Unit I

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION:

1.1 Introduction

Community Organization is one of the methods of Social Work to solve the problems of the Community. Community Organization as a concept can be viewed in different ways namely, a process, a method, fields and an approach. But basically the concept of Community Organization revolves around the people and the issues to be tackled.

1.2 Meaning

Community Organization has several meaning. But according to Lurie the form Community Organization is used as

(A) A referring to structure or stage of development as in the organized and unorganized community;

(B) A field of practice such as planning Social Welfare Service, federated fund raising, national service agencies; and

(C) A method, a way of working on an orderly conscious basis to affect, defined and desired objectives and goals.

In short, we can say fundamentally Community Organization is a dynamic group of people to help the vulnerable men and women of the weaker section and establish peace and harmony.

The term community organization became an important concept in the social work profession due to the publication of the Lane committee report in 1939 which identified community organization as a method of social work. Here we are giving some of the important definitions of community organization formulated by different thinkers and practitioners.

1.3 DEFINITION

According to Aurther Durhan:

“Community organization for social welfare is the process of bringing about and maintaining adjustment between social welfare needs and social resources in a geographical area or a special field of service.”

According to Murry G.Ross:

“Community organization is a process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, orders (or ranks) these needs or objectives, develops the confidence and will to work at these needs or objectives, finds resources (internal or external) to deal with these needs or objectives taken action in respect to them, and in so doing extends and develops co-operation and collaboration attitudes and practices in the community.”

Both the definitions comparatively show the services of interaction within the community and the needs of people with regard to their own development in the society and its betterment. Community itself is the process and it goes on changing. The basic function of the community organization is to create the awareness of the surroundings and enable one to build up healthy relationship with the community, to utilize the natural resources, to meet ones own needs and find solution for the upliftment of the poor and needy and in building up the better society. Community itself is a poor. A community worker in the community directs and channelises the community organization process through suitable techniques, for the constructive development of the community.

From the definition of the various authors we can drive the following are the most important aspects of community organization.

1. Community identifies its needs

2. Gives priorities

3. Finds out the internal and external resources

4. The community develops co-operative and collaborative attitude and practices

5. The community has to be helped

6. An adjustment has to be brought about between the needs and resources.

1.4 Objectives of Community Organization

Community Organization means a conscious process of social interaction and a method of Social Work concerned with any one or all of the following objectives:

1. To secure and maintain an adequate factual basis of sound planning and action.

2. To initiate, develop and modify welfare programmes and services, in the interest of attaining a better adjustment between resources and needs.

3. To improve standards of social work and to increase the effectiveness of individual agencies.

4. To improve and facilitate inter relationships, and to promote coordination, between organizations, groups and individuals concerned with social welfare programmes and services.

5. To develop a better public understanding of the welfare problems and needs, and social work objectives.

6. To develop public support of, and public participation in, social welfare activities. Financial support includeds income from tax funds, voluntary contributions and other resources.

1.5 Principles of Community Organization

(a) Creating discontent with existing conditions and standard of living of the people or the members of the community.

(b) Discontent must be focused and channeled into organization of village communities, planning their programme and taking action for satisfying their needs (i.e., specific problems).

(c) The discontented which initiates community organization must be widely shared in the community

(d) Local leaders both formal and informal must be involved in the developmental work.

(e) Local self-governing bodies which undertake community work must have methods of high acceptability.

(f) The hidden potentialities and existing resources of the community must be utilized for developmental work.

(g) The local organization, which is meant to take up developmental work in the community, must develop active and effective lines of communication within their active members and between the organization and their village people.

(h) The local governing bodies should support and strengthen the groups which co-operate in the development programmes of the community.

(i) The organization should be flexible in the organizational procedures without disturbing its regular decision-making routines.

(j) There should be arrangement for the development of effective community leadership through training and guidance.

(k) The social worker must understand the community and its social structure. The social structure includes:

(i) The organization of the community, i.e. division of population into farmers, businessmen, administrators, etc.

(ii) The group in the village or community religious or political, etc.

