Community Leadership Development Handbook

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COMMUNITY
LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT
HANDBOOK
Rick Flowers and Derek Waddell
with community leaders from Marrickville and UTS colleagues
(see names on inset page)
THIS IS A DRAFT PREPARED FOR A FORUM

ON MAY 7th. THE HANDBOOK WILL BE
COMPLETED IN JULY 2004.
an initiative of Marrickville Council
Centre for Popular Education
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COMMUNITY
LEADERSHIP
DEVELOPMENT
HANDBOOK
Rick Flowers and Derek Waddell
with Andrew Chodkiewicz, Beryl Winter, Bruce Ashley, Carolyn Hummerston,

Celina McEwen, Carole Strong, Charlie Coorey, David Khouri, David Urquhart,
Evdokia Kritikos, Fady Ahmad, Frank Storey, Gabrielle Kuiper, Glen Redmayne,
Hazel Storey, Jerry Bachich, Joy Barrett, Julie Killiby, Kaye Lockhart, Lesley
Yasso, Linda Livingstone, Liz Colyer, Manuel Fragoso, Marie Mooney, Maria
Lemos, Rhonda Grosvenor, Rosarela Meza, Rosie Le, Samantha Edmonds,
Simone Parsons, Sue Samad, Sue Stevens, Teri Merlyn
Centre for Popular Education
th
THIS IS A DRAFT PREPARED FOR A FORUM ON MAY 7 . THE HANDBOOK WILL BE COMPLETED IN JULY 2004
3
First published 2004 by Centre for Popular Education UTS

PO Box 123
Broadway NSW 2007
Australia
cpe@uts.edu.au
www.cpe.uts.edu.au
Copyright „ Rick Flowers and Derek Waddell
You are welcome to copy parts of this handbook. But if you choose to purchase a copy
this will help sustain and grow our capacity to develop more community leadership
development resources. Copies can be purchased from the Centre for Popular
Education.
ISBN
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Foreword
STRENGTHENING LOCAL COMMUNUNITY LEADERSHIP

Local issues matter. The quality of the place where you live matters. At the heart
of a vibrant democracy is having people being active to continually improve and
change their local communities, the places where they live, not just for
themselves but also for others less fortunate. In Australia, local government
authorities can lead efforts to strengthen local democracy.
From 2002 to 2004 Marrickville Council in the inner west of Sydney invested in a
community leadership development program. The potential payoffs for Council
are that they will be able to work with more engaged and active community
groups.
In this handbook we do not intend to simply proclaim what a great success the
community leadership program was. Instead, we intend to describe and discuss
the complexities of planning and facilitating such a program with pleasing and
not-so-pleasing achievements. We hope this handbook will be useful for others
planning and co-ordinating community leadership programs.
When we talk about the complexities of such a program we are not just referring
to the planning and facilitation processes. We are talking about the complexity
or problem of making judgements about a short-term and one-off intervention.
We believe that investing in efforts to strengthen the capacity of groups to
exercise local community leadership development will lead to stronger and
more meaningful democracy. But we have no illusions that a one-off community
leadership program, no matter how well planned and managed, can achieve
significant democracy-building outcomes. At the end of the day, long-term
community development is better than short-term project interventions. Active
community groups do not spring up with the running of one community
leadership development program. They are more likely to grow around the local
presences of parks, schools, health centres, plant nurseries, bike tracks, benches
in attractive streetscapes, corner shops, adult education projects, arts
events and so on.
Having said this, we believe that investment in community leadership

development can complement and enhance investment in local community
facilities and events, so long as it is long-term.
There is nothing more disruptive or divisive to the social cohesion of

communities than constantly changing funding priorities, restructuring and
reorganising schemes and personnel. Anecdotal evidence from people working
for community organisations suggest that much time and energy are expended
chasing funding dollars; filling out interminable forms; and justifying and
evaluating projects, often for sums that are so small that in many cases they
barely cover the costs of the proposed project (Scanlon 2004, p. 11).
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Contents
• Foreword
1. Community Leadership 6
2. Strengths and Challenges of Marrickville 15
3. Program Structure and Rationale 18
4. Workshops 29
5. Projects 38
6. Program Values and Philosophies 56
7. Learning and Teaching Community Leadership 63
8. Social Change 69
9. Sustaining the will to exercise leadership in

local communities 78
10. What we would do next time 82
• References
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Community
Chapter
1 Leadership
What do we mean by community leadership? Who exercises leadership?

The term “leadership tends to be a very contentious one, and our experience has
been that there is likely to be initial discomfort with the notion of "leadership".
A recurring theme in our pre-program interviews in Marrickville, as well as in
our conversations in Macarthur, was a reluctance to name oneself as a leader.
Some community change agents will not readily identify themselves as leaders,
perhaps because it may conjure up notions of authority and managerialism that
they wish to distance themselves from, or because they genuinely think in terms
of groups or communities rather than individuals.
Participants in this Program were also critical of and uncomfortable with, the
term “leadership.” Beryl wanted rid of it, Liz suggested “community doers”
would be more appropriate, and others came up with a range of alternatives
including: goers, enablers, facilitators, activists, initiators (Charlie) and gems (Liz).
Housing estate residents in Macarthur we worked with last year, seemed to
prefer to be called simply “community volunteers.”
Yet people could name leaders and they discussed the potential for emerging
leaders. We asked people to name others who sprang to mind as community
leaders in Marrickville. We ended up with a list of about forty “leaders” –
community workers, neighbourhood centre coordinators, councillors, religious
leaders, activists, artists, leaders of different ethnic and cultural groups, active
citizens involved in various projects or movements or organisations. It was an
interesting list, a broad list, a varied list, but not all the people on it saw
themselves as leaders, at least initially.
Some people thought that leaders "evolved", that they were catalysts for positive
change in the community; responding to common visions or concerns and
mobilising collective responsibility.
Where might we be likely to find these leaders? Frank: concluded that he saw:
community leadership, working in local churches like St Patrick's in Summerhill
which is very active with the boarding house community…they are interested
in the citizenship and social justice angles.
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Many churches do provide significant leadership, particularly in the Pacific

Islander communities, but our experience suggests that leaders are not confined
to churches, but rather are to be found in a whole array of different settings.
Perhaps it is more useful to talk about "exercising leadership", rather than being
a leader. All people are capable of exercising leadership. Perhaps some more so
than others at particular times. Most people act differently in different
situations, sometimes the moment is just right for them to exercise leadership,
they are in the right place at the right time to try to make a difference.
In his work in the southern states of USA, Myles Horton (1990, pp.144-145)
eschewed working with the more traditional community leaders, preferring to
work with what he termed “grassroots leaders :
Grassroots leaders are not official leaders but people who are recognized as
having qualities by the people they live and work with ……they are the people
that others look to for advice and encouragement.
Horton explained his reasons for this preference as follows:
• You have more chance of influencing someone who hasn’t been moulded into the
hierarchical system, and hasn’t already been socialized to operate from the top.
• People who are just beginning to understand themselves as leaders are also more
open…
• they can be held responsible by the membership
• [they] are free to act, are not constrained by institutional roles except for their
perception of the situation and their relationship to others
• [they] keep the people behind them, and to do this they have to act democratically
• [they have] freedom to learn and you accept the idea that you can build your
strength from the bottom up instead of from the top down
Rick was surprised recently to learn about an initiative to ‘train’ unemployed

people in Western Sydney to be community leaders. His initial thoughts were …
gee, are they community leaders? Are they concerned to bring about community
change, or do they just want to get a job? Then it struck him that it probably is
more useful to think about unemployed people wanting to exercise leadership
rather than being leaders. Who better to exercise leadership about changing the
way unemployed people are perceived in the wider community than
unemployed people themselves? They do not even have to exercise this
leadership as individuals, but maybe as a group, with their different skills and
aptitudes complementing each other to exercise leadership effectively.
On another tack, Frank thought that leaders could work within existing
Institutions also, to broaden or sharpen the role these Institutions might play
within their community:
Community Colleges effectively and efficiently meet educational needs where
there is a vocational or individual outcome but are much less likely to be active
where there is an equally clear community education need, for example, in areas
such as human rights, the environment or democracy. Colleges could effectively
engage with these important community education issues and still be effective
small businesses and providers of VET and individual focused programs. For
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that to happen, community leaders who will pursue these community education
issues need to be encouraged to take positions on college councils (Frank
19/2/04).
But what qualities are required to exercise leadership? At our initial planning
meeting in September 2002, a group brainstorm of twenty "leaders," came up
with the following thoughts:
What are the Qualities an ideal Community Leader should possess?

(ideas from the planning workshop)
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE
• Does not appear to be a leader • Self-knowledge

• Humble & not patronising • Can click with people
• Passionate & outraged • Good communicator with all
• Energetic & enthusiastic levels
• Reliable, honest, true • Genuinely listens
• Adventurous risk-taker • Takes people with them
• Determined & courageous • Reflective
• Loyal & generous-hearted • Able to inspire

• Can make hard decisions
• Reflective
• Penetrates conventional
• Resilient barriers
• Spontaneous • Thinks strategically
• Visionary, dream-maker • Knows how to avoid burn-
out
• Sense of humour
• Expertise of some kind
• Sense of social justice
• Selfless, sees the big picture
• A conscience about what is
happening to others
• Connected to the everyday
Some additional thoughts from subsequent workshops included:
• Identify the need or the injustice.

• Helping people to feel more confident of their ability to address
injustices.
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• Leaders evolve
• Courage of convictions
• Shared common issue/ vision for social change
• articulate and crystallise ideas
• Mobilise self and/or others
• Catalyst for positive change
• Take responsibility
• Responding to common visions or concerns and
• Mobilizing collective responsibility
• Desire for change / growth
• Individual or personal change (why)
• Creating a clarity (what)
• Process – seeker – celebration (how)
• What next – renewal
• Where to – opportunity
• Communicate with others and work with others to make this happen
• Ethical power as opposed to hierarchical power
• Sense of justice
• Facilitating empowerment and initiative
• Recognising and encouraging qualities
• Celebrating small successes and allowing multiplicities to flow
• Led by example(s) – sustainability, diversity, intermingling, continuity,
action and feasibility
Putting Something Back

Don, Carolyn and Julie all thought leaders should put something back into their
communities:
• Don Mamouney thinks leadership is about serving and coordinating and
helping people access resources.
• Carolyn, stressed that a leader “should be leading something.” She sees
herself as an advocate for students – she is knocking down the blocks or
barriers that are stopping students from achieving what they want to
achieve. Her interest in school/community is to facilitate her students'
learning – she sees that she does use the community, but would also like
to give back to the community (she should be leading something of
benefit to the community).
• Julie Killiby felt a leader was:
a good facilitator; one who is not ego-based, wants to give back a little
bit, cares about strengthening the community and one who is willing
and able to work in a collaborative manner.
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The Personal Element

Sue Stevens believes that things cannot be forced on people:
they need to be affected at a personal level. So this means social and peer group
pressure rather than public education. …. someone the community would use
as a role model. They must help people find support for what they are trying to
do.
Peter Dixon doesn't really see himself as a leader but on reflection agrees that he
probably is one, as he has been very involved in trying to help people in South
Marrickville over the years.
Youth Leaders
Evdokia Kritikos sees herself as a youth leader because she's
not afraid to speak out and say what she's thinking ….. In Marrickville there is a
sense of the community growing, everybody working together …… In terms of
leaders, there's not many, we need more young people who are not afraid to
speak out and to challenge other people's views. Can't think of any leaders, but
young leaders need to be strong, self confident with good public speaking skills
and they must not be afraid to say what they think. Leaders need also a network
and the support and respect of other people.
It's harder getting boys involved as leaders because they think it's not cool, the
boys are harder to get, although Marrickville Youth Council has 8 regulars, 4
female, 4 male.
This [Community Leadership program] will help because there will be more
opportunities for young people to share their ideas. There is a great sense of
action in giving opinions, believing in something as a young person. It's
important to have a strong set of values whether or not these are culturally
based.
What makes a leader? Leadership qualities are self-confidence, communication

skills, public speaking ability and critical thinking - the ability to think on your
own, and self-respect which comes from family. In my family I was taught to
say what you believe in.
Emerging Leaders
Anne Power (1997, p.136-137), in her research in Housing Estates in Europe

noted one potential problem with the nurturing of “leaders” on the estates:
Activists tended to become over-dominant, through lack of competition for key
positions. This could lead to burn-out, a bullying style of leadership and a cycle
of collapse in locally based initiatives.
So how can we spread this role of “exercising leadership” so that it does not
simply remain in the same few hands? One way would appear to be through
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identifying, nurturing and encouraging emerging leaders to take more and more
control, and through creating opportunities for them to do this.
As our Community Leadership Program evolved, the key questions arising

continued to surround the concept of "emerging leaders":
• Who are they?

• How can we define the term?
• How can we identify them?
• In what ways can we motivate, nurture and support them to evolve as
fully fledged community leaders or activists?
• What roles could they have within our project teams?
• What can we do to identify and involve some 'emerging leaders"?
• If one of the main problems facing most workers, but probably especially
community workers, is busyness, how can we find the time to involve,
motivate and support "emerging leaders" in our jobs and our projects?
In the original community leadership proposal for this project, Rick Flowers
defined a second group of leaders as new community leaders:
people who are passionate about developing their local or interest communities
but are not yet regarded by themselves and others as ‘leaders.’ Many of these
people may be residents who are not paid to do community development. But
they, out of a commitment to improving the quality of life, invest in a significant
voluntary effort.
In an interview with Rick before the first workshop Councillor Rebecca Kaiser
defined emerging leaders as:
those [people] who don't yet perceive they have power [but] have a sense of
belonging.
Whether or not they are paid, is one question, though most people would
probably agree that emerging leaders can be either paid or non-paid; more
crucial questions surround their characteristics and aspirations for their
communities:
• Do they identify themselves as leaders?

