In society, some groups are definitely more prone than others - the indegent, the disabled, battered women, etc. NGOs working at the grassroots levels are suitable to deal with the vulnerable teams. However, NGOs and the Government can sign up for hands to get the most suitable strategies to use, to enable those who find themselves potentially fragile in the interpersonal structure. The Government of Mauritius has put in place an NGO Trust fund to help these folks to lead a decent life.
Community empowerment can sincerely benefit the community. However, on the way community organisations come across several road blocks which hamper the empowerment process. This needed an assessment of the community empowerment strategies.
Most of the limitations of empowerment strategies occurred due to the lack of training in leadership development and lack of capacity building skills. On the other hand, NGOs were found to be limited in their activities because of the lack of resources and dependence on the Government. Additionally, the Government sometimes attributes more importance to the needs of stakeholders, rather than the needs of the community - thus failing the whole reason for community empowerment.
So, to increase community participation, organisations have altered their way to do things. A few examples are : conditioning relationships with the city by developing a deep knowledge of community issues, going through training, applying creative ways of encourage participation, amongst others.
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What is community empowerment?
'Community empowerment is the local government's primary business' (cdz & changes, 2008).
Community empowerment allows people to play an active role in the decisions that impact their environment (cdx & changes, 2008). Corresponding to Rappaport (1987), empowerment is meant to enhance the options for people to control their own lives. Cochran (1986) believes that individuals understand their own needs much better than other people and therefore should have the power both to define and act after them (John at al, 1993).
Community empowerment identifies the process of aiding neighborhoods to get control over their lives. Neighborhoods consist of groupings of people posting common pursuits, concerns or identities. Through empowerment, people are able to control the factors and decisions that define their lives. By increasing their belongings and building their capacities, they can therefore broaden their networks. People cannot be empowered by others as such, but by themselves (WHO, 2012)
Community empowerment includes involvement, involvement and commitment to the society. It is only possible when people feel a sense of belonging to the city and it seeks mostly at public and political changes. In another words, community empowerment is a way of re-negotiating power to achieve more self-control (WHO, 2012).
Community empowerment includes the social, cultural, political and economical aspects of culture. With the advent of globalisation, activities at the local level heavily influences actions at the global level. That is why partnerships are required to finding collective solutions (WHO, 2012).
Communication is the main element to successful community empowerment. It helps to raise consciousness and increase understanding of the visitors to encourage discussions and debates, so that individuals gain understanding on the controlling forces acting upon their lives and start their own decision making process (WHO, 2012).
Empowering communities also contains empowering the average person. Empowerment at the average person level starts off with identified needs and dreams and focuses on available resources.
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It is the procedure of taking control, which eventually causes fulfilling one's probable. It comprises of certain factors; self-reliance, contribution in decision making, dignity and value, belonging and adding to the community. The empowerment of neighborhoods involves a higher degree of individual empowerment, a strong sense of owned by the community, participation in political activities, control in decision making and access to resources (WHO, 2010).
The community empowerment process is very complex and requires understanding and commitment from the part of most stakeholders. Community empowerment advances gradually. Therefore it requires constant learning and constant building of the community's capacity (Donnelley, 2009)
2. 1 How to empower a community?
In order to enable a community, that is to involve groups of men and women in proposal activities, it could be necessary to develop a campaign. However, we should be aware that a campaign based on other motivational grounds besides community welfare, fails the complete reason for community empowerment. Community proposal involves the dynamic participation of people and community staff in all respects of the advertising campaign. It is very important for the community to be effective participants, instead of unaggressive ones (Kirklees Collaboration Involving Communities Construction, n. d).
Empowering people is not an easy activity. Individuals often don't have enough time, energy, resources, knowledge to develop and put into action such campaigns. Community engagement requires certain criteria, namely resources to permit empowerment - such as politics and legal rights, financing and the public capacity to create mobilisation systems, opportunities - such as those provided by institutional preparations and finally motivations for individuals to exert their rights (Paul, 2010).