(iii) Pattern influencing social structure. Under it worker is required to know:

(a) Who makes important decisions in the community?

(b) To whom people go when they need help or advice.

(c) Who influences the decision-making?

(l) Recognition of dignity of individuals in the community.

The dignity requires the knowledge of value system which may include:

(i) Personal characteristics, truthfulness, honesty, hospitality and reliability.

(ii) Cast of the individuals.

(iii) Financial conditions.

(iv) Respect to elders.

(v) Individual participation.

(m) Change in the attitude of the people through programme of continuous education.

(n) It must be a collective responsibility in the development process.

1.6 Functions of Community Organization in India

In general, community organization includes many activities dealing with the different aspects of community life, viz. evaluation of community needs, discovery of resources, coordination between various programmes, implementation of various programmes and their evaluation. But in the context of rural communities in India, certain other activities are also important. Chief among them are as follows:

 (i) To bring a change in the traditional outlook of the people.

(ii) To improve the economic condition of village communities.

(iii) Improvement in agriculture.

(iv) Development of village industries.

(v) Expansion of education.

 It is thus evident that community organization in India needs some additional activities. The problems before the village communities are interlinked, as such an integrated approach is very useful.

Activities under Community Organization

Under community organization, the social worker has to perform many activities. Chief among them are as follows:

(i) Organizing Activities

The needs of a community are very diverse which require a balanced and integrated programme for fulfillment. Therefore, the social worker prepares a programme in accordance to community needs and resources.

(ii) Leadership and Promotional Activities

The social worker develops leadership in the community. He has to motivate community members towards the solution of their collective 'problems. Thus, community organization worker encourages promotional activities.

(iii) To bring Coordination between Various Activities

The functions dealing with community welfare are of diverse nature having numerous dimensions. In order to avoid repetition and wastage of energy, coordination between various activities is essential. In this regard the social worker brings a desirable change on the behaviour of the community members. He inspires scientific thinking regarding health and social welfare.

(iv) Budgeting Activities

When a programme is determined for community welfare, then the problem of finance automatically emerges. Therefore, the social worker has to make financial arrangement in accordance to the nature and scope of the plan.

(v) Administrative Activities

The success of any welfare programme is based on its proper administration. Therefore, the social worker has to discharge administrative functions.

(vi) Public Relation Activities

In order to implement and carryout any welfare programme in the community, the social worker has to do a lot of liaison / public relation work with the concerned authorities, government and funding agencies.

(vii) Research Activities

Under these activities, the social worker makes a review of his programme and on this basis he evaluates his achievements.

(viii) Development of Community Consciousness

The social worker endeavor to create the consciousness among the community members. It becomes possible with the help of education, communication and participation.

1.7 Historical background of Community Organization

Community Organization is as old as community life because wherever people living together, some organization becomes essential. But when life becomes more complex, some formal organizations were setup for the wellbeing of the community. Elizabethan poor law in England was one of the first efforts to lend help to the needy. But the charity organization societies set a model for modern community organization. The first attempts to coordinate community activities and actions stemmed from the London Charity Organization Society, begun in 1869, which tried to eliminate duplication and fraud in relief administration. Its aim was to improve total services in the community through better cooperation and coordination. The first organized attempt to coordinate and systematize social services in the United States was made in 1877 with the establishment of the Buffalo Charity Organization Society; the need was great because many private agencies had been established and this brought about much duplication, with many gaps in total services, as well as unnecessary competition.

In 1909 in Pittsburgh and Milwaukee, the first community welfare councils in the United States were established. They were called councils of social agencies. They have since spread and been extended so that most of the larger population centers now have community welfare councils. There are over 450 of them in the United States today. A few have developed to the extent that they have several persons on their staffs that spend full-time in research, helping to locate and interpret information that will be of value to the community.

These councils, organization-wise, generally focus on three main areas: health, welfare, and recreation. Most of them have a council delegate body representative of all of the agencies in the community that join the council. This membership body is the basic authority for carrying out the councils activities. Usually a board of directors, elected by the delicate body, is the operating authority. The board of directors appoints various administrative committees, which consider such matters as membership, personnel, and budgets. It also sponsors project committees or task forces that deal with particular problems; for example, a community to work on the problem of transients, services to the aged, drug abuse, or school dropouts. Social policy and action committees often play important roles.

