One of the things I learned about when living in rural Vietnam was a little about the theory and practice of asset-based community development. My friend Jenna was one of the first to introduce this concept to me, as she had been privileged to participate in several field visits with the Department of Integrated Rural Development of An Giang University. I learned more when I taught at the Resource Center for Community Development during my second year in Long Xuyen. Since returning from Vietnam I have been doing a lot of my own research about the field and practices of community development and have tried to integrate it into some of my programs and trainings.
Asset Based Community Development is a method and a framework for community building. In their book Asset Building and Community Development, Gary Paul Green and Anna Haines define community development as “a planned effort to build assets that increase the capacity of residents to improve their quality of life.”(xi) This may sound simple but if you look at a lot of community development projects you see that it is not actually common practice. Often the mentality is “This community has a problem,” (such as soaring rates of drug addiction). “Let’s assess their needs and see what kinds of services we need o bring in or how to get people out.” With ABCD on the other hand, the Practitioner” (social worker, politician, local parent, etc.) seeks to assess the assets, talents, skills, and dreams of the individuals, organizations, and institutions in the community and make connections that will change society in a way that increases everyone’s satisfaction and ability. Sounds pretty cool, right? OK, I think it sounds cool.
Back in May I found an interesting article entitled, “Reflections on the Catalytic Role of an Outsider in ABCD,” by Terry Bergdall. Having done work in Africa and Asia, Dr. Bergdall has much to say about the affect that foreigners and foreign development organizations have had on developing countries. How can an outsider be useful in the process of ABCD? Isn’t it based on the idea of the community looking within to find strengths and solutions? Yes, of course. But as the title of the article suggests, outsiders also have a role to play: the part of a facilitator, not with total objectivity, but with the ability to ask questions that the insiders might never think to ask. Questions that perhaps help people to define their own goals and strengths in ways they wouldn’t normally articulate out loud.
So what? I could talk about the subject of community building for hours. Last Sunday I did just that with one of my best friends from college over a cup of coffee in a quaint West Village brunch establishment. She was hungover and I was already accepting the reality that I do not in fact live in New York, despite the fact that it feels more like home than SF in many ways. Despite this we had one of the most personally inspiring conversations I have had in a long time which basically consisted of her drawing out of me the above information and more and the fact that this is the kind of work I want to devote my life to…
Wait, what? Did I know that already? Maybe in some form. But as we walked out of the cozy restaurant onto the cold drizzly streets of New York thoughts and images of my future began flying through my head with much clearer definition than before and I started thinking about what I could do in the next day, the next year, and the next ten years to feed this passion.
I talked to another friend tonight who told me that after our brief visit several weeks ago a sense of calm came over him. The calm, he said, came from the sense that he had a clearer vision of what makes him passionate in life (in this case understanding humanity through the lens of Arabic and Islamic literature and thought) The realization was not directly related to my visit, but again something that he had known about himself for some time without really defining or accepting it. Accepting it and thinking about how to feed that passion, both now and into the future, was somehow liberating for him. The catalyst strikes again.
What was the point of this? Well, this is one of the ways that I can improve my knowledge and experience of community and relationship building in the simplest way: trying to be the catalyst in personal and professional relationships, analyzing how it happens and honing my ability to understand how to identify and draw out the strengths and passions of many different kinds of people.
I’m going to stop now because my right hand is injured and my left hand is getting really tired of doing all the typing on its own. Sigh.