• Do others see them as such?
• Are they the sort of people we might describe as “goers” – the people
with obvious and infectious energy?
Perhaps, as we have discussed already, it is more useful to talk about exercising

leadership, rather than being a leader, in which case "emerging leaders" could be
described as having:
• The potential to exercise leadership;

• A commitment to their local community;
• The personality to inspire others, and maybe also;
• The ability to form clear goals for social change on a local level.
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What's Leadership, Community, and Community Leadership?

Who are Recognised Leaders and Emerging Leaders?
Workshop Exercise 3
Going on previous experience facilitating these sort of sessions with similar

participants I expect that there will be initial discomfort with the notion of
leadership. A recurring theme in our pre-program interviews in Marrickville
was a reluctance to name oneself as a leader. Some community change agents
will not readily identify as leaders because it may conjure up notions of
authority and managerialism that they wish to distance themselves from.
Yet people could name leaders and they discussed the potential for emerging
leaders. We asked people to name others who sprang to mind as community
leaders in Marrickville. Here is a sample of people named. This is not a
definitive list. I am conveying some of the names, not because they are part of a
definitive list, but in order to help us think about the qualities of people who are
perceived to exercise leadership. What qualities would the following people be
perceived by others in Marrickville as having?
• Carol Strong, Marrickville Youth • Mathew Peet, aerosol artist

Resource Centre • Paula Aboud, freelance cultural
• Church leaders development worker
• Do Khan, Screaming Theatre • Peter Dixon, Residents for
• Don Mamouney, Addison Rd Reconiliation
Community Centre • religious leaders, especially in Pacific
• George Habib, Marrickville Islander communities
Neighbourhood Centre • Rhonda Browsen, Project Officer,
• Jack Carnegie, Newtown Ethnic Childcare Co-op
Neighbourhood Centre • Robin, Principal at Lewisham Primary
• John at Interconnect Cafe, former School
editor of The Bridge • Sam Escander, Muslim Councillor and
• Leah, current editor of The Bridge, Marrickville High School community
Newtown Neighbourhood Centre's liaison officer
magazine • Steven Chan, Project Office, Ethnic
• Lester Bostock and Jenny Thomson Childcare Co-op
• Lucy Sharman and Dari, Residents for • Terry Cutlifee, gallery owner
Reconciliation • Vivi Gemones, Ethnic Childcare Co-
• Mardilene Ribero op, Executive Director
Perhaps it is more useful to talk about exercising leadership, rather than being a
leader. All people are capable of exercising leadership. Perhaps some more so
than others at particular times.
I recently was surprised to learn about an initiative to ‘train’ unemployed

people in Western Sydney to be community leaders. My initial thoughts were …
gee, are they community leaders? Are they concerned to bring about community
change, or do they just want to get a job? Then it struck me that it probably is
more useful to think about unemployed people wanting to exercise leadership
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rather than being leaders. Who better to exercise leadership unemployed people
are perceived in the wider community than unemployed people themselves?
Consider definitions of community leadership in the case of unemployed people

in Marrickville. Imagine a group of unemployed people in Marrickville have
accepted an invitation to participate in a program that seeks to strengthen their
capacity to exercise leadership. And you are one of the facilitators. Imagine
using the inventory below to lead discussion with the unemployed people about
the nature of leadership. Critique the following inventory of questions.
Discuss your critique in a small group. Then write out the qualities you expect
emerging community leaders in Marrickville might aspire to. Respond critically
to, or elaborate upon, the following assertion. We will get the definitions copied.
The three most important qualities of community leadership

are the ability to (a) influence and bring about change, (b)
clearly know the purpose of the sought change and (c)
mobilise many other people to be involved in the change.
QUALITIES OF COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

A BRAIN TEASER and INVENTORY
CHANGE
• What sort of change do you want?
• What are some examples of personal change you are pursuing?
• What are some examples of community changes you are pursuing?
ORIENTATION AND IDENTITY
• How do you define your identity: as an unemployed person, a resident of

Marrickville, a student, an active citizen, a volunteer, a change agent, an
activist, or/and a community leader?
• How do you perceive the people who try to help you? Are they case
workers, collaborators, fellow activists, trainers, or/and community
leaders?
CAPACITY, POWER AND CONFIDENCE
• Who has power to bring about community change?
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• Who perceive themselves as powerful and influential?
• Do you perceive that you can bring about desired community change?
• Do you have knowledge and skills that could be valuable to plan and
facilitate community change?
• Do you have the energy and confidence to learn more knowledge and
skills for facilitating change?
WELL DEFINED DREAM AND PURPOSE
• How well are you able to define the purpose of the sought community
change?
• To what extent are others unclear and confused about the purpose of the
change?
• How well can you explain the purpose of the change to others?
MOBILISING
• Do you have the energy and confidence to support others to be involved

in the sought change?
• Do you have ideas about fostering the participation of other people?
• Do people respect and enjoy collaborating with you?
• Are you a good mentor and motivator?
NATURE OF LEADERSHIP
• What is leadership? Is it characterised by seniority or superiority? Do

excellence and role modelling define it? Are we really talking about
management skills? Is leadership about having plans and policies? Or is
it simply being vested with institutional authority? Or is leadership more
about having vision and purpose?
• Is there a difference between being good at planning and managing

activities versus exercising leadership?
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Strengths and
Chapter
2 challenges of
Marrickville
What are the strengths and challenges in Marrickville?

Marrickville is rightly proud of the feel of the place, the cosmopolitan
atmosphere, the outspoken and progressive council, its traditions of being a
leading light in all things community. At our planning meeting in October 2002,
there was real energy in the room when the twenty participants proudly listed
the essential characteristics of the Marrickville they loved (see below). There
was particular emphasis on the multicultural diversity and variety and the
community feel of the place, as exemplified by the easy mingling of so many
people at events like the Marrickville Festival. On such occasions, there is no
feeling of tension or rush, but rather a quiet pleasure in getting out and about,
and enjoying the place in which you live.
What you are proud of in Marrickville?
Variety Fighting for what’s right
• Sound of other languages • Quality of life

• Very creative • Level of maturity
• Great library • Strong networks
• Green space • Willingness to share
• Cooks River • Sense of community
• The festivals • Environmentally aware and
• Addison Road Community active
Centre
• The young People
• The food
• The coffee
• The community nursery
• Spirituality
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Diversity/harmony Homely Feel
• Tolerant/accepting • Neighbourhoods
• Multicultural • Feels like a town on its own
• Non-ageist • Friendly
• Very liberal • Intangible magic
• Non-racist • Sense of belonging (for blow-
• Very visible gay/lesbian ins also)
community • Nice small hotels
• Collaboration across all • Welcoming
sections
There was real energy in the room during this brainstorm, a feeling that
Marrickville was special – somewhere worth fighting for, to preserve its
essential character. However, the mood changed, when the group was asked to
consider what was missing. There was still pride, but also a certain uneasy
feeling that all was not really what it seemed on the surface, that there were
some sections of the community missing from these community celebrations,
that not everyone was rich or confident enough to enjoy all that the community
had to offer and to feel comfortable at all venues and in all situations. It was not
a pessimistic feeling of despair, but rather an admission that there was still work
to do, if Marrickville was to assuredly claim the harmony and diversity it
frequently celebrated.
What’s Missing in Marrickville

(from planning session in October 2002)
The area is choking:
• Traffic – the major problem

• Should be more pedestrian focused
• Character changing
• King Street for tourists now
• Lack of affordable housing
• Decline of public housing & boarding houses
• New development mostly medium density development
• Pot-holes
There are pockets of marginal groups:
• Youth-at-risk
• 6 Priority schools* in the area - 3 primary & 3 high schools (*meaning
schools in poor socio-economic areas)
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• outworkers
• some very poor families
• greater division between haves & have-nots
Politics & economics drive the big decisions:
• few opportunities for real discussions & debate about real concerns
• where is the Youth voice?
• Cooks River fish are off
• Lowest green area in Australia
• Lack of funding for service infrastructure & low-cost activities
• Lack of promotion of facilities
The Aboriginality of the area is missing from many community activities,

despite the work and inspiration of a few people like Lester Bostock.
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Program
Chapter
3 structure and
rationale
Is a community leadership program a training program?
No, it is not.
In the middle of 2002 a student placement with the Manager of Community

Development at Marrickville Council rang Rick Flowers at the Centre for
Popular Education, UTS and asked whether we had some community
leadership training modules. She explained that the Council was planning a
community leadership strategy as part of a wider strategy driven by its Social
Capital Working Group and they wanted to review a number of courses. Rick
explained that while staff at the Centre for Popular Education had considerable
experience in community leadership development we did not have standardised
modules or courses. Rick went on further to advise that if the Council wanted a
pre-packaged course then the group at the Centre for Popular Education UTS
probably do not offer the same level of expertise as other groups with
experience in community leadership development. But if Marrickville Council
were interested in working with the Centre in partnership to develop a
negotiated and contextually specific strategy we probably do offer an attractive
level of expertise.
Myles Horton was Director of the Highlander Centre in Tennessee USA during
the 1960s. Highlander played an important role in strengthening the capacity of
various civil rights, community development and union groups to exercise
leadership. When asked to describe Highlander’s approach to ‘teaching’
community leadership he said
There are no given answers to the problems we dealt with, and we don’t
pretend to have any. They have to be worked out in the process of struggling
with the problem. The knowledge needed for the solution has to be created.
The people who come to the workshops have a lot of knowledge that they don’t
know they have. Highlander gives them a “chance” to explore what they know
and what some people we bring in as resource people can share with them.
Then they have to go back home and test what they learn in action. If they have
learned anything useful they can teach others because it is now part of their
knowledge, not something merely handed to them. Highlander has been a stop
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in the continuum of defining and trying to solve an important problem, a place

to think and plan and share knowledge (p.148).
Highlander workshops are based on the mining of the experience that the
students bring with them, their awareness that they have a problem to deal
with, and the relationship of that problem to conflict…….They must know that
they have problems which can’t be solved on a personal level, that their
problems are social, collective ones which take an organized group to work on
(p.148).
I think of an educational workshop as a circle of learners (p.150).
There is no method to learn from Highlander. What we do involves trusting

people and believing in their ability to think for themselves (p.157).
We find this approach useful and it shapes much of our work.
Program aims
The aim of the program was to help community leaders learn more about ways
to inspire and support residents to be actively involved in acting upon
community issues.
This strategy sought to:
• strengthen the capacity of community, business and government groups

in Marrickville to build community belonging and social capital
• strengthen relationships between local leaders engaged in diverse forms

of community development, arts, education and advocacy.
• encourage and support a whole-of-community process of learning, action

and evaluation.
Community leaders were drawn from schools; ethnic, sporting, cultural and
activist groups; local business; youth and community work; government
agencies; legal support and the police; unions; health services; arts and cultural
development; employment and training agencies, TAFE, adult and community
education.
The community leadership strategy is one component of Marrickville Council’s

‘belonging’ project.
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The flyer used to solicit applications.
COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP FOR BELONGING IN

MARRICKVILLE
Marrickville Council is coordinating a new program to help build community leaders and
to inspire and support residents to be actively involved in community issues. This
important program will draw members of the community together to strengthen
community relationships and enhance the sense of belonging in Marrickville.
The program is open to community leaders and people involved in community, cultural,
education, environment, health, legal and sports organisations.
Participants will work on developing skills for community involvement, planning

leadership programs and encouraging community participation. Participants will then
pass on skills and run groups to assist emerging leaders in their area.
The program will be facilitated by Derek Waddell and Rick Flowers from the Centre for
Popular Education, University of Technology Sydney, supported by a team of their
collegues. The centre is renowned for its creative and innovative approaches to
community strengthening.
The program will take place over a series of six one day workshops from October 2002 to
December 2003, and will also include Community Leadership Dinners, mentoring, support and a
‘showcase forum’ in October 2003. The only cost to participants is their time. The first meeting will
be held on the last week of September 2002.
Applications for participation close 16 September 2002. To apply, please provide the following information to
Council's Manager Community Development, Linda Livingstone, on 9335 2154 or email
mcd@marrickville.nsw.gov.au or contact Derek Waddell at the Centre for Popular Education, UTS on 9514
3822 or email Derek.waddell@uts.edu.au:
• Name, Group or Organisation,

• Nature of position
• Contact details
• Brief statement about why you are interested in the program
• Brief description and discussion of some possibilities for work with emerging leaders
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Who was the leadership strategy for?

The leadership strategy was intended for two different types of leaders. Please
note that it is problematic to draw the following distinctions because there is
considerable overlap between the two types.
First type : Recognised leaders
These are people who are regarded by themselves and others as ‘leaders’ and
who are passionate about developing their local or interest communities. The
notion of a leader refers to someone who is highly motivated and committed to
further developing perspectives and practice in education, arts, community
development or social action. A leader is not someone who necessarily holds a
management position but does exercise influence and has decision-making
responsibilities. It is someone who accepts responsibility and is capable of
inspiring others.
These are people who have a record of achievement in exercising leadership.