Historically the development of federated financial drives was also an important aspect of community social work. Originally private social service agencies conducted individual drives for money to maintain themselves and their services. As additional agencies came in to begin, various leaders suggested that it might be best to join hands to collect money and then divide it among the several agencies. In 1873 in Liverpool, England, the first such federated drive took place. In 1887 the first federated drive in the United States originated under the auspices of the associated charities in Denver. Twenty three agencies joined together and raised a total budget about $ 20,000. After world ware I the name community chest become popular in designating federated fund driving. Expansion has taken place in these drives in 1958 and United Funds and community chests raised $427,262,622 in 2,100 American communities for the support of services of the 27,700 participating agencies.. these United campaigns enlisted the efforts of 3,300,000 volunteers and secured 27,700,000 contributions.

Community Organization has been last basic social work method to emerge. Casework gained status and recognition in the 1920s, as Group work did in the 1930s. In 1909 first section meeting of a national conference. The national conference of charities and corrections, was held on the helm “neighborhoods and civic improvement” this appears to be the beginning of specific interest in community organization in Social Work. In 1939 significant discussion on community organization as a field and method were held at the national conference of Social Work. In 1944 the curriculum for the School of Social Work included community organization as one of the “basic eight”. By 1946 enough interest had developed in community organization so that, at the annual meeting of the national conference of Social Work in buffalo, the association of the study of community organization was founded. Its purpose was “to increase understanding and improve professional practice of community organization for Social Welfare”. From its beginning and till it merged with six other associations in 1955 to form the national association of Social Workers, it had a membership that varied from about 500 to 1000 individuals.

In 1950 representatives at the national conference of Social Work at Atlantic City presented several papers on community organization topics and agreed tat Community Organization was one of the basic process in Social Work. In 1950 there were about 100 field work placements in community organization in some 16 of the accredited schools of Social Work. On November 1^st 1962 there were 160 students in training in community planning services in the United States and Canada. On November 1^st, 1984, there was 1719 or 8.1 % of the total of 21,551 full-time or part-time master degree students who were tacking community organization as a separate concentration or in combination with administration and planning. The 1962 curriculum statement of the council on Social Work education reaffirmed the importance of the community organization in both training and practice by specifying it as one of the basic methods of Social Work.

In 1982 curriculum policies statement gives broad guidelines pertaining to Social Work practice and lists community organization under both the professional foundation and concentration arias. In other words, the council of Social Work education is recommending that every Social Work student should have some understanding of the knowledge, values, and skills of community organization practice and that some students should have the opportunity to pursue a community organization concentration.

1.8 COMMUNITY ORGANISATION AS A METHOD OF SOCIAL WORK

Community Organization is one of the basic social work processes, being used to attain the same basic objectives, and using many of the same methods, as case work and group work. It has in fact moved through some of the same stages as case work and has only recently (and in limited way) been able to identify itself with these other processes.

In community organization we have had a worker who knew the problem and the solution to the problem before he arrived in the community, and who proceeded to organize the community around his conception of the need and the goal. Later, in counseling we had a phase of “scientific psychological tests” on the basis of which the counselor could tell the client not only what his problems were but what he should do about them; in community organization we have used some of the insights and tool of social science to show where and how changes could be made with the least social dis-location and with the greatest support in the community. Now, in case work there is recognition that the client himself must be involved in identifying his problem and mastering it and that if the process is successful, the client will be better equipped to deal, not only with his original conscious problem, but with many other life situations. Similarly, in community organization we are coming to realize that the community itself must struggle and strive to deal with its own conception of its needs, and that in doing this the community can increase its capacity to deal not only with these problems but many other problems as they arise.

Thus, while the context in which the case worker, group worker, or the worker in community organization operates is quite different, fundamentally the objectives they seek and the means they use to achieve these ends have a good deal in common.

The community organization worker deals with a whole community and its major subcultures, operates from a basis of socio-cultural theory, deals with such accounts of need as people can express in meetings, seeks to relate diverse groups to one another. One could therefore easily overemphasize the similar nature of these processes. The objectives of all social work methods, for example, are similar. All are concerned with removal of blocks to growth, release of potentialities, full use of inner resources, development of capacity to manage one’s own (the individual, group, or community) life, ability to function as an integrated unit. As already implied, these have somewhat different application in the face-to-face, group, and community situation. But essentially what is sought by all social workers is this same general end. In community organization, what is desired is initiation of that process which will enable a community to over come those blocks (apathy, vested interests, discrimination) which prevent the community from working together; release of potentialities and use of indigenous resources (which emerge as the community struggles and strives to deal with its needs or goals) and growth of those co-operative attitudes and skills which make possible achievement of increasingly difficult ends. This, as implied, is merely application to the community situation of objectives analogous to those of case and grope work.

Further, somewhat similar methods are used to facilitate case work, group work, and community organization processes. In case work there is a need to accept the client, to develop a professional relationship with the client, to start at the point where the client now is, to provide him with understanding and support, to help him make decisions and to take action, to help him struggle to overcome his problems, to interpret the nature of the process in which he is involved, to help him achieve independence, etc. If the community is consider as the client, these identical concepts are all applicable. For the worker in community organization has the same general orientation and approach, i.e., accepting the community as it is, helping it move in the direction and at a pace which it finds both comfortable and challenging, encouraging it to struggle, supporting it in times of stress and discouragement, interpreting the short and long term goals of the community organization process, etc. there are common methods, as there are common objectives and assumptions, for all social workers.

1.9 COMMUNITY ORGANISATION IN UK AND USA

Community organization in broad sense is as old as community life because wherever people live together, some organization becomes necessary. But when life became more complicated, some formal organization was set up for the welfare of the community. Elizabethan poor law in England was one of the first efforts to provide services to the needy. But the Charity Organization Societies were forerunners of modern community organization planning. They were first organized in London in 1869 to eliminate in discrimination alms-giving by the relief agencies at that time. In America, the first Charity Organization Society was organized in Buffalo in 1877. Later on these were organized in Pennsylvania, Boston, New York, Philadelphia and other places. The basic purpose of these societies was cooperation between all charitable agencies of a given locality and the best coordination of their efforts. They also organized a number of other activities employment bureaus, day nurseries, etc. The Settlement House Movement was another landmark in the beginning of community organization. Beginning with the establishment of Neibourhood Guild in the lower east side of New York City in 1886, the movement spread rapidly in all industrial centers. James Addam’s Hull House in Chicago and Mary Simkhovitch’s Greenwitch House in New York City were among more famous settlements.

The American Red Cross Home Service programme began during World War I and had the concept of professional social work in its practice. At the same time many other agencies like Y.M.C.A., Y.W.C.A., the Boys Scouts, the Girl Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls, began extending their programmes to many communities.

1.10 CONCEPT OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

1.11 Introduction

When India attained freedom in 1947, it was imperative to bring the villages into the orbit of well knit democratic structure. This realization took a concrete shape when it found expression in our constitution in the following words:

“The states shall strive to promote the welfare of the people by securing and protecting as effectively as it may, a social order in which justice, social, economic and political, shall conform all the institution of national life.”

Accordingly, the community development programme was inaugurated on October 2, 1952. Thus, programme has been rated universally as the largest single venture launched in the world for reconstruction and rehabilitation of life in rural areas. In fact, community development is the process by which the effort of the people are united with those of the governmental authorities to improve the economic, social and political conditions of communities, to integrate these communities into the life of the nation and to enable them to contribute fully national progress. Activising the individual and the community to strive for self-improvement, making use of the available government assistance, but depending largely on self-help is its central purpose, and peoples’ participation is the key note of its programme.

1.12 Definition

It is difficult to define precisely the term community development. It has gone out of the earlier concepts of mass education. It has been designed to promote better living for the whole community. Following are the few classical definitions:

(I) Planning Commission

Community development is an attempt to bring about a social and economic transformation of village life through the effort of people themselves.

