India and Community Organizing

Reading about community organizing, theory and practice, as well as models and the major approaches to community practice is what reminded me of my phenomenal experience in India. 9 years ago I traveled to India and lived in Madurai where I taught English to orphan boys between the ages of 4 and 18. These children had been placed in the Boys' Home for many different reasons, but a significant number of them had been placed in the home after their parents had committed suicide after years of low crop yield due to droughts and economic devastation in the village. Unable to provide for their families, some of the parents killed themselves and left their children to fend for themselves.

In many rural villages, farming and growing crops is the way to not only make a living, but also support your family. The impact of globalization and the quest for industrial development has left developing nations feeling the effects of climate change on a massive scale. With millions of families relying on successful crops to eat, the more Western nations continue to consume, the more climate unpredictability we will see. The children I worked with had lost everything because there simply wasn't enough rain.


 Local organizations and international ones like the YMCA saw an opportunity to work with rural communities. In the recent L.A. times article we read about the prestigious Macarthur Foundation genius grant. Rick Lowe makes a point to really discuss a crucial piece of community organizing and practice: "You have to spend years developing relationships to be able to do something like this ... It’d be an arrogant disregard of a community to come in and think you can grasp all the complexities of a place in a short time.” (Miranda, 2014). If we want to have an inclusive process that includes human rights, it is important to recognize the very extensive and diverse experience that all human beings share: a shared humanity (Weil, 2013). 

Successful community organizing involves engagement and praxis: taking the theories we've learned and putting them into practice and reflecting on that action (Weil, 2013). When organizers visited one rural village, it was populated with mostly women and children. The majority of men had committed suicide leaving the families to have to learn new skills that they had not been allowed to learn before due to oppression and expression of gender roles. The women had mostly done house work, gathering food, and any domestic work while the children went to school in the village and the men farmed and produced goods and services not only for their community, but for neighboring communities, too. Left without any knowledge of how to farm, the women spoke to organizers about the kind of help they really wanted. 

Last week in class, Dr. G mentioned that for our group community engagement projects we may hope to start one project, but find that the organization we want to work with does not need or even desire that project. This is what happened in this village. Organizers had come hoping to provide sanitary outhouses and help rebuild homes, but the residents were assertive and insisted that the help they needed was learning how to grow food and create goods that were high in demand: enough to make a sustainable living without having to remarry or send their children away. The women began to experience a sense of empowerment that can only come from practicing advocacy for oneself. 

The local agencies and the YMCA needed cultural brokers to assist with bridging the social capital to help facilitation and program planning (Weil, 2013). Switching focus from infrastructure rebuilding to job training and farming experience was focusing on the group interest and the local context. The goal from them on was community development, improving the standard of living and well being of this disadvantaged population (Weil, 2013). Organizers worked with community leaders, or the village elders, to discuss how to move forward with bringing in laborers to teach the women a new skill and professional farmers to educate the women and older children how to sustain and grow crops for food. The residents went from feelings of dependency: on their men or husbands to provide for them, to feelings of self reliance, self confidence, and a sense of pride in their work and new found skills.

Volunteers from all over the country and state of Tamil Nadu came to hold classes for the women. Over a period of a year, the village was back at supplying its own food supply as well as selling to local communities. The women had also learned new skills like basket weaving, sewing, and jewelry making, all sold to traveling tourists or wealthier citizens in the state. Over time, the village did decide to accept assistance from local agencies and the YMCA to improve sanitation as well as rebuilding the village school. 


Throughout the progress of this organizing, it was important to have the right model of practice and each model needed to be "adapted and tailored to local contexts, culture, needs, and aspirations" (Weil, 2013). In this case study, organizers focused on neighborhood and community and chose a population based on geographical proximity. Their goals were aimed at providing social, economic, and sustainable development and it was an inclusive model. The women and children of the village became active participants in the development and wanted it to be successful,

In terms of what I mean by development, it is important to emphasize that although the community changes that occurred were about creating a sustainable environment for these women and their families, but it was also a feminist development that in the end resulted in better livelihood, food security, dignity and income, as well as the radical change in gender roles of women in such a rural village becoming the "heads of their household".

Had local organizers and agencies just gone in and not listened to the wisdom of the community they were hoping to serve, they may not have helped the village become the sustainable and thriving community that exists today. 

Globalization: it's right next door.

source: https://coursera-course-photos.s3.amazonaws.com/50/945bed87d1f8745ec38aeb2090f644/GlobalizationWordleBanner2.jpg

As the world continues to be able to reach bigger and more expansive levels of trade, growth, and the neoliberal ideal, human rights and the connections between cultures has become strained.

This week's readings focused on the implication of globalization on community practice and the reality of just how much work needs to be done and how crucial international social work really is to the overall well being of our planet and the global community.

