable to the people at all times

5. MODELS OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

1. LOCALITY DEVELOPMENT / CIVIC ORGANIZING

- It is a method of working with community groups. Here the important focus is about the process
of community building; to enhance the involvement of the people in the community and help
the community t plan and hep them find solution to the problem.
- Key elements: Leadership development and the education of the participants being essential
elements in process
- It aims at meeting the needs of the target population in a defined area, like neighborhood
development, road development of a block area.
Basic belief is that communities have some common needs and interest and once the people realize this
need and interest and once the people realize this need and work together democratically hey can take
appropriate steps to improve the quality of life.

2. SOCIAL PLANNING
It is a method of working with a large population. It refers to the type of community work where a
worker or agency undertakes an exercise of evaluating welfare needs and existing services in the area
and planning a possible blue print for a more efficient delivery of services to the social problem.
It is a responsive model to the needs and attitudes of the community like in housing, health insurance,
and affordable education.
The community planner works in greater capacity with the government an is often identified with power
structure of the community but interested in the needs and attitudes of the community.
3. SOCIAL ACTION
It is a strategy used by groups or sub communities or even national organizations that feel that they
have inadequate power and resources to meet their needs so they confront with the power structure
using conflict as a method to solve their issues related to inequalities and deprivation.
- Examples are structural system change in social policies that brings disparities between people
of different socio-economic condition in social rights like educational policies, employment
policies

6. STEPS IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

Several authors (Hollnsteiner 1979; Patron 1987; and Apuan 1988) discussed the different steps in
community organizing, which the author integrated in the following discussion. These cover nine
steps, namely:
1. ENTRY IN TO THE COMMUNITY. This step enables the community organizers to introduce
themselves to the local community officials and inform the local authorities about the project,
its objectives, and the nature of their stay in the community. As a strategy, the community
organizers adapt a lifestyle in keeping with the community and choose an appropriate place or
family to stay with.
2. INTEGRATION WITH THE PEOPLE. The purpose of this activity is for the community organizers to
imbibe community life and get to know the culture, economy, leadership, history, and lifestyle
of the people. It is a means of establishing rapport with the people and building mutual trust
 and cooperation. It allows the community organizers to be one with the people and learn or
understand the people’s problems. The community organizers participate in the economic
activities, household work, group discussion, and social functions of the community.
3. SOCIAL INVESTIGATION. Through this step, the community organizers systematically acquire
information and analyze the political and socio-cultural structure of the community to identify
issues around which to organize the people. The different strategies include gathering and
reviewing secondary data sources such as records and documents, holding personal interviews,
conducting a survey, and observing.
4. PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS. The community organizers identify, analyze, and
rank the problems and needs of the community. The component steps include identification of
the scope and degree of the problem, investigation of past efforts to solve the problem, analysis
of the origin of the problem, and identification of factors that maintain, increase, or eliminate
the problem, undertaking consequence analysis, and problem prioritization.
5. PLANNING AND STRATEGIZING. This step is done to translate the goals and objectives into
specific activities to solve community problems. Its component activities include identification of
the problem, identification of resources, formulation of possible solutions, and setting plans of
actions.
6. CORE GROUP FORMATION. The purpose of this step is to form a small group of potential
leaders to assist the community organizers in organizing and mobilizing the community. This
involves identification of contacts and potential leaders in the community, and conduct of
training in leadership and organizing with the core group members as participants.
7. ORGANIZATION DEVELOPMENT AND MOBILIZATION. Through this step, the community
organizers facilitate wider participation and collective action on issues and problems concerning
the community. They do this by setting up a formal organizational structure and mobilizing
community effort/action to solve community problems.
8. EVALUATION AND REFLECTION. The community organizers together with the community
members review the course of action that has been undertaken to solve the problems. This can
be done by holding of workshops, dialogues, etc.
9. TURN-OVER AND PHASE-OUT. During this step, the community organizers transfer the
community organizing roles and responsibilities to the organization as soon as the latter is ready
or fully prepared to handle the responsibilities