(II) United Nation Bureau of Social Affair

Community development is the process designed to create conditions of economic and social progress for whole of the community with its active participation fullest possible reliance on community’s initiative.

(III) The Cambridge Summer Conference

Community development is a movement designed to promote better living for the whole community with the active participation and on the initiative of the community.

Concept of Community Development

The democratic process of consulting the people about their needs and evolving them in decisions about priorities which increasingly constitutes the core of community development objectives must also obviously be embodied in appropriate political forms and local and national administrative structure. The place of community development in this wider structure of local and national life and that which is probably unique to community development is a consciously planned, directed and evaluated endeavor to participate and guide designed social change.

“Success is community development programmes demands that the people emotionally identify themselves with these programmes. Such identification gives Community development the character of the movement providing strength and a sense of purpose to the current of change over a whole country.”

In some countries community development programmes are being formulated from the out-set as the long-term progeamme of development for the whole country. The trend is away from limited or experimental community development projects and decisively towards comprehensive rural development programme conceived as an integral part of general national development policies. With this transition from initial or fragmentary activities to full scale national programmes, community development enters a phase decisive for the future one in which the promises inherent in the community development process are being translated into specific commitments of government for the welfare of the people. At this stage, the future of the movement depends not only upon the ability of the people to respond actively and constructively to immediate tasks and ultimate goals, but also to an increasing extend upon the ability of the people to respond actively and constructively to immediate tasks and ultimate goals, but also to an increasing extent upon the ability of government and the nation at large these responsibilities.

At this final stage, community development may merge into new economic organs and into a well establish local government structure with social welfare provision which the people have learned to use without the need of technique directed at arousing their desire for and participation in this. However, to suggest that at some defined stage when the community’s needs are met, they themselves cease to be achieving about their affairs. On the contrary, both socially developed and socially under-developed community’s need to evolve means by which they can continuously look at themselves with the view to identifying their needs deciding upon their priorities agreeing on ways to meet their needs. What is being discovered is that comparatively simple community of the village may therefore prove also to have relevance for urban community in any part of the world so far as the actual process are concerned, through the formalized structure will be very different.

In the United Nations study on social progress through community development it was said that “the term community development is currently used mainly in relation to the rural areas of less developed countries, where major emphasis is placed up on activities for the improvement of the basic living conditions of the community including the satisfaction of sum of its non-material needs. The complimentary term community organization is more often used in areas in which level of living are relatively high and social services relatively well developed, but in which a greater degree of integration and community initiative is recognized as desirable. Both terms as well as combined joint community organization and development refers to similar concepts of progress through local action.”

(I) The term community development has come in to international usage to connote the process by witch the efforts of the people themselves are united with those of the governmental authorities to improve the economic, social and cultural conditions of the communities, to integrate these communities into the life of the nation, and to enable them to contribute fully to national progress.

(II) This complex of processes is then made up of to essential elements: the participation by the people themselves in efforts to improve their level of living with as much reliance, as possible on their own initiative, and the provision of technical and other services in wages which initiative, self-help and mutual help and make these more effective. It is expressed in wide variety of specific improvements.

Social Goals in Community Development

In most advanced programmes attention is paid not only for meeting material needs and increasing resources but doing this in ways which enhance his tangible values in community life. Planning is a democratic state in a social process in which, in some part every citizen should have the opportunity to participate. To set the pattern of future development is the task of such magnitude and significance that it should embody the best thought of the community and I reflect as fully as possible the impact of public opinion and the needs of the community. The level of living is an organic unity which consists of both material aspects of existence. It consists in large measures of a state of mind as well as of the consumption of material goals and services and of participation in non-material aspects of culture.

This increased sensibility to all the components of social change is related to experience of the disintegrating effects of too rapid change and also to present ignorance about the degree of diversity and speed of change which any particular given society at a given time can observe within its unity, its area of common understandings. While we have no answer for the question of how much diversity or how much unity there is to be in the ideal community. Forces at present are dissipating common values or a common understanding, the physical needs of background community is clearly discernible as compared with the delicate balance of gains and losses in community relationship.