Many will be ‘workers’ engaged in education, arts, community development or
action to improve quality of life, particularly for those experiencing social
exclusion.
We envisaged that rich learning would be generated by bringing together

people engaged in diverse forms of education, community development, arts
and social action. We asserted that a productive exchange of ideas, experiences
and perspectives would occur if we brought together, for example:
• cultural development workers facilitating a collaborative process of

making art and learning related to environmental planning
• school teachers doing innovative work with students at risk
• co-ordinator of an action group campaigning for better public transport
• experienced youth workers co-ordinating early school leavers’ programs
• health promotion workers managing drug education strategies
• socially committed local business persons
• community care workers providing information, referral and advocacy to
people who are frail aged or disabled
• regional manager in a state or federal government agency
• Councillor or staff member in a local government authority
• TAFE Outreach staff co-ordinating an education program for newly-
arrived migrants
• union organisers and educators working with women in sweatshops
• active members of an ethnic association planning cultural activities
• curator in a regional arts and culture centre
• police officers and community legal centre staff engaged in legal support
work
• and more.
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Second type: Emerging leaders
These are people who are passionate about developing their local or interest
communities but are not yet regarded by themselves and others as ‘leaders.’
Many of these people may be residents who are not paid to do community
development. But they, out of a commitment to improving the quality of life,
invest in a significant voluntary effort.
Program structure
We planned that a team of five staff from the Centre for Popular Education, UTS
and guest facilitators work with the ‘first type of community leaders’ over a
period of 12 months. In turn, these ‘recognised’ community leaders were
expected to work with the ‘emerging’ community leaders’ over the same period
of time.
Participant profiles
Participant introductions ….. they were asked to also mention a passion
33 participants were recruited.
Glen Redmayne, Community Worker, Disability Services at Marrickville

Council - thinking about home is a place where you can be part of a
community….. free to be who and what they are
Fady Ahmad, Moslem Alawi youth movement - wants to see tensions between
different cultures addressed
Linda Livingstone, Manager Community Development, Marrickville Council -

passionate about establishing partnerships to make a difference
Rosarela Meza, Co-ordinator Inner West Cultural Services - passionate about

addressing the media when they are encouraging negative attitudes, especially
in relation to cultural issues… love arts and culture to play a wider role and not
just sports
Julie Killiby, Local Facilitator, Connect Marrickville School – Community Project

- putting the heart back into everything we do….. and openness so that children
grow and live out the potential they have
Manuel Fragoso, Editor Portugese magazine - passionate about communication

not with the media because that is not communication but communication
between people
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Harry Neunhys, Police Crime Manager - … passionate about being a farmer
Meg Bishop, freelance community educator - just recently came to live in

Marrickville… huge relief to come back to a community where there is such
high diversity…. Passionate about my work with Older Women’s Network
Gabrielle Kuiper, Mobility Co-ordinator, Hawthorne Canal Active Transport

Project - live in Newtown, been in Sydney for about five years… inspired by
diversity…… promoting cycling and am passionate about cities, walking,
cycling and public transport and moving in ways that are sustainable and fun
Rosie Le, Vietnamese Community Worker, May Murray Neighbourhood Centre

- how people can connect with the community
Joy Barrett, tutor representative on Board of Sydney Community College -

passionate about teaching and learning
Frank Storey, Faculty Manager, Sydney Community College - passionate about

access to education
Simone Parsons, Family Services Development Officer, Marrickville Council -

work in Council with families, passionate about acknowledging how
challenging parenting is in the early childhood stages and arranging support for
parents
Carolyn Hummerston, Principal of Wilkins Public School - passionate about

helping kids getting the best possible education they can get.
Charlie Coorey, Community Worker, Youth Services, Marrickville Council -

have lots of extended family in surrounding suburbs… passionate about
fatherhood and positive relationships….. help people see good things in life and
treasure the relationship between father and children
Evdokia Kritikos, Marrickville Youth Council - passionate about getting the

youth voice heard and getting a better image of young people
Bruce Ashley, Greenway Committee - want to re-focus people’s attention to

local environment
Jerry Bachich, Community Development Worker, Cultural Diversity,

Marrickville Council passionate about politics and love humour because it is
universal and binding… I am a self-confessed mongrel
Samantha Edmonds, Care Employment, wants mental illness discussed as

openly as diabetes and asthama, wants to break the stigma of mental illness
Beryl Winter, was retrenched at 77 years old… I only work in voluntary

positions where there is no capacity to pay a worker….. passionate about
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educating young people about working conditions,workers rights, and separate

the divide between the old and young
Rhonda Grosvenor, Inner West Aboriginal Service, singer songwriter. Love

performing, my family, everything about life, my healing and spirituality
Maree Mooney, Childrens Services Worker, Barnados … passionate about

caring, responding and operating in a society that genuinely cares about other
people…
Sue Stevens, Environmental activist - passionate about nature and ecology, bush
carer
John Laverack, Environmental Educator, Marrickville Council - and am six foot

eight, passionate about volunteering in the ACON work groups….. about how
close friends have challenges to deal with mental illness
Lisa, passionate about being an environmentalist, we need the environment as

well as people
Mark Matheson - worked as bush re-generator and member of Marrickville

Heritage Society, and active in Reconciliation Group… curious about the
belonging project…. About the so-called community …. About the heritage in
local area and the destruction of a house built in 1850 that Council allowed
David Urquart, President of People with Disabilities - passionate about my

boyfriend with whom I have lived for 21 years in the local area….. about people
with disabilities living independently…… nothing about us without us
Kay Lockhart, Co-ordinator, Petersham TAFE Outreach, passionate about

giving all people opportunities for education
David Khouri, Youth Council, breaking down stereotypes and promoting youth
voice
Sue Samad, Community Development Officer, Ethnic Child Care, Family and
Community Services Co-op - working with people of non-English speaking
background, passionate about interacting with people of different cultures, want
to participate in different cultures
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Leadership development activities for recognised leaders
August to September, 2002 Program planning, partnership building,

beginning action research and promotion
October, 2002 Recruitment and selection
October, 2002 Evening dinner and meeting
Oct. 2002 to Oct. 2003 8 one-day workshops and three evening
functions for whole group that support
leadership-for-belonging projects
Oct. 2002 to Oct. 2003 Participant-led community-leadership-in-action
projects supported by a team of five UTS staff
May 2004 Launch of publication about leadership for
community belonging in Marrickville that is co-
authored by participants plus associated events
(to be negotiated)
Program planning, partnership building and action research

In line with the proposed focus on strengthening relationships across sectors
and between organisations, two months were spent by UTS and Council staff
promoting, discussing and planning the details of the program with prospective
participants. Other partners were sought to support and shape the program.
UTS researchers interviewed 12 ‘recognised’ community leaders. The interviews

were intended to serve several goals which included:
1. Consulting people about the content and structure of the leadership

program
2. Inviting people to a planning and consultation meeting at Marrickville

Council on Friday 6th Sept. 9.30am to 11.30am
3. Promoting the program
4. Recruiting participants
5. Beginning the task of researching and writing about the diversity of

community leadership in Marrickville. Interview questions included:
• What is your field of practice?
• When you think of leaders in Marrickville, who springs to mind?
• What sort of change are you trying to bring about? What sort of
contribution do you make to improving the quality of life in
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Marrickville? What role does your group/agency play in facilitating

community change in Marrickville?
• What are the challenges in engaging people and facilitating

community change? What are the challenges for exercising leadership
in Marrickville?
• What special strategies, skills and resources do you and your agency
bring to the task of facilitating change? For example, how do you
engage and support people to get involved? How might one evaluate
your change efforts?
• Describe some ‘emerging leaders you currently, or might, work with?

What sort of community change do they want? What sort of skills and
resources do they bring to the business of facilitating change? What
are some initial ideas to strengthen their leadership capacities? For
example, school teachers and youth workers might be working with
young people or active parents who are emerging leaders; community
cultural development workers might be working with Vietnamese
artists; Festival organisers might be working with a cultural group;
youth workers might be working the Alawi youth movement etc.
Marrickville Leadership Dinners

The dinners were intended to serve two main purposes. It was asserted they
would help make the program attractive, special and auspicious. A key feature
of the proposed leadership strategy was to generate a strong sense of a
Marrickville Community Leadership group. Working and learning together was
regarded as important to develop this group identity. Meeting on a semi-social
basis was seen as likely to strengthen their ability and willingness to learn and
work together. The dinners were intended to build ‘esprit de corps’ which is
important for the purpose of building community belonging alliances across
sectors. But we only had one.
Workshop series
The aim of the workshops was to help community leaders learn more about
ways to inspire and support others to be actively involved in acting upon
community issues. Specific content included:
• Case studies of community leadership and community building in other

parts of Sydney, Australia and the world
• Program planning for leadership-in-action projects
• Skills development for community engagement, fostering community
participation, and participatory action research and planning
• Celebrations for change and development
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• School - community learning collaborations

• Local environmental community education
• Theories and practices of community belonging
It should be noted that this, strictly speaking, was not a training program for
individuals. It was not intended that the program would quickly help
participants become conversant and highly competent in community
development and leadership. The program was intended to inspire, energise
and mobilise a group of community leaders across Marrickville to (a) explore
ways to work more closely together and (b) invigorate the longer term,
community capacity building and leadership development work with residents
versus the shorter term case management practice.
Leadership-for-belonging projects
Participants were expected to plan and co-ordinate leadership-for-belonging
projects. Some participants were already engaged in community leadership
work. The community leadership program was designed to enhance their
existing and prospective activities, not add to them. The intention was to inspire
and encourage them to even more assertively and effectively do what they were
already doing, namely exercising leadership, rather than simply add another
project task to their workload.
There were three main goals of this activity. The first was to respond to the
interest of various community groups (eg. Alawi Youth Movement and Lien
Hoa Buddhist Temple) in community leadership development. The second goal
was to encourage and support participants to engage with a chosen issue or
development related to community belonging in Marrickville. The third goal
was to explore and develop some strategies that would address a chosen issue;
that might be employed to influence and bring about the sort of change
stakeholders desire. An assumption that shaped these goals was that three
important qualities of leadership are the ability to (a) influence and bring about
change, (b) clearly know the purpose of the sought change and (c) mobilise
many other people to be involved in the sought change.
The projects were negotiated but there were two provisos we did encourage.
The first was that these be projects undertaken by a small group of participants
as opposed to individuals. Our rationale for this was our assumption that a
collectively devised project is more likely than an individual’s project to have
large-scale and long-term social impact, and learning in action collaboratively
rather than individually is likely to lead to a richer and more supportive
experience. The second proviso was that projects should seek to create
opportunities for new and emerging leaders. Project teams emerged from the
second and third workshops, gradually developed their own peculiarities, aims
and priorities and are still progressing at their own speed and in their own
direction, with lulls and flurries of activity, as with most similar ventures. A
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team of five staff from the Centre for Popular Education UTS spent time with
each of the project teams.
Publication about leadership for community belonging that is reviewed by

participants plus associated events (to be negotiated)
From the outset of the program UTS staff set themselves the goal of (resources
permitting) working with the community leaders and supporting them to write
about their efforts. As part of this effort we proposed it would be useful to
support the community leaders to plan and convene a forum. There were three
main assumptions behind the proposal for a forum. Firstly, it was assumed that
participants would engage with each other more meaningfully if they
undertook a task together. Secondly, the forum would provide impetus for the
community leadership program participants to identify, study and discuss
issues and projects that interest them. In the process of doing this they would
actively recruit forum presenters and facilitators that might extend the
community leadership network. Thirdly, it was anticipated that this collective
planning task would be likely to facilitate learning about collective leadership.
A key feature of the proposed UTS/Marrickville leadership program was that

participants would be expected to plan and undertake leadership initiatives in
groups rather than only as individuals. Planning and facilitating a forum may
be a useful group task. Ideas for alternative group projects can, of course, be
negotiated. In any case, participants will be expected to contribute to the
preparation and writing of a publication about community capacity building
practices.
Placing an emphasis on collective plus individual leadership projects will

strengthen the likelihood of sustaining a vibrant and active community
leadership network.
Planning and instigation of efforts to establish ongoing education and

training possibilities for emerging leaders with local providers
We set ourselves the goal of planning ways to sustain support and training for
emerging leaders beyond 2003. In particular, we planned to explore
partnerships between local community agencies and education providers. We
began discussions with TAFE, Sydney Community College and other local
education providers about the possibilities for long-term arrangements to
support and train emerging community leaders.
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Chapter
4 Workshops
The intention behind this chapter is twofold. Firstly, we are providing

descriptions of the workshops with the exercises and sessions we led so that
others may use and adapt them. Secondly, we offer some critical reflections on
the processes to highlight what we were pleased and not so pleased with.
WORKSHOPS AND EXERCISES
Initial planning and consultation workshop

(16 September 2002, 10am – 12 noon)
Exercise 1
What are you proud of in Marrickville?
What’s missing in Marrickville?
This was a brainstorming exercise led by these two leading questions. We asked
people to close their eyes initially and consider these questions these questions
individually. The consequent group discussion gathered momentum quickly. It
was not difficult to categorise people’s comments.
The final results of this exercise can be found in chapter 2.
Exercise 2
What are the ideal qualities a community leader should possess?
This was again a simple brainstorming exercise that we documented and

categorised on whiteboards and butchers paper.
The final results of this exercise can be found in chapter 1.
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Workshop 1
(18th October 2002, 9.30am to 4.30pm)
9.30 – 10.15:
Welcome & introductions
Set scene: explanation of workshop format, aims and ground-rules
Agree on timetable for the day
10.15 – 11.00:
Revisit what we’re proud of in Marrickville – the assets and positives we can build on – is the
distributed summary fair?
what’s missing; what are the major gaps/issues/problems want to sort out
11.00 – 11.20 coffee/tea/stretch/relax
11.20 – 11.50:
Exercise 3
What's Leadership, Community, and Community Leadership?
Who are Recognised Leaders and Emerging Leaders?
This exercise is described fully at the end of chapter 1.