7. PROCESSES/METHODS OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

These include social preparation of the community, education and training, value orientation, and
mobilization.
1. SOCIAL PREPARATION. This is very much related to community readiness. According to Fellizar
(1993), a community is considered ready when an appropriate social preparation has been
undertaken. Dela Costa-Ymson (1993) narrates how the Social Development Foundation
undertook social preparation among farmers in Pantabangan, Nueva Ecija, which took one year.
According to her, social preparation has four stages:1) general assembly, 2) formation of
committees, 3) survey of needs and prioritizing them, and 4) preparation for the training.
2. EDUCATION AND TRAINING. Community organizing is essentially a learning process and central
to it is the development of awareness through experiential learning (Apuan 1988). Kwo (1986)
cites Compton’s definition of community education as a process whereby members of a
community come together to identify their problems and needs and seek solutions amongst
themselves, mobilize the necessary resources, and execute a plan of action or learning or both.
In the educative process, adults can learn through participation and cooperation with others in
community action and community development projects. Practitioners term this “learning by
doing” or learning through experience principles of empowerment education. Apuan (1986)
discussed Freire’s principles in a booklet entitled Organizing People for Power.
Freire’s Principles of empowerment education
 first principle states that no education is ever neutral. This means that education can
either be designed to maintain the status quo or liberate people, helping them to
become critical, creative, free, active, and responsible members of the society.
 Second, issues must have importance now to people. All education and development
projects should start by identifying the relevant/important issues.
 Third, problem posing as an educational approach allows the animator to raise
questions on a common problem for the participants to act, describe, analyze, suggest,
and plan.
 Fourth, dialogue can be a venue for a mutual learning process because in a dialogue
everyone shares one’s experiences, listens to, and learns from others.
 Fifth, people learn through a cycle of reflection and action, where they can critically
analyze the causes of mistakes and failures and become capable of effective social
transformation.
 Finally, radical transformation of life in the local communities must parallel the
transformation in the whole society.

In support, Wallerstein (1993) defines empowerment education as one that “involves people in
group efforts to identify their own problems, and to develop strategies to effect positive
changes in their lives and in their communities.”

3. VALUE ORIENTATION. Since the desired ends of community organizing are people’s
empowerment, self-reliance, and participation, there is a need to transform the negative value
of the people from selfish individualism to one that is socially oriented. Value orientation
essentially entails value re-orientation or transformation. Value orientation determines desired
ends of behavior and prescribes norms or socially acceptable means of attaining the desired
ends.
definition of value as “an enduring belief that a specific mode of conduct or a state of existence
is personally and socially preferable to alternative modes of conduct or end-states of existence.”
Rokeach emphasizes that once a value is internalized, it becomes a standard for guiding action,
for developing and maintaining attitude towards relevant objects and situations. Patanapongsa
(1981) cites Hushneret et al.’s (1962) belief that “strong external pressure may produce the
appearance of change, but without alteration of character structure, such change will be
superficial.” The statement implies that in order for change to take place (as in community
organizing), people must alter their value orientation.
 4. MOBILIZATION. This refers to the “process whereby a group of people have transcended their
differences to meet on equal terms in order to facilitate a participatory decision-making
process” (Ben-Ali &Carvalho1996). This means that it is a process, which begins a dialogue
among members of the community, to determine who, what, and how issues are decided, and
also to provide an avenue for everyone to participate in decisions that affect their lives. In an
organized community, strategizing serves as a means to address its needs.
Mobilization arises from a number of factors:
(1) presence of expertise amongst the community members,
(2) the willingness of the community as a whole to give up individual interests to form a
broader cooperative, and
(3) presence of available resources to facilitate the mobilization process. The presence of
pre-existing community groups can potentially serve as the basis for a mobilization
strategy.

Some though
 Where there is no vision, the people perish
 Listen, Learn, Lead
 Start where the people are
 Out of Sight, Out of Mind
 The Tragedy of Common
 Contentment? or Resignation?
 Simple Living? or No avenues for development?
 Imagination precedes implementation
 Make the path by walking it

CHANGE IS THE END RESULT OF ALL TRUE LEARNING.