A problem of particular importance is the transfer of experience from more developed industrial culture to the economically underdeveloped societies is how to secure material progress in those countries without loss of spiritual values and those forms of material aid which exist in many pre-literate societies. It is thus essential to carry out change through and with the people's active participation, in order it may be observed within the culture in way which lead to the enrichment rather than impoverishment of social relationship and community ideals. Where this does not happen the people may grow in knowledge but lose their faith, the philosophy by which they make sense of existence, and thus be felt with the frustrated feeling so characteristic of some urban areas, that they don't know what they get it. Thus, situation inevitably arises as where there are no structured and culturally accepted ways of meeting family work and community relationships when people do not know what is expected of them, and thus withdraw into isolation or break out into anti-social behavior.

In all these fields social work has contribution to make through an understanding of the personal causation and social consequences of deprivation of those satisfactions fundamental to human well-being, primarily, love, security, achievement, creative activity and recognition. The fulfillment of these emotional needs, as social worker knows from their experience involves family, group and community relations as well as enrichment of individual life.

1.13 APPROACHES OF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Various methods are being used in pursuit of the objectives of community development. Murray Ross identifies the following three main approaches as:

(I) The ‘single function’ approach in which programmes of techniques are implanted by external agents- a new school, a medical programme, of a housing project which the external agent thinks will benefit the community. In general, it may be said that the trend is away from crude methods of imposition of a project, which neglects the attitudes of residents to the innovation towards winning the support of the community for the subject.

(II) The ‘multiple’ approach in which there is recognition of the wholeness of community life and the team of experts seek to provide a variety of services and to solve some of the problems which may arise as the alteration are made in the community. There are of course many aspects of life in the community, which related to customs, beliefs, ceremonies and rituals which may be affected in a fundamental way by technical changes. The units of service provided in the multiple approaches seldom provide a programme to facilitate adoption or adjustment in these areas.

(III) The “inner resources” approach. Here stress is laid on the needs to encourage communities of people to identify their own wants and needs and to work co-operatively with governmental and other agencies and satisfying them. Projects are not determined but develop as discussion in community is encouraged, proceeds and focuses the real concern of the people. As wants and needs are defined and solution sought, aid may be provided by national governments or international organization. But the emphasis on communities of people working to defined their needs and then to combine their resources with the supplies and services made available to meet the need is a question. In such an approach, technical change follows social movement and not vice-versa change comes as community sees the need for change and as it develops the willing and capacity to make changes in feels desirable. The initial action required arousing communities to desire and work for change itself requires considerable skill.

(I) Similarities between Community Organization and Community Development

· Activities must correspond to the basic needs of the community

· Local improvement may be achieved thought unrelated efforts in each substantive field

· Changed attitudes in people are as important as the material achievements

· Aims at increased and better participation of the people in community affairs

· The identification, encouragement, and training of local leadership should be a objectives in any programme

· Economic and Social progress at the local level necessitates parallel development on a wider national scale

(II) Difference between Community Organization and Community Development

Community development programmes are made available by the government to the people basically for the economic development. Here the main emphasis is on improvement of conditions of people through the expert services of the government. Community organization is a process through which attempts are made to make adjustment between community’s felt needs and community resources. It also directs its resources for the promotion of community integration and collaboration among the people. “Thus in community development it is the government having interest in the economic development of community which organize a network of extension and other services necessary for the fulfillment of needs for improving the conditions of people living in it by encouraging people’s participation in organization, in addition to improvement in conditions, mainly economic, sought to be achieved in planned manner it is the development of cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices which are primarily stressed by the community organizer who is not an extension worker but a social worker. Thus the community organization is different from community development:

1.Community development is a government sponsored programme while for community organization, government sponsorship is not necessary.

2. Community development aims to provide services to the people mainly economic for improvement. In community organization, community services are organized and planed by the people themselves under the guidance of the community organizer.

3.Community development programmes are practiced mainly in underdeveloped or developing communities for the economic development. The basic aim of Community organization is to develop co-operative and collaborative attitude among people in the community.