11.50 – 12.50:
Why are long-term dreams are important in any community action?
Exercise 4
What are our long-term dreams for Marrickville?
Participants worked in small groups and sketched their dreams for Marrickville.
The results of this exercise can be found in chapter 8.
12.50 – 1.00:
Reflect on morning session and focus on afternoon session
1.00 – 2.00: share in the lunch provided
2.00 – 3.15:
How can we collaborate more widely and effectively?
Small group work on specific agreed on local examples like:
• how can we get more parents interacting in more ways in our schools?
• how can we engage with marginalized groups?
3.15 – 3.30: coffee/tea/stretch
3.30 – 4.10:
Resources and support available from UTS
4.10 – 4.30:
• Where to from here:
• reflect on Day I Workshop
• plan Day 2
• agree on tasks to be completed in the 5 weeks before Day 2
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Workshop 2
(22nd November 2002, 9.30am to 4.30pm)
9.30 – 10am
Recap, Themes, Skills Audit:
10 – 11am
Exercise 5
The Planning Framework:
Refer to chapter 5 for descriptions of several planning frameworks we

workshopped.
Exercise 6
Underlying Principles
We stuck up a blank Underlying Principles Chart, and invited members of the

group to add to it throughout the day, when key principles come up in
discussions. We agreed on the key principles, in draft form, when we revisited it
at the end of the day. We continued to add to and adapt these principles
throughout the program.
11.20 – 12.20:
Planning Session: negotiate how group wants to go:
Possibly write up joint project suggestions on the Big Planning Chart: the 5 Themes around the
20 Year Dream for a More Inclusive Happier Less Busy Marrickville
• last time we came up with some practical project suggestions
• where do they fit on the chart?
• can I write them up?
• are there overlaps?
• are there natural or potential links between projects?
• then split into groups of choice, of no more than 5? Plan these projects using the
Framework. List names on board (see OHT Instructions below)
• report back & full group discussion
12.20 – 12.30pm
Reflect on morning: note down in journal: ideas picked up; how could work with/use skills of
others in the workshop
1.30 – 3.00pm
Exercise 7
Strategic questioning and engaging groups on the ‘outer’
A full description of this exercise can be found towards the end of chapter 8.
4.10 – 4.30pm:
Where to From Here?
4.30pm
Tidy up room & head to a local hostelry!
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Workshop 3 - Group Project Planning Session

28 February 2003, 9am – 1pm
• Clarify goals and tasks

• Agree on some underlying principles
• Draw up preliminary project plans
• Clarify the emerging leadership aspects of the projects:
roles/support/training etc
• Discuss expansion of the project groups, core members &/or contacts,
within the Community Leadership Group & elsewhere
Workshop 4 - Involving People on the Outer Theme

28 March 2003, 9.30 – 4.30
• Engagement strategies with people who are or feel they are on the outer
• Getting momentum going and maintaining it.
Workshop 5 -The Learning Theme

16 May 2003, 9.30am – 4.30pm
• looking for educational opportunities in every situation

• taking learning into the community
• bringing the community into schools, colleges and workplaces
• learning together
Workshop 6 - Arts & Culture as Activism Theme

27 June 2003, 9.30 – 4.30pm
• what is Community Cultural Development?

• a range of local and outsider guest speakers to demonstrate the range of
methods and media that can be used
Workshop 7 - Creating opportunities for Emerging Leaders

8 August 2003, 9.30 – 4.30pm
• what was happening in the projects and how could we involve emerging
leaders more?
• The launch of the Cadigal Wangal Aboriginal Marrickville web-site
Workshop 8 - Sustainability Theme

12 Sept. 2003, 9.30 – 4.30pm
• Lester Bostock’s story – a case-study in community leadership for the

long haul
• How can our projects be sustainable?
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Reflections on the workshops
When I initially came to the leadership program I perceived it as a training

program that would give me useful skills for my work with Greenways. Now I
see it as more of an intellectual experience. ……there is place-based leadership
and there is interest group leadership … perhaps the leadership program
should not be for individuals but for groups (Bruce Ashley).
Bruce was not the only person whose expectations and perspective changed
during this project. It was indeed an organic experience, which took on a life of
its own and evolved, like most programs, according to an amalgam of factors
including the views and aspirations of all involved, the philosophical beliefs of
the facilitators and the practical opportunities and relevant happenings that
occurred along the way.
The planning stages of this project worked well and set the project upsoundly;
the interviews and planning meetings meant that we had a feel for the
community, its aspirations and foibles and underlying issues. The planning
meeting was a wonderfully inspiring event, with a lot of focussed energy in the
room and a genuine love for, and pride in, their community emanating from the
twenty people present.
The first two workshops were deliberately theoretical; they did not focus on
mundane skills development like submission writing or public speaking, but
rather attempted to build on the energy, enthusiasm and altruism of the
planning workshop. We deliberately concentrated on the big picture, for as Rick
concluded:
Effective community leadership is more about people working together in
groups for others, than it is about individuals sorting out their personal
problems and values.
In the first workshop participants were encouraged to revisit the conclusions

enunciated at the planning meeting about what there was to be proud of in
Marrickville and what was missing – what gaps/issues/problems they would
like to sort out. After then agreeing on working definitions of some key terms
like leadership and community, as well as recognised and emerging leaders,
participants divided into groups and discussed their long-term dreams for
Marrickville – what they would like their community to look and feel like in
twenty years time.
Once the Dreams had been articulated, we stressed that, in the words of Myles
Horton
anything that can be sorted out by one individual is too small for this project,
we were interested in bigger problems that required groups of people to tackle
them together.
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A key skill would have to be collaboration between participants, and so we

invited participants to answer four questions for themselves:
• Who do you work and collaborate with closely?

• What attracted you to them?
• What prevents people collaborating really closely?
• How can we make partnerships work for us?
32 participants made too large a group. It was our own fault, as we had hoped
for a group of twenty participants, but lacked the resources to run two parallel
projects and the heart to exclude genuine community leaders who had sought to
be part of it. Because of the size of the group, we needed to hurry the process
along a bit and therefore, during the lunch-break, we grouped these dreams
together into five main themes. In the afternoon session, we encouraged
participants to divide into small groups around whichever of these five themes
appealed to them most, and to work together to flesh out these themes and try
to come up with some group projects which might help bring their dreams into
fruition.
At the second session there were only 19 participants. This was disappointing,
as the room and the exercises were planned and set up for more. It was just an
unfortunate conglomeration of circumstances rather than a significant statement
of dissatisfaction with the first workshop. Two people had changed jobs, one
had left the area, a couple came to the first workshop to make some statements
rather than genuinely participate, and several more had the usual last-minute
problems of ill-health, work crises etc. At least six insisted that they still wanted
to remain part of the program, and so it proved to be.
The emphasis at this second workshop was on planning. Expansive dreams are
all very well, but they will remain simply that, unless there is very careful
planning. We therefore had a session on planning in which we explained our
suggested planning framework (see chapter 5), and then we revisited the wall-
charts from the first workshop and invited participants to try to place the
practical project suggestions on the sheet of the appropriate Theme, to look for
overlaps and possible connections between different projects and finally to split
up into small groups to try to take these project ideas to the next stage – to agree
on some aims and come up with a working title for each group. In this way we
came up with three project teams: Profiling Marrickville, The Trellis and Pacific
Islanders. We also agreed that the underlying principles which guided projects
and united the participants were a crucial ingredient, and so we drew up a draft
list of underlying principles which, with minor changes became our credo (see
chapter 5).
This was our last workshop in 2002, and so everyone was asked to try to do two
things to progress their project before the next planned meeting in February,
and everyone was asked to take on a different role within their team.
When we all returned to work in 2003, it was decided to make the first
workshop of the year a half-day planning workshop. We wanted to give
everyone a chance to reflect as a group on the progress we had made so far, to
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have a say in what happened for the rest of the year, and to plan how best to
progress their team projects. A fourth team was formed of the people who had
been unable to attend the last workshop, and it gave itself the working title of
the Communication through Culture team, in an attempt at pulling together the
disparate aims of the group members (eventually this team evolved into the
Wilkins Green Project). The Project teams were encouraged to discuss what they
felt really passionate about, as without passion, they were unlikely to sustain the
necessary energy in the long term.
After this workshop, we discussed at length how best to proceed, and decided
that we should plan the year’s series of workshops around the 5 themes we as a
group had articulated, rather than around specific skills or strategies. Our main
reason for doing this was to try to encourage people to think differently, to come
up with strategies they had never previously employed; by giving participants
the opportunity to immerse themselves in one field of practice and be inspired
by a range of carefully chosen guest speakers. We hoped that, in the subsequent
team project meetings, they would agree to use some of these unfamiliar
strategies as part of their project. As popular educators, we structured these
workshops to be as experiential as possible, with the focus on fresh ideas,
reflection, discussion, strategy formation and action.
In March, the theme was: Involving people on the outer. Paula Abood exhorted
us all to be self-reflective workers, to maintain a political consciousness, fight
against the dependency model in welfare, operate on many different layers,
develop alliances, but to at all times remain honest to our communities, and to
strive to provide them with a safe time and space to speak among themselves on
their own terms. Paula identified solidarity and respect as her two key factors in
building up momentum, and concluded that if we don’t speak up for our
community, then we are not doing our job. One reason for Paula’s success as an
activist, however, is the common sense practicality which complements her
idealism, and she exhorted us all to: use whatever funding you can as long as you do
not compromise the integrity of the process and the trust between the group and the
facilitator.
Mike Newman was equally inspiring, but stressed different strategies, writing
up on the white-board the following six themes for his talk:
• Countering consensus
• Using anger
• Acknowledging violence
• Transforming people
• Fostering choice
• Taking action.
Mike discussed examples of failure and success, and shared his thoughts on
three of his personal heroes – Jane Thompson, the English feminist educator,
Myles Horton, the inspirational founder of Highlander College in Tennessee,
and Paolo Freire, the Brazilian who inspired a transformation in the way literacy
is taught by popular educators around the world. Inspired by Mike and Paula,
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we then discussed strategies we could use to offer people on the outer a range of
realistic opportunities to become involved in their communities (see the section
in Chapter 9 on Sustainability below).
The May workshop was around the theme of Learning Together in the
community, and opened with a marvellous presentation by Sue Lennox, a
renowned environmental educator, who has managed to make environmental
projects an integral part of the curriculum in schools in NSW. Sue described
some of the projects she has been involved in from India to the Riverina region
in NSW, and left us with a few key success factors which she had identified in
her various projects:
• Really enthusiastic teachers in some of the schools

• Some churches: they saw each other each week
• Some street projects: also saw each other regularly, almost daily in fact
• Strategic questioning, the technique articulated by Fran Peavey
• Team leader training
• Making it impossible not to take action
• Focussing on issues requiring deep and urgent change.
Our project participants who were professional educators then explained their
roles and aspirations to the rest of the group
• Kaye Lockhart, the Outreach coordinator at Petersham TAFE,

• Frank Storey, the Equity Manager of the Sydney Community College,
• Carolyn Hummerston, the principal of Wilkins Public School and
• Julie Killiby, the coordinator of the Connect Marrickville project, based in
a community room at West Marrickville Public School.
Finally, Derek described and critiqued a community development program he

had been involved in with the Aboriginal community on the Central Coast, as
an example of a program which demonstrated that the suggested planning
framework did work when it was embedded in the local community, and
carefully and systematically implemented.
Some participants felt that the whole idea of community leadership finally
clicked into place during the June workshop, when Celina McEwen from the
Centre for Popular Education at UTS managed to assemble an inspiring group
of community cultural development workers:
• Martha Jabour, who coordinated the Living Streets project in Liverpool

• Julienne Hilbers, who has been involved in many community projects
while completing a doctorate in Celebrations for Change and
Development.
• Megan Wynne-Jones and Mary Ann Hamilton, from the Marrickville
Community History group who compiled the excellent Marrickville
Backyards.
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Martha inspired the group with her down-to-earth practical approach and
carefully plotted achievements, and then Julienne created an atmosphere in
which most of the group felt inspired to contribute reflections and anecdotes on
their personal experiences of celebrations. The Backyards authors made a really
successful community project seem within the reach of all of us, and the project
team discussions which ensued, showed that our immersion and inspiration
model was working. Participants were beginning to see their jobs, community
development and their projects in a new light; they were beginning to see the
educational potential in everything that happened in communities, and that
educational providers had a much more flexible and empowering role to play in
any of their community projects.
We reorganised the August workshop into a morning session, so that we could

all be part of the launch of the Cadigal Wangal Aboriginal Marrickville Web-site
(www.cadigal-wangal.com.au) – an inspiring initiative of Marrickville Council
and the local Aboriginal community. This workshop was meant to be on the
Living Streets theme, but we decided that we had adequately covered that
theme in the previous two workshops with the sessions by Sue Lennox and
Martha Jabour, and so we agreed to spend the morning on discussing Emerging
Leaders. We circulated by email a discussion sheet on Emerging Leaders to get
the group thinking, and then we discussed the progress of the various project
teams in the full group. Rick posed regular questions to challenge what they
were doing, and to force participants to consider a variety of strategies to
involve emerging leaders in their projects as they unfolded.
The launch was an interesting insight and a link into our final workshop on
Sustainability, as we invited Lester Bostock, a revered local Aboriginal leader,
to introduce the recent ABC Australian Story documentary of his life and work
with emerging Aboriginal activists and artists. Lester enraptured the group, and
his success in the face of such discrimination and set-backs made it hard for us
to plead mere “busyness” as an excuse for inaction. Following the session with
Lester we discussed what was needed to make our projects sustainable and our
conclusions are included in chapter 10 below.
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Chapter
5 Projects
Participants were expected to plan and co-ordinate projects that would create
opportunities for people “on the outer” to exercise community leadership. We
were supporting ‘recognised’ leaders to, in turn, support emerging leaders. In
chapter 3 we explained why we encouraged them to be collective as opposed to
individual projects. We offered the following project planning framework.
INITIAL PROJECT PLANNING FRAMEWORK
Identify and describe a group of emerging leaders in Marrickville.
Help define and articulate a shared community dream or vision. We suggest this be a bold and
long-term dream. At this stage it may be seen more as a fantasy than as a goal.
Engage in a small and collaborative project rather than an individual initiative.
Start with their experiences by helping them tell their stories. Identify expertise and resources
that can help people research and publish their stories.
Plan and take short realistic steps.
Define whose interests are served by the project.
Build on existing strengths within Marrickville rather than re-inventing from scratch.
Identify useful resources outside the immediate community.
Identify and work with strategic allies and partners. …and concentrate on strengthening
organisational capacities or group capacities
Develop strategies for sustainability of the ideals of the project.
Keep it honest and real. Make it participatory and not consultative.
Establish support mechanisms for leaders. Recognise and celebrate their achievements.
Ensure the project is inclusive.
Plan to move the project through three broad stages of:

* engagement.... most projects get stuck at this stage
* collaboration... are the emerging leaders you are working with actively participating in joint initiatives?
* self-determination/leadership.... are the emerging leaders taking control and ownership of the initiative?
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We suggested that it does not matter exactly how the projects are planned or
how they are drawn up; however for the projects to thrive and be sustainable, it
is essential that a clear plan is drawn up at some time. The plan does not have to
be glossy or pretty or full of high-sounding phrases but it should be broken
down into various steps. These steps will not always occur in the same
sequence, they are not neat and discrete, rather a fluid organic process, wherein
some steps may take several months or even years and others may be
accomplished quite quickly.
We continually developed and revised our planning framework. The second

iteration was as follows.
The Key Steps in an Effective Community Leadership Program are:
• Map/remap your community: get to know it – read, chat, listen, observe:

