Communities and Societies
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Introduction
A community is a group of people sharing a common interest - be they cultural, social, political, health, or economic - or living in a particular area.
Communities are diverse. They are complex and interdependent networks of social relationships made up of people with varied ages, abilities, and interests.
Community and Health
Communities have key roles to play in health care. Many people who need help don't have the knowledge or resources to take care of themselves, and it is important for folks to come alongside each other and lend a hand. People in the community in to be equipped to do this - the work of community health care.
How to shift attititude and have communities adopt leadership? There is much work to bring group decisions back into the community. Effective communication allows for large groups to work together - why not have a 70 member board of trustees to make collective decisions?
Volunteering
Volunteers would do well to have training in time management.
Volunteering is give-give or win-win.
Organizations who take on students as volunteers should make an effort to understand how the experience fits within their curriculum. Flexibility on both parties' behalves is a good thing.
Working Together
Delegation works best when it is empowerment.
Partnership is a mutually respectful relationship based on sharing responsibilities, costs, and benefits leading to outcomes satisfactory to all partners.
Collaboration is a partnership among equals with complementary knowledge or expertise.
People step up when they feel they are part of something. They also like to think there will be some benefit to them.
The determinants of health are the fundamentals of what underpins wellbeing.
The whole is greater than the sum of a community's components.
e-democracy.org - building community through information and communication strategies
"For every right, there is a responsibility"
"committees are consumers and sometimes sterilizers of ideas, rararely creators of them." Henry Kissinger
get WHO ecological model: individual-relationships-community-society-world
Resources and References
Centres for Disease Control - Principles of community engagement
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