If I were to attempt to define “globalization” before reading Weil's The Handbook of Community Practice, I would say that “globalization” is the merging of cultures, ideas, economies, and belief systems. Globalization has brought things like modern medicine to some of the poorest countries in the world, but it has also caused some of the smallest indigenous tribes and native peoples’ to be wiped out completely, leaving no trace of their existence. Globalization can be seen not as a final destination, but as a process that is never ending and is a result of many different parts of our world that are all intertwined. The new systemic inequalities that have come into place over the last few decades, are all important factors in the new geo-economy.

How does globalization tie in to social work? Part of the effects of globalization on the Global South and developing nations is the devastation faced from excavating resources and using cheap labor to make items for buyers in the Global North. The decrease in quality of life and human rights violations stem from forced colonialism, all in hopes of obtaining more profits for transnational corporations, conglomerates, and share holders. While imposing colonialism we also impose Western ideals that violate cultural, spiritual, and community values that differ depending on geographic location The world is such a diverse place that being forced to abide by Western ideals, both cultural and monetary through the IMF and World Bank, leave little room for developing nations to escape the Global North's hold on their goods, services, and independence.

As social work students, it is important to learn now that our duty to pursue social justice and welfare for all is not just for our next door neighbors, it is not only for people in our community or for people in our state or nation. Socioeconomic injustices, human rights violations and growing gaps between the rich and poor across the globe are all worthy of our attention.

By knowing how the global north effects the global south, how social workers need to appreciate cultural differences, how economics has an impact across the globe, and understanding emerging issues like climate change or civil war, terrorism is the best way we can serve the global community.

Grow some shit

When I first saw Ron Finley's TED talk about a year ago, I was so pumped the entire time I watched it. I loved his realism, his passion, his low tolerance for bullshit, and a profound love for his community and how people in his community live.

I shared the video with friends and family on facebook and loved the responses I got.

He is right, you know, "food is the problem and food is the solution". With nearly 49,000,000 people living with food insecurity in the United States, 21% of that population is children. 1 in 5 individuals Families cannot afford food, may not have reliable access to food pantries, and may not be able to sustain themselves on SNAP benefits.

Not only are we not providing enough food for people in our country, but the food we are providing is not necessarily healthy. You may be wondering how obesity and poor health like diabetes is related to poverty. The answer is that people who live in impoverished regions, or "food deserts"

 like Ron accurately described them, are areas where individuals have incredibly low access to fresh foods. Lack of fresh foods means more reliance on canned goods or non perishable items that have preservatives and high levels of ingredients that I can't even pronounce. 

Worse than not providing food is the WASTING of food. To demonstrate the amount of food waste in America, an environmental named Rob Greenfield set off on a cross country bike ride and relied on only eating food out of dumpsters behind grocery stores. Read more here! Rob learned that 

"$165 billion worth of food thrown out each year, 

or about half of all the food we produce"

Those numbers are hard to fathom. THAT much food waste and we have how many people living with food insecurity? Rob argues that through the Good Samaritan Food Act, supermarkets should be able to donate their food without fear of repercussions.

Ron Finley's plan to create urban oasis is an excellent way to provide the fresh fruits and vegetables that are hard to come by in food deserts, but donations from stores is another way to combat food insecurity.

Before I die ...

Before I die ... What do I want?

Candy Chang's moving TED talk left me thinking that there are plenty of things that I hope to accomplish before I die. Watching how an artist made art into a strong social statement and a way to connect her community was very moving.

In this very technologically advanced age, it is easy to become separated from our community, our friends, our family, and in many ways even ourselves. It takes a level of self awareness to realize this and to step back and breathe it all in. Candy Chang's community art project gave individuals in the community a chance to stop, look at other responses and then think of their own goals before they die. How do they want to leave the world a better place?

I thought, is there something like this in Portland, Maine, where I live? The first Friday of every month there is a community art walk on Congress Street, it's a chance for artists to come together and display their work and let the community see what a diverse and beautiful city they really live in.

Many murals are visible throughout Portland and many of them have significant ties and meaning to the community.

East Bay Side Community Mural

Although I have not done any organizing around art, a few years ago I did start a small movement on campus that was based off a larger nation wide movement called Operation Beautiful. A friend and I spent hours over the course of a few weeks creating post it notes, index cards, posters, and cards that we designed, decorated, and wrote words of inspiration on. We left them on campus, in restrooms, at truck stops, in the super market check out line, in weight scales that were being sold at Target, in books as bookmarks. We left hundreds of these everywhere we could think of. We even sneaked into our old high school to put notes of inspiration in students lockers!

These three are just a small example of the many things we put up around our community.

I noticed some of my fellow classmates with post it notes on their notebooks. 

"Where did you get that?' I asked.

"It was in the bathroom, by the mirror. Ya know, I was having such a bad day and this was so sweet. I had to take it with me."

That was the goal! The point, my mission. To spread the positivity and the idea of self love. Before I knew it, post it notes that I didn't write started appearing on campus and I was over joyed that others were so touched by my original messages that they went and started their own.

As an individual that wants to be social worker, I want to focus on the big picture. I want to look at policy and making large structural changes and getting all caught up in that makes it so easy to forget that the little things matter, too. Little things, like post it notes, or large community projects like Candy Chang's mural can make a difference and bring a community together.