• Resources and assets (the opportunities you will build on)
• Gaps in, and limitations of, existing services and facilities (providing more
opportunities)
• Image and reputation – how locals and outsiders perceive it
• Links with other communities
• Plans, aspirations and potential
• Involve as many people as possible in your project:

• Established leaders – formal and informal
• Key stake-holders
• Potential partners – one-talks – people with the same ideals, way of working,
attitudes and long-term goals
• Strategic allies – people who may not share beliefs, values, attitudes or way of
working, but who may share one or more goals
• Representatives of as many sub-groups in the community as possible – be
inclusive.
• Develop as many genuine opportunities as possible in all sectors of the
community
• Plan strategically and in detail:

• Think big, crazy, ambitious, ignoring restraints and constraints like money,
other resources, blocks and negativity, and agree on a range of long-term
dreams. These dreams should:
• be for the community rather than individuals
• involve real change
• include the five pillars of community leadership: social, economic, cultural,
environmental and lifelong learning
• include “really useful” rather than just “useful” knowledge
• be limitless and flexible and continually evolving
• Agree on short, realistic, practical, achievable steps towards these dreams:

• decide who should do what by when
• break the steps up into tasks and roles
• involve as many people as possible
• Think Strategically, being flexible and pragmatic and opportunistic without

sacrificing or compromising your ideals.
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• Plan a sustainable structure:

• simple and stream-lined,
• based on existing strengths and resources – don’t re-invent the wheel,
and don’t ignore what is already working or has potential
• with room and opportunities for constant fine-tuning and adaptation
• look for positive deviants (Dorsey, 2000) – resilient people who have
prospered and survived despite the conditions and situation they live in
• Identify Resources, partners and strategic allies outside the immediate

community as well:
• the leadership, essence, structure and dreams must be local, but don’t
restrict who and what you use to achieve your goals – use all the
expertise and help you can find
• think creatively, flexibly and openly
• Act – implement the essence of the plan:

• Follow through on your commitments – this will set in motion a whole cycle of
trust, participation, honesty, openness and involvement
• Get the details right – be efficient and reliable, and establish that ethos in the
project
• Encourage, support, cajole, nurture and challenge your emerging leaders and
fellow-workers – don’t do everything yourself – the less you do and the more
others do the better and more sustainable the program
• Keep referring back to the dreams and principles you have agreed on, to ensure
the project remains real and worthwhile
• Reflect, analyze and evaluate, ensure that your project remains true to its key
principles:
• Are more and different people becoming involved?
• Is the sustainable structure working out?
• Have some short steps been achieved?
• Are the dreams beginning to be realized?
• Is your role declining? Are there mechanisms to constantly encourage the
devolution of power and control?
• Is the “feel” of the community changing?
• Do people feel optimistic and committed?
• Are a broad range of opportunities and pathways opening up?
• Are local people really in charge, and are their wishes and ideas being followed
and constantly sought? Is it still real?
• Is it participatory rather than consultative?
• Are there support mechanisms for established and emerging leaders so that
they do not burn out:
o Celebrations and festivals
o social events and opportunities to relax and enjoy their achievements
o opportunities to be challenged and extended and continue to evolve as
individuals, as educators and as involved members of a community.
• Publicise and recruit:

• remind those involved what they have achieved
• tell others about your achievements
• avoid becoming a clique – go out of your way to make it obvious that new
people are welcome to become involved at any time and in any capacity. Make
it clear that any involvement is important, no matter how little
• consciously change the image and reputation of your community according to
the ideals you all espouse
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These Key Planning Steps in a Diagram
1: Map/remap your community
6) publicise & recruit

- recognition of efforts
- celebration of achievements
- injection of new energy & ideas
2: Involve
5) Reflect/analyze/evaluate: - key stake-holders
- your role decreases steadily? - partners & allies
- real & rooted in the community? - reps of all major sub-
groups
- participatory not consultative? - develop opportunities to
- support mechanisms? work together
- time for fun/relaxation/camaraderie?
4) Act:
- the essence of the plan 3: Plan strategically:
- follow through your commitments - big Dreams
- encourage/support/cajole/nurture - long-term
& challenge emerging leaders - sustainable
- refer back to Dreams & Principles - use outside help
- build on strengths
- agree on underlying principles
We encouraged the participants to continually reflect on their projects and ask

how they can maximise social impact. We workshopped the following ideas to
guide practice.
• Think big - keep generating a range of different ambitious dreams for the
future; don't be put off by minor set-backs; encourage each other
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• Create safe spaces and opportunities for people to chat and dream
together
• Provide stimuli from other community successes - pictures, videos,

articles, books, speakers, community artists, activitists
• Encourage everyone to refocus their time and commitments to create

time to be involved
• Keep people aware that they are part of something bigger; try to link the
different projects together whenever possible, e.g. through:
o Publicising each other’s projects
o Looking for opportunities for joint projects
o Sharing venues
o Running joint activities
o Social happenings/outings/excursions
o Keep it honest:
o Keep on track :
o Refer back to the Plan and Underpinning Principles regularly
o Embed them in the community
o Establish mechanisms to devolve power to the people, and to
make it sustainable
• Keep it vibrant and organic, constantly opening up the projects to new

people, with new energy and ideas
• Unleash the passion: find what people are passionate about, and create
opportunities for these passions to be channeled constructively within the
projects
The Centre for Popular Education assigned one research fellow to each project
team, with the following main roles:
• Project team facilitators

• Action researchers
• Recorders
• Preparers of pre-readings and resource lists, and recommenders of
appropriate resources as required
• Strategic planners
• Motivators and catalysts
• Links with other similar projects and participants.
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PROJECT ONE
THE MARRICKVILLE TRELLIS
Project Team: Gabrielle Kuiper, Sue Stevens, Glenn Redmayne, Marie Mooney,
Hazel Storey, Bruce Ashley and Celina McEwen who was a UTS research fellow.
Their vision for “Marrickville Trellis” is connecting people through green and
people-friendly streets and linking communities and neighbourhoods. The
Trellis will provide an opportunity for local outdoor relaxing/resting and for
people to extend their living spaces beyond the home and reconnect with the
natural environment and each other. It may encourage the return of the corner
shop culture and a series of green spaces through planting hubs. Creating,
connecting and enabling village centres and living pathways via these hubs. The
Trellis will 'naturally' respond to an organic model evolving, expanding,
connecting, and germinating new ideas as it develops. This will make the
journey between spaces a meaningful and rewarding experience.
Marrickville Trellis seeks to improve the quality of life of residents by enabling

people to enjoy/live in the streets again and fostering connections between
neighbours around existing focal points / shared spaces such as schools, corner
shops, gardens, council initiatives and activities etc.
The aim is to:
• Provide a voice & power to disadvantaged people

• Encourage ecologically and economically sustainable development
• Stimulate art & culture for activism and help make Marrickville different
& special
• Foster inclusiveness and learning together in community settings
• Enhance living streets
Their mottos included:
“Growing closer – Being closer”,

“Connecting Communities”,
“Equitable healthy communities”,
“Community, neighbourhoods, connections, belonging” and
“Green and friendly”.
The project could take the form of:
• building a network of “Green” streets (the trellis), verge gardens (the

vine) and connections to houses (the tendrils);
• building and promoting a historical (lets be inclusive) pedestrian-way or
cycle-way drawing on historical accounts, stories and photos of streets
and corner shops of the past;
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• having events such as street parties (based on “Reclaim the Streets”

successes for instance;
• growing community gardens
•
At the time of writing this handbook members of the group have not been able
to find the time to take the Trellis project beyond the ideas stage. They are too
busy with other commitments. Two participants work with Marrickville
Council. One is in the community development section and another in the
environmental services section. Three are environmentalists with NGO’s, two of
whom are paid workers, the third is a volunteer and university student. They
bring a wonderful blend of expertise and passion to this project.
It is disappointing that this project group did not move beyond the planning
stage. What lessons can be learnt from this? It is easier to generate good ideas
for community leadership than it is to implement them. On one hand, the
experience of the Trellis community leadership initiative illustrates how fragile
it can be to rely on volunteer effort. On the other hand, the experience points to
the challenge of supporting those who do want to exercise community
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leadership to shift the priorities within their paid jobs. It may be possible that
the paid environmentalists and community workers in the group could
persuade their colleagues and managers to allow them to spend time on the
Trellis community leadership vision.
In any case, the Trellis experience points to the need for project support. A
community leadership program should have resources that go beyond the
planning and facilitation of workshops. Ideally a community leadership
program should have staff who can spend time supporting participants plan
and implement their project ideas. In the case of the Trellis, a UTS research
fellow did provide support but only had the time to support planning, not
implementation. Nonetheless, we recognise the value of critiquing the nature of
support we provided. Perhaps we should have been more interventionist by
organising meetings with other local stakeholders who may have pushed the
Trellis idea to be realised.
A challenge for the Trellis Group might be to move from seeing themselves as
the instigators, managers and owners of the project to seeing themselves as
brokers. If they saw themselves as brokers this may focus their energy on
mobilising other stakeholders. For example, they could put a proposal to
Marrickville Police Citizens and Youth Club (PCYC) and Sydney Community
College that they combine forces to develop a course about place based
sustainability. Perhaps the course could seek to recruit people engaged in actual
place-based projects. What about trying to get small businesses - local nurseries,
food shops, bus companies – behind or participating in such a course? A
partnership between the PCYC and Sydney Community College has the
potential to bring together older groups who are interested in environmental
sustainability with younger groups interested in changing the built
environment.
A challenge is to develop a course that does lead to place-based change. Even if

a course is popular but attracts residents spread across 20 different streets in
Marrickville that may make the focus on place so diffuse that the focus is on
individual household change. If, however, the course could recruit a group of
residents from just one or two streets this may be more likely to create collective
effort to try and change one particular place.
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PROJECT TWO
THE MARRICKVILLE TREASURES

Project Team: Sue Samad, Maria Lemos, Frank Storey, Rosarela Meza, Joy Barrett,
and Teri Meryln who was a UTS research fellow.
In this section there is a magazine article about a community leadership

initiative of the Marrickville Treasures group. Over a period of four months they
worked with an Indonesian women’s support group who met weekly at
Marrickville West Public school, under the auspices of ‘Marrickville Connect’ a
‘Schools as a Community Centre Project' co-ordinated by Julie Killiby who is a
participant in the Marrickville Community Leadership program.
In what ways was supporting the planning and implementation of a cookery

class a community leadership initiative? Firstly, it was about valuing and
building on their existing knowledge and skills. The Indonesian women were
given an opportunity to teach others, not be taught. Sure, their English language
skills are not yet good and so need language tuition. They have been somewhat
socially isolated. In these respects they can be seen to be in ‘need.’ The
Marrickville Treasures, however, looked for strengths and one found was their
culinary abilities.
The Indonesian women necessarily had to plan the cooking workshop. This
process of planning was used as a way of encouraging the women to explore
ways they might exercise community leadership in Marrickville. At that stage
the women did not know whether they would be interested in more than
learning how to cook, let alone learning about teaching and leadership. From
the perspective of the Treasures group it was an opportunity to help them
imagine grand visions. And when the cooking course was suggested that led to
lots of ideas being bounced around.
The Indonesian women planned an Indonesian food and cultural workshop and
called it ‘Masakan Indonesia.’ This was held for the public through Sydney
Community College on 21st February. The project development was possible
through the involvement of two Indonesian speakers, Dewi Putru from the
Indonesian Welfare Association and Nicola Frost, an anthropologist from
Goldsmiths College in London, over in Sydney to research her PhD. on the
Indonesian community. This development work included negotiating the
curriculum, translating recipes from Bahasa Indonesia into English, working
with the group on presentation and English language skills and detailed
planning of the day.
The ‘Masakan Indonesia’ workshop, was delivered by six Indonesian Women;

Asadah, Dewi, Elly, Lanny, Lisa and Nety although others were involved at
various stages of the preparation. The class filled quickly with 18 students and
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was a huge success, despite Saturday 21st February being an incredibly hot day,
with authentically equatorial temperatures even before the ovens were fired up.
Feedback indicated that what the participants liked most was the friendliness of
the Indonesian Women and the authenticity of the food. The workshop was a
great achievement given that none of the group had taught before, and they are
from a non-English speaking background. $1,400 was generated in student fees
which, less the cost of ingredients, will go to the Indonesian Women's Group to
be used for educational purposes.
The Treasures, the Indonesian community worker, and Nicola Frost continued
to meet once a fortnight for several months after the workshop. One possibility,
which has been discussed and would draw on the existing culinary expertise of
the group, is to use the funds raised to learn about how to develop a food-
related business, supplying Indonesian food at community festivals and other
events. The women plan to meet a similar group of women engaged in food
enterprise activities in Redfern. Now the Indonesian women are asking who are
the Treasures? This has shaped or informed a different way of working for the
Sydney Community College. It has suggested how they might engage with local
community groups. To date the College has engaged with individuals as
opposed to community groups. And now community workers are asking the
Community College to do things. Engagement leads to further engagement. It
has led to a different sort of community engagement practice for the Sydney
Community College .
The Treasures have hit upon a way of engaging with emerging community
leaders. In other words, they have sought to encourage a group of people who
had not been actively involved, let alone imagined possibilities, in exercising
community leadership. Underpinning the Treasures strategy is to provide
opportunities for ‘community groups on the outer’ to teach what they have
expertise in. The Treasures have brokered a relationship with a major adult
education provider – Sydney Community College. Imagine if the Treasures and
Sydney Community College developed a suite of programs under the heading –
Learning and Leadership from the Hidden Treasures? They might encourage a group
of Pacific Islanders to plan and run classes about roasting ‘hungis’, a group of
Portugese men to teach wine-making, members of the Alawi Arabic community
to teach cheese-making, or unemployed artists to teach art. Frank Storey, a
participant in the Marrickville Community Leadership Program kept on asking
how he and the Sydney Community College might connect with a greater
diversity of people in Marrickville. We suggested a line of thought that was
about an adult education provider tapping into distinct forms of local
knowledge and skill and letting people learn about it. For example, in
Marrickville apparently there are great cheese makers in backyards. Sydney
Community College has the expertise and infrastructure to develop and deliver
a cheese-making course and recruit local people to do the teaching.
By engaging with and building a critical mass of people who previously have
not been active in community affairs, there is the potential to encourage them to
think explicitly about exercising community leadership. A community
leadership program could be developed especially for these emerging leaders.
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Look for separate pdf

copy of magazine article
Empowering inndonesian
women in Sydney through
cookery classes
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Pdf copy of magazine

article Empowering
inndonesian women in
Sydney through cookery
classes
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PROJECT THREE
WILKINS SCHOOL - COMMUNITY PROJECT
Project Team: Lesley Yassoo, Kaye Lockhart, Carolyn Hummerston, Beryl