Social personnel, both voluntary and professional, are investments to the success of the campaigns. Since human being nature is sophisticated, the staff leading the promotions should let go of aspects that
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may threaten the goal of the plan. Instead volunteers, community organisations and spouse agencies should participate in the design and implementation process. Here empowering social personnel might be another important aspect of community empowerment (Kirklees Partnership Involving Communities Platform, n. d).
The Government will include the community by any means periods of development assignments to increase community engagement and community contribution. Capacity building - building up skills, potential and skills of folks in growing societies in order to step out of these misery, and community contribution - actively involved in designing, implementing and evaluating ways of address a specific problem are crucial to community empowerment (Debra, 2002).
Both NGOs and the Government understand the need for community empowerment in Mauritius. Below are a few examples of the way the community is empowered:
The Administration has suggested to bring in a Community Empowerment Program (CEP) with the aim of facilitating the community to make use of ICT to totally take part in the socio-economic development of the united states.
The CEP good Government encourages the development of local content and ingenuity.
The reason for this initiative is to democratize access to information, provide detailed information about the united states, namely its economic and social composition and energize the development and development of local content on the internet.
This will permit Mauritians to use the internet more effectively and find answers to the challenges locally. It will provide a common platform for showing local knowledge, a current market for task proposals, and discussion community forums. People will also formulate and use their own development projects by collaborating with other stakeholders (NCB, n. d).
Another example would be the task done by the Bel Ombre Foundation for Empowerment, that was founded in 2008. Their eye-sight is to generate an enabling
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environment where each individual can realize his potential. This organisation is aimed at empowering the inhabitants of Bel Ombre to get the development rate by buying training, entrepreneurship and communal integration. Ongoing jobs include mature literacy programmes, supporting the neighborhood artisans and the fight poverty (Bel Ombre Groundwork for Empowerment, n. d).
People should feel free to act upon their own ideas for the benefit of the community, in order to be more creative and productive in their endeavours. For instance educating people
is one effort of community empowerment, which is often understood as aiding the given individual to better understand his/her needs as well as society's needs, and discover proactive measures to the troubles that society encounters, without handling the latter. At the same time, they feel a feeling of owned by the community.
2. 2 Whom to empower?
It is true that we are part of modern culture, and that people have needs, but there are other people who are in precarious situations and desire a boost. However, it does not imply that they deserve better treatment than the common man. They ought to you need to be given a palm. For example; the indegent, battered women, minority groupings, the disabled and so on.
Empowerment is also about sensitizing individuals who are in prone positions or who are possibly poor in the public structure. As mentioned earlier, community empowerment sometimes necessitates promotions to reach the target audience. However, there are delicate issues that touch a sizable group of people and aren't often discussed openly. E. g. Battered women.
Hence, both Government and NGOs focus on preventive measures. Because of the division of labour and stereotypes, women often occupy an inferior position in contemporary society and are victims of injustices by man. So, one initiative of the Government was to empower women.
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Empower women
According to information from all around the globe, women constitute many among activists in the community and a minority in authority locally (Sadan, 1997).
The Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare insists on the reinforcement of capacity building of women, which can be achieved through education and training. The Government also supplies the necessary support for ladies to establish businesses (Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, 2010).
The Ministry has organised workshops for girls under the National Women Business owner Council to permit them to develop their managerial skills and provide support to potential women internet marketers wishing to establish their own venture (Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, 2010).
The Women Entrepreneurship Development Programme has been launched in several regions of Mauritius, specifically in Quartier Militaire, Triolet, Le Morne, Terre Rouge, Camp Thorel, Lallmatie, Ernest Florent and Pont Lardier and some 1800 women have benefitted from the programme (Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, 2010).
Empower the poor
Since NGOs just work at the grassroots level with the indegent, they have had the opportunity to determine reciprocity, shared understanding and build trust. The Government of Mauritius works at hand with NGOs to fight poverty. All stakeholders have come to realize that activities at the local level can be a first step to a national solution (Hurbungs, n. d).
