Discuss the various
approaches to community organization
Answers
The concept of community work/organization
primarily looks at the community as a well defined
geographical or functional unit, and the process of
community organization is seen as an effort to meet the
needs of the target population through internal resources
and initiative coupled with outside help, in the form of
expertise and resources.
Viewed in this framework, community work was
primarily concerned with affecting social change through
a process of analyzing social situations and forming
social relationships with different groups to bring about
desirable change. The three main objectives of
community work were (1) To involve people in thinking,
deciding, planning and playing an active part in the
development/operation of services; (2) To facilitate
achievement of personal fulfillment of belonging to a
community; and
(3) To work under constant tensions between people’s
diverse, often conflicting demands and the scare
resources available to meet them.