Winter, Rosie Le, David Urquhart, Manuel Fragoso and Derek Waddell who
was a UTS research fellow
The principal of Wilkins Public School joined the Marrickville Community

Leadership Program because she wanted to explore ways her school might
create stronger links with various parts of the local community; in other words,
take the school out into the community and vice versa. A project group was
formed in the Marrickville Community Leadership Program to help realize this
vision.
The group discussed several ideas at their initial meetings.
• Strengthen the capacity of the community language teachers and the

Aboriginal teacher aide to exercise leadership for school – community
links. With support and encouragement they will probably devise
creative strategies to involve a range of ordinary community members in
different ways. The pupils came from five main cultural groups –
Vietnamese, Portugese, Greek, Arabic and Aboriginal.
• Establish mentoring schemes with all five cultural groups, as Kaye

Lockhart (TAFE Outreach) is doing with Pacific Islanders through the
Bankstown Migrant Resource Centre.
• Explore opportunities there are in the school syllabus for:

o greater involvement of community members
o more excursions into the community
o positive links with other schools
o the development of community themes
• Create opportunities for all children at the school to share in the musical
opportunities currently enjoyed by only some of the children. Wilkins
Public School is both a Priority School (in a disadvantaged area) and has
opportunity classes for talented and gifted children. The talented kids
have the chance to learn musical instruments and some kids from other
families feel they are missing out. Perhaps this is an issue that should not
simply be left to lobbying the state government for more funding but can
be partly addressed by community and parent groups organising music
tuition.
• Co-ordinate the development of a community theatre project. Beryl

pointed out that Sidetrack Theatre is a local and well-regarded theatre
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company. Perhaps they could co-ordinate a process in which children

and community members collaboratively devise and produce a
performance. David gave an example of a very productive partnership
between the '78rs (the original Mardi Gras crew) and Generation Youth,
and suggested more such projects.
• Start up a community harmony event. This grew out of Manuel's Ethnic

Soccer Tournament idea, and developed into a wider event for the whole
community, with the emphasis on community, cultural and social links,
rather than simply soccer. Perhaps it could happen over a full day, and
evolve into an annual event over several days in subsequent years.
These ideas, plus further new ones, have been given impetus with a proposal to
re-develop some spare land at Wilkins School. The process of preparing plans to
use this land is being used to engage with different parts of the Marrickville
community. The process is being used to create opportunities for community
members to get involved in the school, or at least this project, and for students
and staff to get involved in studying and acting on community issues.
Wilkins Public School is on a big parcel of land that is fully owned by the NSW
Department of Education and Training. A large section of land (i.e. 14400m2)
along Livingstone and part of Sydenham roads, is under-utilised by the school.
Trees and large mounds of mulch due to a low-maintenance strategy cover this
portion of land. The time has come to turn this around with the maximum
benefits. Ideas that grew out of the Marrickville Community Leadership project
group were that this land could be utilised for the benefit of the broader
community too. The proposals to date include:
• A bike track;
• Cultural community gardens;
• Bush regeneration;
• Swimming centre; and
• Outdoor classroom and amphitheatre.
In what way is this initiative strengthening the capacity of people, particularly

those who have previously not been active in community affairs, to exercise
leadership for Marrickville? In other words, what is being done to support
emerging community leaders? The Wilkins school-community project team
have focused their energies on consulting widely and creating opportunities for
local people to get actively involved in researching and devising planning ideas
and initiatives. They have, for example, succeeded in engaging with the school P
& C, 15 members of whom have said they will get involved. One parent is
already drawing up posters and investigating funding possibilities. Another
parent is taking on a leading role in researching a plan for the proposed bike
path. This includes examining established bike tracks and exploring funding
avenues. Support is being sought from the Marrickville Council and
collaboration with local community groups in addition to Marrickville-South
Sydney Bicycle Group, Inner- West Bicycles, Rotary, Police, Bicycle NSW and
the Cycling Promotion Fund. An architect agreed to draw-up a draft plan pro-
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bono. This plan is being used to conceptualise other aspects of the project that
need to be taken into consideration prior to accepting a final draft. The 2003
Year 5 OC class conducted a project for the development of a bike track as part
of their ideas for possible usage for the under-utilised land.
The Wilkins school-community leadership group have actively sought

partnerships with local adult education providers. The local TAFE Outreach Co-
ordinators have set up English language classes that are run at the school. TAFE
Outreach has also appointed Lesley Yasso as a community educator to work in a
development role at Wilkins Public School, each Wednesday morning for one
term to:
• offer parents a range of opportunities to become more involved in

• school activities
• discuss with teachers, parents and students different uses for the spare
land at Wilkins
• get to know the school-community and develop ideas for more
community-school activities and projects.
Lesley is also talking to different parts of TAFE – for example, the drafting and
horticulture departments - about the possibility of running other courses that
relate to the land-use project. The idea is to develop projects that in turn provide
more opportunities for people to get involved. Beryl has been contacting
permaculture friends, architects and engineers.
Emma Farrell is a local resident and has declared her willingness to take an
active role in further developing the idea for a community cultural garden. Beryl
has talked about supporting kids to establish new gardens and teaching them
about the role of gardens in communities.
In conclusion, there are three strands to this group’s community leadership

efforts. The first is the potential to mobilise and encourage students to exercise
community leadership about aspects of Marrickville. What sort of community
and environment do they want Marrickville to be? What do they know about
the various local community groups who are active in Marrickville? In this
respect, it will be significant for evaluation purposes to observe the extent to
which learning for local community leadership can be embedded in the local
school syllabus. A second strand is the potential to support members of the
adult community to exercise leadership about changing the built and social
environment of Marrickville. If they are only identifying issues specific to the
land in the school then opportunities are being missed to encourage them to
exercise leadership for related issues in the whole Marrickville area. What is the
potential to use the project to spur on forums that get people’s views about the
wider Marrickville area?
A third stand to the group’s community leadership efforts is the development of

new partnerships. Carolyn Hummerston, the principal of Wilkins Public School
initially did not know anyone in the Marrickville community leadership
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program. From her point of view, she has established a range of new
partnerships. She said:
What emerged we have English classes, technology classes, an idea for an arts
performance centre, ideas to use a vacant block of land, Marrickville Council
has convened public forums in the school, ideas for a swimming pool because
so many kids at the school cannot swim and that is not Australian…., are
meeting engineers about building basketball courts, someone looking at security
perimeters eg solar powered lighting…ideas for a bike track and coffee shop….
Looking at possibilities of community gardens for various ethnic groups… Beryl
has done some research with the Botanical Gardens…. Lots of pro-bono input….
Links back to the pupils getting their input…. This is an example of how
creating opportunities happens when you bring people together…
PROJECT FOUR
PACIFIC ISLANDER PROJECT
Project Team: Julie Killiby; Jerry Bacich; Kaye Lockhart; Carole Strong; Simone
Parsons; Charlie Coorey; Andrew Chodkiewicz who was a UTS research fellow
Aims and dreams
One of the groups ‘on the outer’ identified early on in the leadership forums
was the Pacific Island community in Marrickville. Marrickville is a culturally
diverse community, with residents coming from over 100 countries and almost
four out of ten residents speaking a language other than English. Pacific
Islanders are among those identified by Marrickville Council as an emerging
community. An important feature of Pacific Islander communities is that they
are made up of a number of different cultural and language groups. The main
ones in the area are Tongan, Fijian, Samoan & Cook Islander.
An overall aim of this community leadership project group was to reach out to
these communities, to connect with them, to build local networks, and to
strengthen their capacity to participate in and feel more a part of Marrickville.
Because there were no Pacific Islanders in the program or the project team the
more specific aims of the project were to consult the community, to bring
together leaders from different Pacific Islander communities, and to organise a
leadership development project for existing (recognised) leaders and/or new
and emerging leaders.
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What has happened so far (main points about the process, actions & achievements)
A project team of six, meeting every 6 to 8 weeks, worked together over nine
months. Although there were no Pacific Islander workers involved a number of
the team already had contacts with Pacific Islander workers and Pacific Islander
projects.
It was decided that a staged community development approach would be the

most effective way for the team to proceed. It was decided to carry out a short
mapping exercise to find out who were the community workers in the local
area, what were some of the main projects underway, and who were seen as the
community leaders and emerging leaders. This produced a list of 15 Pacific
Islander community workers in the area – most of whom had a Pacific Islander
background, were interested in Pacific Islander community issues and had
contact with their local community.
The next stage was to consult with a number of community workers. These
Pacific Islander workers highlighted the main concerns of the community were
around children, family and young people’s issues. Most thought it was a good
idea to strengthen links across the community and to run a leadership
development program for the Pacific Islander community. They thought it was
a good idea to set up a Pacific Islander community workers network and that
Council was a good body to auspice it because it was seen as local and neutral in
terms of Pacific Islander politics. A series of meetings with key community
workers was organised to try and set up a network, to discuss the possibilities of
a leadership development project, and to explore ways of developing better
links between council and the Pacific Islander community.
Attempts were made to bring the workers together, but for various reasons few
were able to attend the meetings organised. Those that did attend were
enthusiastic about the project and highlighted the various children, family and
youth issues impacting on their communities. They also highlighted the
fragmentation within and between communities and the difficulties of Pacific
Islander people working together when faced with cultural, language and
especially religious differences.
The project did try and reach out to the community through its community
workers. It certainly improved the links between Pacific Islander workers and
organizations for at least two key Council staff – youth worker Charlie Coorey
and Children’s and Family worker Simone Parsons. Their awareness of Pacific
Islander community workers, Pacific Islander programs, and Pacific Islander
issues in the area increased. Also a greater awareness among Pacific Islander
community workers of the interest by Council in improving access for Pacific
Islander communities was achieved.
One community project that was encouraged in its development through the
project was the first Pacific Unity festival – a Pacific communities sports, culture
and entertainment festival to be staged in March 2004at Tempe Park.
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What may happen in the future (the range of possibilities - the next steps towards the Dreams)
Short To Medium Term Possibilities
• Set up and co-ordinate an email network among Pacific Islander

community workers to strengthen their links, provide them and their
communities with access to information about council & other
government projects, grant opportunities, and to better mobilise their
communities on key community issues related to family & young people.
• Either organise a leadership development program for a mix of local

Pacific Islander community workers and emerging leaders – open it up to
say 30 people OR include some Pacific Islander emerging leaders in any
future Marrickville leadership programs
• Work towards organising a Council Community function or dinner for

existing Pacific Islander community leaders to acknowledge their place in
the Marrickville community
The next steps include the two Council staff working on maintaining and
extending their links with local Pacific Islander community workers and
organizations, monitoring relevant grant programs, where possible working
with Pacific Islander communities on children’s, family and young people’s
projects / issues.
What is needed for this all to happen
• At a minimum the ability for a number of key Council staff (youth

worker/ child & family worker) to include in their work plans time to
support local Pacific Islander communities - through co-ordination of a
Pacific Islander community workers network; dissemination of
information, support for grant proposals;
• Include a number of key initiatives mentioned above to support the

development of closer links with Pacific Islander communities, in
Marrickville Council’s Cultural Diversity Plan, together with resources
(staff time and some money) to make things happen. Some of these have
happened and will be described and discussed in the final version of this
handbook.
• Further plan community development work to build on existing links,

programs and new opportunities for collaborative work.
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Program values
Chapter
6 and
philosophies
What were the underpinning values and philosophies of this program? (the
overall project and the workshops and project teams)
I start with the premise that the function of leadership
is to produce more leaders not more followers (Ralph Nader).
The popular education philosophy behind what we do
The medical model of community development assumes certain deficits or

problems and the welfare model is built on needs. The community education
model, however, is built on positives – mapping the strengths or assets of a
community, assisting the disadvantaged to articulate their aspirations and
dreams and supporting and challenging them to find their own solutions. This
participative process is crucial in establishing self-confidence in themselves and
their ability to learn. Learning can become a habit once the necessary
opportunities and support are available; self-confidence will grow and often
lifelong learners are born who will continue to grow and evolve. They are now
in a position to tackle the changing situations, which will inevitably confront
them.
The community education model is more flexible and holistic – it includes

environmental, social, economic and cultural considerations as well as
educational ones. It offers options and opportunities rather than top-down
solutions or answers to anticipated problems or needs which may or may not be
felt by the people themselves.
Community educators start where the people are at and build on the assets they
and their communities already possess. In their research among urban housing
estates in Europe for instance, Anne Power and Katherine Mumford (1999,
p.105) identify some of their current assets as: proximity; infrastructure;
environmental potential; stable enclaves of residents holding on for a better future.
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The best community education programs are based on the pursuit of social
justice and the creation of time, a safe space and a comfortable atmosphere to
develop critical faculties. Participants can then grow as a group and as
individuals, reflecting, discussing and trying out ideas. With the guidance of a
skilled facilitator, they will soon be formulating shared long-term dreams and
strategies to bring about meaningful change. Good community educators are
catalysts, facilitators, supporters, motivators, mentors and coaches as well as
efficient organizers and creative strategic thinkers. They possess the ability to
ask strategic questions (as described in the writings of Frances Peavey) and
deliberately develop sustainable structures in their community. This means that
they do not remain the lynch-pin of all that happens, but rather assume an
increasingly peripheral role as emerging leaders gain in confidence and skills
and begin to fly. If the community educator remains the centre of everything
when the project really builds up momentum, s/he will eventually become a
blockage, for there will not be time for everything to filter through one person,
and opportunities for growth by participants will be missed. Often out of
gratitude or reverence, participants will defer to the educator so it is their
responsibility to ensure that they withdraw gradually as soon as is appropriate.
This must be a carefully planned and timed withdrawal, with appropriate
opportunities for ongoing involvement as required.
Effective community educators offer their communities realistic options and