4.Community organization worker is not necessarily a government functionary. He is skilled in community planning but the functionaries of community development are expert in removing economic backwardness.

1.15 SCOPE OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATION

Community organization is a recent and developing branch of modern social work. Therefore, its scope is not it determined. However, the community organization has its scope in economic upliftment, education, health, road and housing, recreation and cultural development, social services and community life. The importances of community organization are as follows:

(i) It promotes sense of participation among the people.

(ii) It brings about individual progress towards material and recreational goals.

(iii) It helps in personal acceptance and appreciation of each others.

(iv) It creates an atmosphere of respect for the rights and interest of people.

(v) It promotes sense of belongingness and neighborhood among the people of the community and thereby developing a healthy community life.

Philosophy of Community Organization

(i) People can develop a capacity to deal with their own problems.

(ii) People want change and can change.

(iii) People should participate in the changing process of their community.

(iv) Democracy requires co-operative participation and action.

(v) A total approach as more successful then a side approach.

(vi) Frequently communities of people need help in organizing themselves.

1.16 MODELS OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATION

1.16.1 Locality Development:

Locality development means the improvement of a particular locality or area and stresses broader participation of people at the local in goal determination and action. This is to create condition for economic and social programmes for the whole community as a whole with the view of a cohesive community. The consensus in this model, because people are the ones who take part fully in the decision-making, implementing, etc. in other words, this model is entirely based on the capacity and the capability of the people.

Locality development seems to be a general model considering any locality or area as a unit to be developed. Of course the people’s participation has been given top priority. The social planning model being a technical process in solving the problems of the community and providing goods and services to the needy restricts the involvement of the people. These two models will favour the maintenance of the system; it may aggravate the disparity between the rich and the poor. If this aspect is not considering then two models either singularly or in combination may be applied in developing the community.

1.16.2 Social planning:

Social planning emphasizes a technical process of solving social problems, arranging and delivering goods and services to people who needs them. The social planning model covers more of technical aspect of planning out the strategy for action and delivering goods and services. It may not be wrong to say that the model is for providing services to the needy, which means, external help is provided and the interest group within the community takes up the work. In other words the interest group or a small community within the community gets organized to carry out such say is being given to a catalyst group which functions in smoothening the delivery system.

1.16.3 Social Action:

Social action is directed towards basic changes in major situations and organizing segments of the population that are not so well off to make demands on the larger community for increased resources or treatment, more in accordance with social justice and democracy. The model seeks redistribution of power, resources or decision-making in the community, or change in the basic policies of a formal organization. In this model, a discontented community whose needs are to be catered assumes a position of importance. The vulnerable or the weaker sections get organized to demand for equality, redistribution of power, resources, decision-making etc. the weaker sections of the community take part in the social action model.

Social action model, it may not be wrong to say, is for the deserving, the vulnerable, the weaker section of the society who are to be developed and helped. In other words, any development neglecting the ever-neglected sections of the population will only be paradox. One may argue that neither the concept nor the approaches of community development advocates or provides to change the system, which may result in benefiting the disadvantaged. If no such providing is made so far it means there is a defect both in the concept as well as approaches. Through the concept and approaches are developed in the sociological field, if social work claims it as one of the fields of social work, attempt has to be made to make such provision available.

The objectives to be achieved by using the three models are not be the same. None of these models may be regarded as ideal and in that none has a status higher than the others. It is recommended that a purely functional view of the use of these models be taken. For instance when it is a question of delivering goods or services to the community on a large scale where the decision requires a lot of technical know how and knowledge, it is advisable that a social planning model may be adopted.

When it is a question of a eliciting the participation of people for the progress of a homogeneous community one can safely follow the development model. But in community development it is the word community, which can prove to be deceptive. We know that there are communities within a community and such plural communities need not always be cohesive. On the contrary it has been found that certain communities stand to loss and suffer at the hands of other communities, which may be flourishing.

All these three models are not parallel and no sequence can be advocated. In short it is not possible to a say, which model should precede and which should follow. Therefore, depending upon the situation and the appropriate model may be used.