One of the first conditions so you can get people out of the poverty snare is to make them take full responsibility for his or her lives. They also needs to be contained in all periods of community assignments, in order that they feel valued and gain self-confidence. Another initiative followed by the Government of Mauritius is developing actions predicated on the aspirations of the poor. For instance the poor prefer receiving help to send their children to institution with all the current necessities
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instead of acquiring financial support to nourish their starving stomachs (Hurbungs, n. d).
NGOs should help the indegent become aware of their current realities and empower those to make their own choices about the future, initiate actions for his or her development and adopt a wholesome lifestyle (Hurbungs, n. d).
2. 3 Great things about empowering a community
When a community is empowered, people feel absolve to react within the world and at exactly the same time associate a sense of belonging to it. Through community involvement and capacity-building, they rediscover their own probable and gain confidence. In addition they feel worth the community, for the assistance they are simply providing - to produce a change.
Community empowerment can start actions at individual level, which can reach community or even national levels. For instance, someone victim of an accident, can gather a group of men and women - it can be good friends, family, or even strangers who've joined up with for a good cause - and help to sensitise others on highway safety precautions (Dr. Glenn, 2009).
Development of small communities can initiate collective actions. Additionally it is a way for practitioners to get community service skills, authority skills for some, management skills, develop empathy, broaden sites, form partnerships and lead to sociable cohesion (Dr Glenn, 2009).
Community organisations offer the means to deal with societal problems. They include young teams, faith groups, community councils and organizations. They have the power to mobilise resources. They development of community organisations requires some form of leadership and the ones who serve the community have better likelihood of producing community capacity - and may become future leaders (Dr Glenn, 2009).
Empowered individuals are able to effect the path and implementation of a program through their contribution. They progress from an individual action to the point that
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they are collectively involved. This may lead to increasing the energy to influence economic, political and public action. They are able to therefore help others to empower themselves and gear them towards capacity building (Dr Glenn, 2009).
2. 4 The role of the Government and NGOs in community empowerment
The Authorities of Mauritius gets the responsibility of catering for people and has created laws to protect them and guard their rights. The Government acts as an power figure. The politics and administrative environment of a community directly affects the empowerment process (Phil, 2007)
The environment carries a group of factors including the laws, rules and regulations and procedures of the civil contemporary society. The surroundings also includes the insurance policies and tactics of relevant Non-Governmental Organisations (Phil, 2007)
In this respect, their job is to encourage community activities that allow the community to build up itself - to be empowered. They should also help the city to initiate activities towards self-reliance, community empowerment and eradication of poverty (Phil, 2007).
The Government can modify Ministry regulations, modify legislative guidelines, support legislative committees in charge of legislative reform, provide suggestions and empower NGOs mixed up in related sectors, raise awareness through meetings, workshops, competitions and so on and cross relevant information through open public press - posters, radio, local Tv set, newspapers, and adverts (Phil, 2007).
NGOs are ever more involved with capacity development. They slim towards producing skills and tools to fortify the society. NGOs can have a significant effect on community development. However not absolutely all NGOs are in good conditions with the Government and very often they lack resources and face many hurdles and unless they become lovers with the Government, capacity building initiatives will continue to are unsuccessful (Inger, 2009).
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The Government should also offer training to practitioners so that they are well equipped at all phases of the process. More importantly the federal government should provide support to NGOs which can result in uniformity and integration with one another. Support could be of financial and specialized assistance for meetings, working committees and campaigns.
According to the Mrs Sheila Bappoo ( Minister of Social Security, Country wide Solidarity and Senior Citizens Welfare & Reform Establishments), the Mauritian Administration fully acknowledges the role of NGOs in community development. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT has put in place an NGO Trust Fund which has the aim of helping vulnerable sets of the society so that they can lead a decent life.
The Administration provides support to varied organisations who are actively involved with community empowerment. One particular example is the the Children Empowerment Programme that was implemented by a group of students from the University or college of Mauritius and the Power Vive des Quartier Reunies.