opportunities, a range of pathways and clear realistic steps towards their
dreams and they encourage people to work together rather than in isolation. As
Myles Horton emphasized (1990):
Anything that one person can do alone is not worth doing when you are dealing
with social problems…you can’t develop any valuable leadership if you don’t
teach people that they can deal with big problems… (p. 146)
They must know that they have problems that can’t be solved on a personal
level, that their problems are social, collective ones, which take an organized
group to work on. (p.148)
Our desire is to empower people collectively, not individually (p. 157)
Horton was only interested in his groups discussing bigger problems that
affected groups or communities of people, and therefore in working with them
to bring about long-term meaningful change for those groups and communities.
The dreams became dreams for a community rather than for a collection of
individuals, the changes are well thought out and sustainable as they don’t
depend on one or two people – all those involved in formulating the dreams
have a personal investment in seeing that they are achieved. Furthermore such
dreams are not static; new recruits are welcomed, encouraged and invited to
contribute to these evolving dreams so that they remain alive and inspiring.
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The key principles underpinning this concept of community leadership and

community strengthening are that:
• it is people-driven:
o the ordinary people in the community are genuinely consulted at
every step
o there are specific mechanisms to ensure continual and continuous
negotiation and consultation
• There are opportunities and options in every facet of the community
• Education and learning are at the core of the project: there is a conscious
attempt to look for educational opportunities in every situation (Tom Lovett,
seminar at Wyong TAFE, 1986)
• It promotes feelings of self-worth, commitment, hope and belonging
• Real power and control is delegated to the local communities, so that there is
the flexibility to adapt your methods as the situation demands, without
compromising the key principles of the project
• It is organic, with firm local roots, but with links beyond and between
these communities
• It is part of a ten to twenty year strategic plan to try to fulfil a range of

dreams – to change your community for the benefit of all, not just the
elite ten to twenty per cent
• It is sustainable, built on the strengths and assets of the communities, not a

new imposed structure, with no links with the past
• passion is encouraged and channelled, rather than bottled up, for as Ralph
Waldo Emerson wrote: nothing is achieved without enthusiasm. Passion is
crucial as it unlocks people’s:
o positive mind-sets
o belief and expectations
o enthusiasm and energy
o “can do” spirit
o willingness to take risks, to not always take the safe boring options
• Real community leaders are creative, energetic, passionate, committed

and inspiring people
• There are potential roles for non-leaders, non-meeting-attenders and

anyone else who genuinely wants to become involved.
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The underpinning values and principles which evolved during this project
The stakeholders are the whole community affected, but the drivers can be
anybody - the greater variety of people involved the better. We agreed to invite
existing leaders to the workshops, and to discuss how best we could create
opportunities for emerging or potential leaders to flourish.
We also agreed that, if we were to really make a difference, we needed to dream

big - to project our dreams to the Marrickville we would like to be part of 20
years hence.
Why we need to dream and plan long-term
The rhetoric of the various governments in Australia has become more

politically correct but the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow,
the haves now have more and expect much more and the have-nots continue to be
criticized for their plight – maybe they just need to try harder…maybe they have had
it too easy…..there are lots of jobs out there if you really want one… why can’t they
succeed like we can anyway?
As our world becomes more complex and we try to cope with the current
overwhelming chaos of choice and change, the information overload makes it
increasingly difficult to make informed choices about anything. The major
political parties have become increasingly close on major policies so that we feel
shut out of these really important decisions, while the plethora of
inconsequential choices is equally overwhelming, like which phone company or
which house insurance will I try? There are now consultants on everything – self-
styled experts who will broker you the best deal on anything from renting a flat
to choosing electrical goods or service providers; they are a new breed spawned
by the incomprehensively confusing world we have created. If we, as educated
reasonably well-informed citizens find it difficult to make informed choices,
how much harder is it for under-confident people without the benefit of much
formal education or a computer or contacts in influential places? The political
parties are told by the pollsters that we are tired of making decisions and want
everything simplified into ten-second grabs in the info-entertainment programs
proliferating on our televisions.
Why do we let them get away with it? Seventy per cent of Australians now
think John Howard misled us in the build-up to the War on Iraq, (SMH,
30/9/03) but sixty per cent of them believe he did it unwittingly. Mr. Howard
has managed to create a whole new level of public misinformation, openly lying
and then proclaiming his innocence through either not being told or having no
reason to doubt what he was told. So even our prime minister admits to not
knowing what is happening in Australia, let alone the world.
Does not democracy depend on people making informed choices about where
they want their country to head, who they want to represent them, what values
and principles they want to guide government decisions, what image they want
their country to have overseas? If democracy depends on informed choices and
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most people lack the skills or opportunities to find and evaluate the necessary
information, anything short of a revolution in how we structure, support and
consult our communities will simply further entrench the status quo. The gap
will continue to stretch and the top 20% will become increasingly nervous of,
and distant from, the declining 80%.
This culture has evolved over a long time; to bring about significant changes
will also take a long time; it will also take a genuine commitment from people in
power, carefully conceived ambitious strategies and patient skilful facilitation,
to ensure that these advances are inclusive rather than divisive.
Working with mature age unemployed people on the Central Coast of NSW for
ten years, has led to a conclusion that most people in their forties or fifties, who
are forced to take dramatic new vocational directions to get work, often require
a five to six year personal journey to find a real niche – a job that offers money,
fulfilment and opportunities in the long-term. Retrenchment comes second to
death of a loved one and above divorce on the psychiatrists’ trauma scale. We
all have either undergone divorce or separation from a long-term relationship,
or have watched close friends cope with it, and there seems to be general
agreement that it usually takes at least two to three years for people to get their
lives together again. Similarly with the retrenched middle aged workers, it will
usually take two to three years to come to grips with their loss, reassess their
options and set off in a new direction. Bill is a classic example; he was
retrenched from a construction firm in his mid-fifties. An electrician by trade, he
accepted a retrenchment package and got on with his life, but he soon realized
that he was short of cash and fulfilment. Bill had a natural way with people, he
enjoyed a joke and a song, and so we encouraged him to have a go at volunteer
work in a retirement village. He loved it, enrolled in a TAFE Working with Older
People certificate course, and finally, after more volunteer work, has been offered
his dream job – organizing bus-trips and social gatherings for older people, with
as many hours a week paid work as he can handle. This journey, through
grieving, reflection, initial retraining, volunteer work and accredited training,
took about five years, but the results have been great for Bill, his family and
friends, the older people he works with and the community as a whole. In this
way, a very skilled and experienced person has found his niche and is
contributing significantly to his community again.
If it takes many individuals three to five years to change their attitudes and way
of thinking, how much longer will it take a society or a community to change
the prevalent culture and values? We have witnessed the success of the anti-
smoking campaigns over the past twenty years, yet smoking still remains a
problem, especially among teenagers. We need trust, optimism and a genuine
will to change things for the benefit of everyone, rather than the mean-spirited
divisiveness that characterizes Australian society at present.
Governments appear to be recognizing that the present capitalist system is out

of date. Tony Blair and Bill Clinton championed the Third Way, an attempt to
replace the welfare state with a more incentive-driven alternative. Noel Pearson
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(2002) has argued that the Welfare state is out of date because the workers no
longer have a monopoly on work, as companies can go off-shore to find cheaper
alternatives. Both the Federal and NSW governments are attempting to make
government policies more efficient by emphasizing a whole-of-government and
whole-of-community approach, and stress the need for government departments
to encourage local decision-making, involvement of local residents, and more
creative cost-effective solutions. Their increasingly hierarchical structure
however, tends to make this a difficult task.
While working recently in the Macarthur area with public housing estate
residents, the most constant complaints about government services were the
lack of respect and time they afforded residents; there was a real feeling of them
and us; it was as if the public servants came from a different planet. A few
shining lights stood out as real people who listened to us and tried to make things
happen – but these exceptions seemed to only confirm the negative perception of
the public service as a whole rather than change it. In fact residents emphasized
how difficult their departments made life for these “real people”.
Anne Power (1997) has emphasized from her research in public housing estates
in five European countries, that it needs a mixture of top-down and bottom-up
approaches to make genuine change possible: the pressure applied by the
bottom-up consultation, genuine local control, implementation and decision-
making, and the top-down long-term policy and strategic framework. In The
Slow Death of Great Cities, Anne Power and Katherine Mumford emphasise that
national, regional, local authority and neighbourhood initiatives must link together in a
continuous chain (1999, p.105).
In a speech in March 2002 to the Social Entrepreneur’s Network in Melbourne,

Noel Pearson referred to Germaine Greer’s conclusion that Douglas Mawson’s
approach with poor people in East London, was neither bottom-up nor top-down
but inside-out. There is no perfect solution for all communities in every situation,
so an inflexible doctrinaire approach is not enough, however well thought out.
We need big ideas at all levels, as well as careful long-term planning and
genuine co-operation between everyone involved. We also need to delegate to
the field the authority to be flexible and creative and to adapt these grand
policies to local circumstances, priorities, aspirations and inclinations. Finally
we need to encourage these local activists to reflect on their practice and feed
back their findings to the policy makers, so that policies can evolve, remain
relevant and encompass the best of what is happening in the field.
However well - intentioned, any community movement will soon lose direction
and purpose if participants do not spend some time reflecting on and agreeing
on the main underlying principles. Without such a rudder, it is impossible to
keep everyone and everything on track, keep it honest and keep it evolving and
principled, which is not a pretentious holier-than-thou idea, but merely
recognition of it as the energy source that unifies and re-energises and inspires.
These ideas and approaches set the context for this Program and permeated the
discussions we had. During the workshops we agreed on the following
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Principles which should underpin our project
• Everyone in Marrickville should have an opportunity to be involved

• We should Dream Big!
• All projects should be team or collective projects, rather than individual
projects (see Myles Horton article sent out before the first workshop)
• There should be opportunities for "emerging" leaders to be involved,
nurtured and supported, to "fly"
• The projects should evolve and grow and be sustainable in every way
• We should look for opportunities for new productive partnerships and
new ways of working and learning together.
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Learning and
Chapter
teaching
7 community
leadership
Learning and teaching community leadership? (can community leaders be

trained and nurtured?)
Beryl felt that leaders were born and learned from experience; they had the
ideas and confidence and personality to inspire others and take on the
establishment in pursuit of their ideals. She was genuinely excited to hear Lester
Bostock, the local revered Aboriginal leader recount his life-story at one of our
later workshops, and his amazing achievements despite the hardship and
discrimination he met at every turn. Frank, on the other hand felt that he had
learned stuff in this project, distinguishing between skills development and
values development, and concluding that this project addressed both. Others
raised the importance of passion, drive and desire, none of which may be able to
be taught, but all of which can surely be enhanced or released or rekindled by
creating appropriate settings and asking appropriate questions. Glenn
concluded that it was important to recognise that we can work with either – the
born leaders or the emerging leaders – you simply adapt your strategies
accordingly.
Many of us agreed that some of the great leaders were born, or were the
products of their experiences, which seemed to mould them in a particular
manner. For instance, Nelson Mandela has attained almost saintly status
throughout the world through his resilience, forgiveness of his persecutors, and
his vision, determination and inspirational leadership of his people.
Unfortunately there is only one Nelson Mandela, and not every community is
going to have a "Nelson" to change everything for the better.
Is it beyond our ingenuity to analyse the qualities that set the Nelson Mandelas
apart, and try to establish safe places and times where potential or emerging
leaders can come together to listen, argue, try out their ideas among like-
minded people and feel empowered to go out and make a difference? Possibly
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none of them will ever inspire a crowd or even a meeting, but collectively they
may exercise leadership in a way that will inspire and change their communities
significantly for the better. We should not focus perhaps on such awesomely
gifted people as Mandela, otherwise we may simply feel intimidated by
comparison. Sometimes, however, the amazing success achieved by the
Mandelas, and their local less charismatic equivalents, can inspire us to believe
that something really significant is possible.
Obviously both Marrickville Council and the Centre for Popular Education
believed that something significant could be achieved by an educational
program for community leaders, and we organised this Community Leadership for
Belonging program, around several key convictions.
Firstly we can encourage people to be reflective, to ask themselves questions

individually and in groups, to clarify and focus their thinking, for example:
• What existing structures, initiatives and services in Marrickville could

you build on?
• What useful resources and facilities are available already? How could
you use them differently?
• What leaders would you use as role models for the emerging leaders?
How best could you involve them in the Project?
• What really needs changed? Where would you start?
• Who are the key people you would want to involve in your project? In
what capacities?
• What are the key dreams you are chasing 10 or 20 years hence?
• Are there any resources outside the area you could enlist?
• What are the guiding principles underpinning your project? What will
keep the Project real and rooted in the community?
• What are the crucial steps towards achieving your goals?
• How are you going to ensure your changes are sustainable?
• How will you keep the Project evolving?
• How will you attract new blood continually? What roles can you offer
them?
• How will you continually challenge all the key people involved?
• How will you guard against the burn-out of the key players?
• How will you celebrate the key steps along the way?
Secondly, we can encourage people to think holistically and creatively. For

