ECHO - Community Development Workshop at ECHO

Community Development Workshop at ECHO

02/28/2011 ~ 2 comments

This seminar is only one of many that are part of ECHO's weeklong workshop entitled Introduction to Tropical Agricultural Development. More information about this and other workshops can be found at http://www.echonet.org/content/educationTraining

Tim Albright

On Monday, February 21, 2011, ECHO COO Tim Albright delivered a seminar on the principles of community development. Albright, the Chief Operations Officer and Director of Agricultural Training, posed a question to an audience of twelve: what is community development? While there were many variations of definitions, they were all similar at the core. Albright began with listing what is not community development. Albright said that community development is not welfare or handouts, or the introduction of technology. Albright gave his own definition of the purpose of community development, which is to empower people to take ownership of the problems they face.

During the lecture, Albright spoke about outsiders traveling to foreign countries to help those in need. Albright defined a term known as “Learners Posture,” which is the practice of taking time to understand the specific needs of a community before implementing any active help. Learner’s posture is very significant. It is crucial that volunteers working abroad must be willing to actively listen to what is being said. Often, people living with the problem, like locals, are more equipped to solve that problem than outsiders. This pivots back to the idea that those already living within a particular culture are more adept to see and work towards a viable and practical solution. This underscores the necessity for those volunteering on a short-term basis to make a strong effort to listen to the needs of a specific community. Albright identified two different ways of development. Both work toward the same goal, but take different approaches.

The first is Christian development, which is the motivation for the development activity is the reflection of the love for Jesus Christ. The second kind of development is called Secular development, which concerns the socio-economic development of people and communities. The focus of this approach is more directed at a higher standard of living. While the philosophies of these two acres of development differ, both share a common goal and purpose.

Albright mentioned another area of community development which is entitlement, a growing problem in the world today. Entitlement is the state of mind where people expect to be given material goods, like food and supplies. While foreign aid in times of strife is appreciated, when aid is delivered in titanic portions, problems within a community can rise. Albright used the example of the earthquake in Haiti. Foreign aid flooded ports and airports to the point where there was so much food and supplies that the people began to expect handouts, relying less on themselves and depending on other people or nations, which is not beneficial to either nations.

Community Development, Education, Sustainable Development, Poverty, Haiti, Workshops, Courses, ECHO

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2 comments

Author: pete - 03/11/2011

I'd like your thoughts on the following. Its what I've noticed but then I'm not in the field: It is worth noting that, in truth, secular and Christian development actually do not, or at least in the case of Christian development should not, work towards the same goal. Christian development should be orientated in love towards alleviating suffering. However the secular orientation of raising standards of living goes much beyond this. In the Christian mindset surplus goods are blessings to be used to benefit the poor; to the secular they are to be spent on self and one's standard of living. But this secular approach is often nothing more than veiled attempts at industrializing third world countries to make them ready and more easily profited from by large multinational corporations. This may not be the motivating factor for the individuals on the ground, or even some of the organizations; but it is the operative affect and certainly the goal of many of the funders. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Author: Tim Albright - 04/06/2011

While I don't pretend to have all the answers and don't have the space to give an extensive response, my background (growing up in West Africa and then working for 23 years in community development in the W Africa region) have taught me a few things in terms of the similarities and difference between secular and Christian community development. We were based in a country that had 200+ NGO (non governmental organizations) doing community development so this was a part of every day life. I believe that true development (secular or Christian) seeks to introduce positive community change that affects knowledge, skills and mentalities/attitudes. The change agent (secular or Christian) needs to recognize that change is not done "to" or "for" the community, but rather done in such a way as to mobilize (walk along side) the community as they implement their own change. The difference between secular and Christian community development often lays with the end goal of that change. Often times secular development workers are looking for measurable economic growth or external life style improvements (like in the area of health)only. The Christian development worker, however, is looking for those elements too but also seeks to provide holistic transformational change which affects not only the physical and social realm of the community and/or individual but also the spiritual. Holistic (Christian) transformational change seeks to address the broken relationships affected by poverty - (1) man with man (2) man with the natural world and (3) man with God.

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