Major Project Uses Community Development Skills

With the term coming to an end and most of the courses wrapping up, its time to reflect on what we've learned and what will be carried forward into the future. Our major project interim presentations, taking place at the end of this week, are likely to impress on all in attendance just how much knowledge we have gained thus far. My project in particular, which is to help design a coordinated waste management plan for Saanich school district 63, will incorporate much of the community involvement techniques learned in ENSC 409.

This project is funny because it's basically just a whole bunch of people at the school district who really want to recycle more, and a whole bunch of people who actually are recycling and our job is to communicate between the two groups to tell them how they could all be recycling more. This is perfect because the appropriate prescriptions needed here is a community involvement strategy.
Obviously, there's a lot of teachers and staff (in particular custodial staff) who aren't informed of how easy and economical it is to recycle and they need to be consulted to find out what barriers they are facing that are inhibiting them from recycling and they'd probably rather be able to participate in the implementation of the new plan so that they can feel empowered. All we have to do is get all the parties talking to each other so that they can see each other's perspective.
I guess another aspect of community engagement that we've learned that will be valuable is the whole planning for the future concept. This is especially true in a school atmosphere where so much of the population is so transient and you have policies shifting and changing all the time. Whatever plan does get implemented needs to be dynamic enough to respond to any budget cuts or demoralization of participants or change in recyclable prices allowing the program to last many years into the future.


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Future Search

Wow a future search conference is a very interesting method for resolving conflict between different interest groups.  I thought our class did very well to really embrace the different roles they had been assigned.  At the outset of the day there was a sincere sense of discord among all the participants.  By the end of the day, everyone seemed much more civil and accommodating.

I think what this forum does is allow everyone to see everyone else's perspective and it definitely highlights areas of common ground.  People realized fairly quickly what was actually realistic and what was idealistic tripe.  It was funny because even as my brain acknowledged that an impressive consensus had been reached amongst an impossible group of conflicting viewpoints, my heart still wanted to fight for the nit picky little details that so irked my soul.  I think a great deal of practice would be needed to learn how to best present the most important aspects of one's viewpoint and decide which points aren't worth fighting over.

An interesting comparison arose later in the term when the class was divided into six alternative viewpoints around Genetically Modified Foods.  This time, in our microbiology class, it was just an open discussion with the teacher continually egging us on with questions here and there.  Despite the fact that this debate only lasted about 45 minutes, it was obvious by the end that no one had made any progress towards a consensus because we were all just shouting our personal views at each other over and over again.  It was still pretty fun though.

Case Studies

What a great set of case study presentations we received on both days.  It's so funny how despondent one can feel at the state of the world, and how easy it is to imagine that no one cares or is even trying to create a better planet for future generations or that when people do try, they fail miserably.

And then all of a sudden you hear about all these communities that have attempted to oppose giant corporations that are getting with outrageous logging practices (as on Saltspring Island) or that have taken into account the actual carrying capacity of their surrounding environment (as on Okotoks) or who are attempting to make high density living comfortable and ecnomical (as in community housing) and you go: "Why isn't everyone doing this?"

Like, how come I'd never heard of Okotoks before?  and if all the surrounding communities are worried about getting the remainder of Calgary's sprawl dumped on them, why don't they adopt identical mandates?

Maybe it comes down to what my girlfriend's sister was thinking about doing which is starting a good news news paper.  Maybe we need some form of popular media out there that is telling people about all the great things that are going on in this world.  I guess people say that bad news sells more and maybe thats the problem with private media, they don't care about trying to foster the positive potential in people at all but rather selling more newspapers and commercials.  Maybe there should be a law passed that required all news programs present at least 75% good news.  What would be so bad about that?

Obsolescence is the way to go

I was thinking recently about that presentation we had a while ago from B.C. Healthy Communities (BCHC).  What an interesting organization.  For those of you who don't know, BCHC is a publicly funded organization that has as its mandate the incurring of greater community empowerment in locals throughout B.C.  This is achieved by either sending delegates out by request to help resolve conflicts or providing grants or other resources. 

This is a really cool initiative supplied by the provincial government and it could really result in some stronger social fabric developing.  On the other hand, it is unfortunate that people aren't more naturally inclined to strive for collaborative harmony within their own communities.  Ideally this type of behaviour should be encouraged in folks at a young age, like at preschool or something.  I mean, I know we're all taught to share and stuff but maybe it could made into a bigger deal.  It just seems like something that could be approached from a more preventative perspective.

I guess what I'm trying to say comes down to something my dad told about his job at the employment standards branch.  He said that an organization should always be seeking to make itself unnecessary, i.e. work towards getting whatever principles they are that you are trying to uphold so ingrained in people that the rules and bureaucracy installed to implement those principles become obsolete.  

And I just hope that's what BCHC is trying to do.  I hope they are striving to infuse the concepts of community involvement into curricula, into action plans, into town mottos and just anywhere people can be exposed to them until community involvement becomes an instinctive way of life.