Re: Industry + Public = LO?? LO2397

Michael McMaster (Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk)
Sun, 13 Aug 1995 07:03:20 +0000

Replying to LO2384 --

I do work with an organisation is focussed on teenagers in serious
trouble with the system - law and various social agencies. The work
takes kids into a week long and very intensive dialogue and outdoor
process and then provides support programmes for a year for those
kids.

The visible focus is on the kids. The actual programme focus,
however, is on the community which surrounds those kids. The
programme cannot happen unless a very large support community is
activated, mobilised and generally engaged with the challenges of
which the kids are merely a focal point. The kids become the context
of the programme but the community is the context for the kids.

One of the requirements for a successful programme seems to be that
the community takes on a larger possibility than just the kids in the
programme. Those who become engaged take on their own development as
well as larger issues of their community. A programme which is
focussed just on the kids will die in the same way that those already
involved in this area in the community have become resigned.

Another organisation I do work with has a process for getting
community leaders in third world countries to mobilise their own
resources to decide what problems are important and to deal with them
as a develomental process for taking on larger challenges. This
programme develops leaders who continue to develop others and to
expand the network of people and projects.

Two lessons for me are:
- the total context needs to be bigger than a single problem or
issue and be designed to continually expand or change focus
- the participants need to be there for their own growth and
development and not just for altruistic reasons and the programme
needs to be more concerned with social development than with a
particular result being achieved.

--
Michael McMaster
Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk