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In mobilization we
have two different meanings of “value" which are used in two different
contexts. (1) When we “evaluate”
(eg project progress) we make a value judgement: right vs wrong, good vs
bad, or beautiful vs ugly.
(2) When we promote
income or wealth generation, in the fight against poverty, we say that
money
is not wealth as such, but wealth is any
good or service that has value, ie is both scarce and useful. When we add
value, we create (generate) wealth.
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| Values-Aesthetics
Dimension of Community: |
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| The
aesthetic-value dimension of community
is the structure of ideas, sometimes paradoxical, inconsistent, or contradictory,
that people have about good and bad, about beautiful and ugly, and about
right and wrong, which are the justifications that people may cite to explain
their actions. Ideology. |
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A
dimension
of culture. Basic unit = symbol. See "Culture."
Learned; not transmitted genetically. |
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If you take anything
of value, say some seeds harvested from your farm, and add some value to
it, say by crushing and squeezing the seeds to produce oil and pulp. You
have added value. The seeds have more value when you convert them to oil.
Similarly, when you
take some wood, which has some value, and convert it into a chair, it obtains
more value. What value that you have added is wealth
that you have created or generated. Any
income
generation scheme must create wealth rather then merely transfer
money or other resources.
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| A
Venn diagramme is a diagramme consisting of several circles, each circle
representing a sub set of a whole. Some of the circles may overlap, indicating
that some of the sub sets overlap in some characteristics. |
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In community
work and sociology, the whole can be the community and each circle can
represent a group within that community. Some of those groups may overlap,
and that is represented by where the circles overlap. |
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Whenever there is
social change that appears to benefit some people, but others fear they
will lose something, there will be resistance to change. When you mobilize
a community to change its level of self reliance, there will be some resistance
to change. Some of it will merely be because some people are
more comfortable with the old way and fear new ways. Others will fear that
they will lose (financially, politically) by the change; they have a vested
interest in the old way.
Here is a very simple
example. Say there is a group which has only two classes, very rich and
very poor. If you tried to change the group so that all would be the same,
the poor would agree (to getting richer) but the rich have vested interests
(in staying rich) and would resist the change.
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| A
human settlement (habitat) that is characterized
by small population, low population density, and social simplicity (eg
homogeneity, little division of labour). |
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There are no
universally agreed measurements for these three variables, so dorps, hamlets
and villages lay near one end of the spectrum and cities and mega-cities
lay near the other end, with towns and peri-urban settlements in between.
These three variables affect methods of community strengthening. (See "city,") |
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In ordinary vocabulary,
to have "vision" means to be "able to see."
In our developmental
jargon, to have "vision" is almost spiritual or psychic, being able to
see the future, the possibilities of how things could be.
A "visionary" is a
leader who sees great possibilities.
While community members
do not all have to be visionaries in that sense, they need to have some
idea of what they would like to see their community become.
They need a "destination."
They need to think of where they would like to go. Before they can plan
where to go, they have to know where that "where" is.
The job of the mobilizer
is to counteract attitudes of complacency, apathy and fatalism, to instil
in community members an idea that they can have some control over their
destiny, and that they should imagine where they could go.
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"Vulnerable" generally
means "unprotected" or "exposed," implying that someone or something is
weak and unable to completely care for itself.
In relief work, vulnerable
often is used as a collective of children, disabled (physical and mental)
and sometimes women. Very often relief work, using the charity
method, identifies vulnerable people as the main beneficiaries.
In development
work, in contrast, we have to resist the idea of giving something for nothing,
because that in itself weakens the recipients.
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