The project got the targets of developing leadership skills among children and at exactly the same time stimulating community service by University students (MEF, 2011).
The Authorities is actively involved in many such initiatives, so when we can see community empowerment begins with the normal man. All we need is an idea and the will to bring about change.
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3. 0 Community empowerment strategies
Community empowerment strategies include community development, community engagement, community participation and capacity building (Peter, 1996).
Community development helps people to recognise and develop their abilities and potential and organise themselves to respond to problems and needs that they commonly share. It supports neighborhoods that control and use resources to promote cultural justice and help improve the quality of community life (SCDC, n. d).
In Maritius, the Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Task has been carried out by the Government and its own budget reaches approximately 4 million Rupees. Community development requires the knowledge of people, their ideals and culture. People should be empowered to generate their own knowledge and make use of it to improve the standard of living. Therefore participation is necessary for community empowerment. Community development strolls at hand with management. Community Services Management is a relatively new methodology and it is aimed at empowering community workers and stakeholders to raised assess and put into action community based projects proficiently and cost effectively. Community Development also requires Basic Organisational Skills - including financial skills. The emergence of professional management in such organisations denotes electric power. Community practitioners should become aware of the framework of the company to develop the required skills to effectively achieve its objectives. Finally, we cannot ignore the concept of Ecological Development when talking about development in Mauritius. The Government, NGOs, and the private sector recognise know that the surroundings, the overall economy and collateral are irrevocably linked (Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Project, 2005).
Community engagement is the procedure of relating people in decisions that affect them. This can mean involving areas in the look, development and management of services. In addition it involves empowering the community to make decisions and also to implement and deal with change (DSE, 2011).
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The Federal envisioned the creation of the sustainable population with the implementation of the project Maurice Ile Durable (MID). In this respect, the Government encourages community associates to start partnerships with multiple stakeholders and helps community proposal that supports people to express their vision for the city and initiate shared responsibility (Anneleos at al, n. d).
Community participation refers to active engagement in designing, employing and evaluating ways of address a particular problem (Debra, 2002).
The Government stresses upon the integration and contribution of the children in many aspects of the society. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT also provides the opportunity for youngsters to engage in voluntary activities. One such programme is the Country wide Youth Award which was launched in Mauritius in 1996. It really is sort of training programme which encourages personal delivery and growth, self-reliance, perseverance, responsibility to themselves and the community (Ministry of young ones and activities, 2012).
This program under the Ministry of youngsters and sports supervised numerous activities which involved the participation of several national projects, namely ''Jeux de L'avenir'', Jeux de L'espoir'', Environmental Projects, Community Services and special vacances (Ministry of youngsters and sports, 2012).
Capacity building will involve strengthening the skills, potential and abilities of individuals in developing societies in order to get out of their misery.
Capacity-building programmes were proven in Mauritius because of poverty reduction. Since 2000, the IFAD (Funded Rural Diversification Program) has been reaching out to more the 15 000 the indegent. The program has helped the poor to diversify their incomes and enhance their quality lifestyle. Under the Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Job, the Government adopts an approach to help the indegent to escape their own misery, by giving them with opportunities to create their own income - by empowering them (Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Project, 2005).
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3. 1 Limits of community empowerment strategies
Community empowerment strategies encompass several areas and require the contribution, involvement, and dedication of various stakeholders. Utilizing empowerment strategies also requires much time and effort. However they are good initiatives to empower the city, as explained recently. Community empowerment strategies have caused numerous improvements in industries such as poverty, health, environment, and modern culture in general.
The major obstacle to successful community empowerment is having less training in command development and organisational capacity building (Peter, 1996).
NGOs
NGOs have the options to pass on information either by straight providing them to the public or helping the community to acquire usage of information sources. NGOs can improve organisational assets by establishing new community organisations or improve on existing ones. They can also help people to get school funding and material assets predicated on their needs and privileges. Moreover, they do a congrats in sensitizing and gathering people through health insurance and education activities - community proposal. Finally, since NGOs work at the grassroots level, these are more experienced and also have genuine knowledge of the difficulties people end up in (Selibu, 2006).
