This study in Staveley, an area with high unemployment, aimed to: i) identify & enable people to address the personal risk factors for cardio-vascular diseases ii) enable unemployed workers to discuss health difficulties specific to unemployment iii) promote a greater understanding of the specific health needs of unemployed people Unemployed people and 200 children were interviewed, then key people in the professions of education, health, social services, police, clergy and housing. Video, photos and mapping were used and people "had an opportunity to test their own health by filling in a health profile questionnaire". The various groups' different perceptions of the problems and suggested solutions are analysed. There is a need for "an informed, integrated, inter-agency approach with the involvement of unemployed people in order to respond effectively to the problems of unemployment".
This report was written in the context of the special session of the UN General Assembly on the successes and failures of the Habitat Agenda. It analyses the rhetoric of empowerment and examines whether these strategies have led to real improvements in people's lives. It was agreed at the Second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) in 1996, that sustainable urban development can be achieved if poor people are able to assert their own rights, and organise themselves to provide their own services and infrastructure. Successful urban governance depend on people power. Definitions of 'partnership' are discussed, and it is argued that partnership for good governance and poverty reduction involves poor people participating with government in policy and decision-making as well as contributing to implementation and costs. However, the privatisation of services, and lack of real decentralisation of powers to city governments, present challenges to meaningful partnership for sustainable urban governance. The report is illustrated with examples from around the world, particularly Bolivia, Kenya, Brazil and Sri Lanka.
Discusses the methods of collecting information during a field-study carried out in Brazil, in the health district of Pau da Lima. It was intended to provide a learning experience for students as well as to explore the local potential for Primary Environmental Care (PEC) and to produce a number of recommendations to local bodies. Possible actors, conditions, means and resources to promote PEC within the Pau da Lima district were investigated. PEC integrates three components: empowering communities, protecting the environment, and meeting needs. The first step was a preliminary identification of present and future potential actors in PEC in the Pau da Lima district. A Rapid Appraisal (RA) was conducted in three squatter communities within the district, focusing on felt problems; interests and priorities in PEC; forms and conditions of community organisation; and instances and conditions of community-based action. Methods used include: review of secondary data, informal disucssions with informants, direct observations, laboratory analysis of water samples collected during the observation walks, life history interviews, focus groups and ranking exercises, semi-structured interviews. While the study found the RA methods useful, it suggested that they may not be sufficient to identify community-based solutions to specific problems. The techniques in "Making Microplans" (Goethert and Hamdi 1988) provide an example of how this action-oriented phase could proceed.
This article is a case study of the author's participatory research with the Annette Lomond garment workers' co-operative in the North East of England. It discusses the relationship between the researcher and the participants, power imbalances, accountability, empowerment, effects of the research project, and presentation of findings. She concludes that the aim of uniting research with action and education is not always possible within one project. This alters the balance of the relationship and the nature of accountability.
This article gives an overview of housing and environmental problems in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. It describes the history of attempts to encourage participation in two particular cases, and discusses the basic elements of the methodology used to conduct these processes.
In spite of children and young people being involved in many aspects of community life, social policy in the UK often neglects their interests. This book argues that contrary to conventional adult wisdom children and young people are competent to take part in collective decision making and that it is essential that they do so. Practical examples from Save the Children's work are provided to show ways in which children and young people can be encouraged to participate and have a real say in how things are done.
At the Rio Earth summit governments of the world signed up to Agenda 21, an international action plan to promote sustainable development. Local governments agreed to prepare their own local agenda 21 strategies with the involvement of all groups in society, on the basis of consensus. This document is a report of research carried out in the UK, Denmark and The Netherlands to examine the approaches and strategies that have been adopted to ensure this participation. The aim of the report is to promote good practice and innovatory approaches to participation.
Designed for community leaders and community development professionals, this handbook provides details on how to carry out a community inventory as a first step to solving community issues.
This book includes a wide ranging collection of papers which have been divided into sections dealing with communicating with children, gender empowerment, community interactive processes, approaches and insights, ethics and values of community participation and organizational capacity building.
This is a report of a visit in August - September 1996 by Sheela Patel to look at tenant participation on housing estates in Britain. Sheela is the Director of SPARC, an NGO working in slum communities, pavement dwellers and other informal settlements in Mumbai, India. The visit aimed to share ideas, offer learning opportunities from the highly developed NGO sector in India and to challenge the conventional notions that the North knows best.. The visit was organised by the Centre for Innovation in Voluntary Action with support from the Oxfam-UK Anti-Poverty Programme.
This paper presents a case study of the market town of Hitchin, thirty miles north of London, UK. It describes a community-based planning project which aimed to outline some of the general principles for a plan of sustainable development based on the local interests of the town.