However, frequently many obstructions hamper the empowerment process. Restrictions to empowerment activities of NGOs come up from many resources. To start with, NGOs are constrained by the actual fact they have little usage of resources and less impact on procedures and regulations. Another factor would be that most NGOs are reliant on the developments created by the federal government. NGOs are in most cases not in good terms with the federal government, and this straight impacts their activities. Furthermore, NGOs are limited by local factors such as inefficient institutional frameworks, weakened relationships with the community and organisational problems within themselves. Subsequently, in endeavoring to react to donors, the federal government often lose look of genuine empowerment needs of the community and cater for other needs from stakeholders (Selibu, 2006).
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Risks factors
When applying empowerment strategies, risk factors should be expected and well-managed. The risk factors include time and planning limitations, possible insufficient co-operation from stakeholders, incompatibility among methods used, diminished interest from community leaders, lack of additional money and possible lack of resources for community leaders to impart their knowledge and skills (Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Project, 2005).
Community organizations face gigantic obstacles to repairing the social cloth of their areas, especially if population encounters serious issues (e. g. high criminal offenses rate). This limitation is due partly to organizations' inability to develop strategies and credited to lack of resources (Peter, 1996).
Moreover it is quite difficult to foster community contribution and proposal, because people are not always free to participate in activities even if they can reap the benefits of them. The city is also hesitant to form partnerships with stakeholders anticipated to lack of trust. The city sometimes desires too much from the federal government, and for that reason is still left with only dreams and dreams. Folks have duties and other concerns and they view community proposal and contribution as an extra burden. It can be that information and whereabouts of campaigns and workshops are not evenly multiply, considering low-budget organisations. Sometimes community leaders themselves aren't focused on the project. Frequently community activities are merged with politics, and are a means to monetary gain and increased image. As a matter of fact, community empowerment strategies are unsuccessful their very own purpose as a consequence to lack of community participation/participation/engagement.
3. 2 Alternatives to increase community engagement and participation
If an company would like to be truly responsible, it needs a solid system of organisational governance. Without a clear emphasis, it is impossible for community organisations to achieve significant impact. Hence, community organisations can develop the element
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of trust with the city (ICD, 2005).
They should put into action creative strategies so that the community is encouraged to work with them. Both NGOs and Federal organisations should dwelling address the various strategies including - capacity building, physical jobs, research and information and networking (ICD, 2005). Organisations should also display reliability, management and transparency. Empowerment programs are not always easy to achieve. This is why organisations should review their own strategies.
Participation and continuity
It is necessary to work with the city in bringing knowing of the proposed activities and their benefits. Additionally it is of significant importance to maximise community contribution in planning, design, and implementation stages so that individuals develop sustained interest and ensure continuity of this job (Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Task, 2005).
Management, guidance and monitoring
The success of the projects will rely upon proper management, supervision and monitoring. Practitioners should be given appropriate training in the field of project management. Improvement should be watched, to ensure that targets are being totally achieved (Community Development and Poverty Alleviation Job, 2005).
Engagement
Community proposal is achieved if tasks bear better benefits. Additionally it is very important to fortify the relationship with the community. Community organisations should task the reputation of the organisation through their actions. Moreover they should develop increased knowledge of community issues to create partnerships and broaden their networks (DSE, 2011).
Leadership training
Social personnel and staff should possess the right skills to have the ability to reach the audience. Some practitioners often feel a lack of inspiration and discontinue their service. Working with
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people can be exhausting and annoying. Therefore the Federal government should provide usage of training sessions, information and sites. A lot more than 20 training centres have prevailed in teaching community organizations the skills had a need to develop market leaders and build strong community organizations in america (Peter, 1996).
Target vulnerable groups
The Authorities should display involvement in the community. It should handle conditions that are of concern to the community - education, emancipation of women, poverty, etc, and offer support by empowering them. E. g. Putting into action poverty alleviation strategies. The Community organisations also needs to work with those who find themselves potentially poor in the public structure. For instance by educating the illiterates, providing economical support to prone women, reduce vulnerability to HIV/Assists and other health issues, and by collaborating with other organisations (SEM, 2012).
Community organisations should themselves be empowered to adopt the best suited approach to offer with people. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should promote community usage of technology and information and also allocate a budget for community organisations to apply community empowerment programs, for sensitization campaigns, workshops and working committees. Furthermore, since media takes on an important role in conveying information, marketing coverage of community initiatives should be upgraded. The common man should also be empowered to initiate action on a small basis and finally be checked for potential progressive ideas. Additionally it is primordial to market laws and regulations that give neighborhoods a tone of voice (Peter, 1996).
The Federal government of Mauritius has executed the National Empowerment Foundation in this respect and has long support and empowered many people. Some examples include; The Integrated Friendly Development programme establishing housing units at La Valette Bambous accounting to a total cost of Rs. 205 million and benefitted 200 families ;
around Rs 1. 1 billion allocated for programs which include facilities for unemployed women, Integrated Sociable Development, round migration, technical assist with Small and Medium Businesses (SMEs) (NEF, 2009).
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4. 0 Critical Analysis
Community empowerment strategies work measures to empower a community. Through community engagement, community involvement, community development and capacity building, people have the ability to identify their potential and find out their abilities, take part in group discussion and activities, engage in execution of important assignments and can empower themselves so that they can overcome difficult interpersonal situations.
As mentioned in the last parts, community empowerment will benefit the city on a tiny basis as well as nationally. Community empowerment enables people to initiate actions based on their day-to-day experiences. It also creates a chain where in fact the empowered individual subsequently helps others to empower themselves by showing experiences and developing partnerships. Community empowerment is a way for the community to broaden their sites and meet new and influential people. An empowered community can influence the social and economic areas of a country to seek their rights. Additionally, whenever using others for a collective cause, individuals acquire a sense of worthiness. Those actively involved with community work and community service can eventually become tomorrow's leaders.
Since community empowerment strategies package with people, unforeseen events may come up. It really is true that community empowerment is effective to the average person and the city, however people are not always absolve to engage in community activities. Moreover people are unwilling to enjoy community activities due to lack of trust, because very often activities derive from selfish grounds. For example; political parties exhibiting interest in interpersonal activities for the only real purpose of improving the image of the Government. Other restrictions of empowerment strategies include lack of co-operation from stakeholders, insufficient funding and diminished interest from community leaders themselves. Finally, NGOs are limited in their actions due to insufficient resources and dependence on the Government.
Many alternatives have been placed into place by the Government to address the issue of lack of community involvement. For instance; give social employees usage of information, encourage training among practitioners, increase knowing of social phenomenons, improvements in mass media coverage of community initiatives, among others.
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Conclusion
Community empowerment strategies are good initiatives to empower the community. However, there's always room for advancements. So remember the complex nature of population, community empowerment strategies should be intended for people's particular needs and should aim at guarding their privileges as people.
NGOs are possessions for community development for their proximity at the grassroots. But since NGOs and the Government are not motivated by the same grounds, they choose different paths to reach the same targets - empowering the city. In this respect, hence, it is very very important to the federal government to provide support to NGOs and other community organizations.
Moreover, the federal government should provide training to communal service practitioners and invite access to relevant information, technology and resources so that effective strategies are put into place. More campaigns and workshops should be planned, but ensuring information about their whereabouts reaches maximum people.
When people are empowered, they rediscover their talents and potential and also bring small community jobs to countrywide level. They develop new skills such as community service skills, leadership skills for a few, managerial skills, develop empathy, broaden systems, form partnerships and create sociable cohesion.
More significantly people and organizations should be empowered, in order that they in turn help others to enable themselves.