instance, you can emphasise the problem if a community movement becomes, or
is perceived to be, a clique. If non-members feel excluded, they will never
become involved, and the movement will only really represent a small section of
the community. This is particularly true of people on the outer, so it is worth
considering how you can offer people on the outer genuine opportunities to be
involved if and when they want to be involved. Naturally slightly different
tactics, emphases and contacts will be appropriate with each group on the outer,
but a few key points can be made that apply to all groups, as we agreed at one
of our workshops:
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• Time, taking time and giving them time – not rushing anything to meet
bureaucratic or other dead-lines. Carole identified the importance of time
to build trust with the local Vietnamese community.
• Relationships, which also take time to evolve and bloom
• Trust, non judgemental, genuine
• Openness and honesty
• Identifying key people
- introductions, links in
- Keep looking for more contacts, alternative links
• Doing your homework
- get to know the community
• Observing community protocols
- culturally appropriate
- recognise it will be a journey
• Mutual respect
• Clear intentions (agreed underpinning principles)
• Having something to offer - clarify what you can & can’t offer
• Offering realistic opportunities to voice opinions
• using conflict to focus thinking and re-energise
• solidarity – being there for the long haul
• enabling role
• ‘loitering with intent’ – being available
- persistence
- flexibility
- consultation
• Celebration & reflection
• Food & fun, everyone needs outlets and laughter to remain energised and
committed
• Withdrawal mechanisms, building them into your plans from the
beginning, to ensure they are an integral part of your thinking
• thinking sustainability, and actively planning to make it happen.
Thirdly we can encourage people to think big, to dream big, to shoot for the
stars. We can assist people to visualise and articulate their dreams and to then
plan the practical steps towards achieving those dreams. Australian and world
politics are at an interesting cross-roads, cynicism, short-term poll-driven
policies, a spiritual vacuum and a mean-spirited selfishness are rife, not to
mention an aggressive pre-emptive strike American foreign policy. Large
numbers of people are feeling disenfranchised and lost, so that there could be no
better time to offer hope, involvement, an alternative way of thinking, some
genuinely community-based ideas and idealism. Mark Latham's meteoric rise in
approval ratings is an example of the pervasive feeling in our community at
present that much needs changed.
Fourthly, we can learn to really collaborate. Any large community movement

will have an interesting mix of people. It will present an opportunity to form
new sorts of partnerships and make new allies. In this program we discussed
the difference between partners and allies, and agreed that partners were really
special people – in New Guinea they have a special term for soul-mates - “one-
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talk” - people you can discuss things with until 4 o'clock in the morning.
Partners often share philosophical and political principles, values and attitudes.
Allies however, may have different philosophies and practices but agree on one
or two goals. Greenies and business-people may agree on one or two goals but
violently disagree on ten others; however, in certain situations, they can work
very effectively together to pursue those two agreed goals.
The group was asked to reflect on the following questions:
Who do you work and collaborate with really closely?

What attracted you to them?
What prevents people collaborating really closely?
How can we make partnerships work for you?
Fifthly, you can encourage people to learn the art of “strategic questioning”.
Sue Lennox inspired the group with her accounts of the many and varied
environmental programs she has been involved in. She concluded that the single
most effective technique she had learned was strategic questioning – the
American Fran Peavey was an inspiration to her, through the strategic
questioning techniques she used in her work to reclaim the Ganges River for the
local communities. Maybe this is one really useful leadership skill which anyone
can learn, through practice and concentration and a willingness to change one’s
ways of communicating with others. We developed a strategic questioning tool
for our workshop exercise 7. This can be found towards the end of chapter 8.
Sue's talk also seemed to emphasise the following key success factors:
• excellence: don't accept second best - set goals and standards high
• passion: tap into and unleash the passions people already feel
• visioning: encourage them to envisage a better world
• engaging them - start at where the people are at
• relationships not confrontation: e.g. the Irrigators supported and funded
parts of the preserving the rivers project
• resilience: people and communities can recover when they are motivated
and see hope and realistic possibilities
Many of these qualities may be intuitive and difficult to teach, yet surely they
can be enhanced by encouragement, support and a safe environment in which
they feel free to blossom and flourish.
Sixthly, survival: you can teach people skills and strategies to help them tackle
the problems of busyness and information overload? In one of the interviews
conducted before the workshop program, Jack Carnegie, the experienced and
respected coordinator of the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, concluded that
the "only problem was time." Hazel Storey, environmental projects coordinator
at Marrickville Council, sent us several insightful comments evaluating the
program, after she was unable to attend the evaluation session.. What Hazel
liked most about the program was:
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The attempt to make time out to work more strategically – though the intention
was better than the reality for me – due to ongoing work loads – and no time
scheduled to be able to take the time out.
Hazel's comments about what she would change if the program were to run
again included:
Some time scheduled to be able to contribute more fully and give the project the
energy it deserves. With no time/space in work load – it always meant
squashing up other work / doing it in my own time – which is not the way to
take part in such a program – nor offer the rest of the team sufficient energy or
support. If this group were to continue – loosely or otherwise – the project has
to be integrated into Council processes/programs – and for external
representatives, I guess the same situation exists. To turn the projects from
dreams to reality, they need to be developed and acknowledged through
internal processes and integrated into budgets and workplans for the following
years.
Jack and Hazel are committed and experienced community workers, but even
they find it impossible to devote the amount of time required to ensure that
important projects really work. They are not alone, it is a national, indeed an
international, disease. Australia is to the forefront, with its plethora of petty
regulations and its management systems which are established on the basis of:
trust no one, rather than delegate trust and responsibility and they will be
returned in kind. This petty accountability is draining the life-blood from our
community, and wearing down some of our key operators. Hazel, however
strongly disagrees with this assessment, as she feels Marrickville Council has
organised the whole Belonging project on the basis of trust and delegation.
We did not feel we had the answer to this problem, nor did we feel it was a
central role of this project to sort this problem out. However, it became clear that
it was all very well to motivate people to dream and to come up with creative
ways to change their community for the better, but, if no one had any time to do
anything, then it some ways these "dreams' would simply add to their
frustration and the pressure they felt in their work.
Therefore we agreed that it was up to our individual and team ingenuity to

reframe or refocus our jobs or roles in a way that could include these dreams.
We might still be doing many of the same things, but they would no longer be
isolated tasks but rather integral parts of a community project, which had long-
term aspirations and involved many different people and agencies. We also
agreed that the following were crucial tips or reminders, to reflect on regularly if
you felt you were sliding under the flood of expectations and requirements that
take up so much time and energy in all jobs in the current climate:
• Plan what you want to do in simple practical terms, and revisit your plan
each week
• Define your priorities & tasks, both short and long-term
• Define who can do which tasks, and delegate everything you can to other
staff, whether paid or volunteers
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• When you delegate tasks, delegate the responsibility for the tasks too,
otherwise you both will be spending time on them
• Ask yourself what tasks will really make a difference; where should you
put most of your energies
• Consciously keep some fun jobs for yourself and everyone else; otherwise
as you get tired, you will often press on conscientiously and leave what
you excel at and enjoy to the end
• Release the passion: try to ensure that you and your colleagues have an
opportunity to include what you feel passionate about, in your job.
• Refocus your role/job so that you can include your overall dreams for
your community as part of your regular work, otherwise it will be put to
the side, for you to tackle as an extra, often when you are tired and at
your least creative
• Create opportunities for you and your colleagues to excel - try to fit
people to the tasks/roles they are best at. Have people do what they
enjoy and are good at – simple but rare and crucial
• Work in genuine teams – support, share and encourage each other, and it
will all be a lot more fun and together you will achieve a lot more.
In retrospect, it may have been better to spend more time actually working out
strategies to assist workers to reframe, refocus and renegotiate their jobs and
roles. Possibly a two-tier job description would be negotiated - the top half
being the award requirements of the job, and the other half being the roles
required to actually implement the job effectively in a local context. When
running several team-building exercises in the past, we have asked participants
to work in small groups to define their roles at work in the following sequence:
• Their job description: what they are required to do to keep their

bosses/employers/funding bodies happy
• What they actually do: draw up a list of regular tasks and give them an
average weekly allocation of time
• What they feel they should do in their job: their passions, what’s really
needed/the crucial tasks etc
• Strategies they can use to bring the 3 lists created closer together; ie to
actually do what you think is important, and renegotiate this with your
boss/funder so that you can do it openly rather than wasting time being
creatively devious.
Obviously these exercises are designed for paid workers, but they can be easily
adapted to be useful for volunteers or community activists, who will also
inevitably suffer from a lack of time and focus and information overload.
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Chapter
8 Social Change
Can community leadership bring about social change for the better?
Workshop Exercise 4
What are our long-term dreams for Marrickville?
At the first workshop participants were divided into several small groups of 5 –
8 people and articulated the following dreams for Marrickville twenty years
hence:
One group envisaged:
Happy people playing in shady, quiet street

No schools
Lots more respect for the Cooks river
Children working with community people and doing hands-on learning…..
Ramsey Street feel
No barriers: where people are friendly, spaces are friendly,
An educational kind of centre which is open 7 days a week for 24 hours a day….
More shops and entertainment and more restaurants where people can meet,
eat, buy and shop… street markets, (Rosie from May Murray Neighbourhood
Centre said she wants a shopping mall!!)
Greenery…. Open space … family time and sunshine
Another small group wrote:
Natural, greener improved environment

Communal laughter, responsibility…. All caring for all.
Trams, walkers, very few cars (electric?) …… quieter
A third group came up with:
Clean and green

Good quality public space
Walking / cycling /light rail / skating
Quality public housing
Community gardens
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Maintain diversity – visibility and provision of services

Good public facilities / family friendly
The fourth group wrote:
Green space
More walking, bikes, less cars, more public transport
Renovated buildings
Proper planning
Erotic mongrels
Diversity combined with “wholism”
Less violent society
More equitable society
More communication between age groups, different cultures = connectedness
Clean, well planned physical environment
Material and spiritual wealth
Feasibility andwillingness
The last group wanted:
Less cars
More sustainable
Friendly manner…. know people, local closeness
Maintained vibrance
Everything accessible
Diverse sense of people and places
Cultural harmony
Arts and culture more visible in parks
People more open to new things
Open meditating places
Embracing and using multiculturalism more to advantage
Indigenous or NESB mayor
More tolerance and acceptance – working together to benefit each other
Greener
Slower – different transport – more pedestrian and community space – people
noise and bustle rather than transport noise and bustle
Marrickville has a unique identity – village – reflecting roots of Marrickville –
communities that are part of us.
Vibrant, inclusive community life with strong relationships
Physical environment sustainable and people friendly
More relaxed - feel
The groups reported back and in the discussions that followed, these points
were made about dreams for Marrickville:
Vibrant and inclusive community life with strong relationships

Physical environment that is sustainable and people friendly
Less cars, more walking and bikes, better public transport
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More equitable society with justice, respect, tolerance and acceptance

Enjoyment of green space and openness within the community
Education - community collaborations
Social connectedness
Marrickville being clean and green
Family friendly facilities
Community gardens
Maintaining a diversity in Marrickville
Strong local democracy
Integrated and sustainable planning and strong local controls
On a street somewhere …. Greener environment
Communal responsibility of all caring for all
More relaxation and more time for creativity
More solar power
economic prosperity … businesses need car spaces
One of our guest speakers, Paula Abood, a renowned activist in, and advocate
for, the Arabic community, described herself as a "self-reflective worker" She
spoke strongly about the need to:
• maintain a political consciousness about the work we do, particularly in

the current climate where the community sector has lost its strong
advocacy base
• provide a safe time and space for women in the community to speak in
their own terms
• fight against the dependency model in community work
• pursue ‘access & equity’ (out of vogue now) and
• keep arguing time-frames with funding bodies, stressing he impossibility
of predicting and sticking to time-frames in community work
• develop alliances in the community
• operate on many different layers, (a very hard thing to do) e.g.:
• keeping funding bodies happy
• remaining honest to your community
• developing relationships with government departments.
Inspired by some of the guest speakers, most participants agreed that no

significant social change could be achieved unless you involved all the groups
currently on the outer. Obviously you did not pressure them into becoming
more actively involved in the community, but rather you offered them genuine
opportunities to become involved in a range of ways and at a range of levels.
These opportunities would have to be very carefully worded and presented and
reach the community through a range of channels which they trusted.
Some of our conclusions about how to really involve groups on the outer, included:
1) Reverse Garbage focuses on creative engagement. Education is a primary

strategy, but beyond education to inspiration for involvement:
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I guess we try to create change through example and getting people involved.
So, I suppose leadership in the community in that sense is more than
educational things. It’s a matter of coming up with a whole range of ways of
getting ideas out to people that are appealing and then seeing if those ideas will
catch on and change behaviour as a result of that.
2) Ensuring you used the appropriate channels and protocols of engagement:
• Do your homework: cultural background, numbers, spread, interests,

aspirations, factions, issues etc. - may take 3 - 6 months or even longer
• Search out "leaders", contacts, people who can give you an introduction
or way in
• Listen and observe and get to know the community
• Offer a range of flexible options for engagement
• Don't try to impose preconceived ideas or strategies - be open to change

and adaptation
• Be open to pragmatic opportunities
3) trying different strategies:
• Use a range of different approaches & channels
• Dream big and tackle the big issues
• Meet on their turf
• Establish a safe comfortable time and space for discussions
• "loiter with intent" - put in the time - be visible
• work down through the layers and levels of disadvantage to the most
disenfranchised
• offer a range of options and opportunities, including some fun stuff -

changing the world is hard work - people need to celebrate achievements
and regain energy
• be flexible and build in negotiation mechanisms at every step of the way -

ensure it remains "their" project
• set up sustainability mechanisms from the start:

o spread the load - don't rely on one or two people
o delegate and involve at every opportunity - preferably to pairs or
teams
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o establish mutual support networks

o establish emergency support mechanisms
o encourage and nurture creativity and flexibility and a sense of
belonging
o encourage new members - don't become a clique.
Derek described one example of how a group he had worked with on the
Central Coast of NSW really did begin to “fly”. Derek distributed an
explanatory chart about an Aboriginal Community Development Program,
to demonstrate the multi-faceted and complex interwoven nature of this
project, and issued a detailed retrospective analysis of the program, which
highlighted the following success factors:
• a charismatic leader, with whom the local Aboriginal population

identified
• the fact that it tried to address the real and immediate problems faced by
this community
• that they dreamed big and thought creatively
• the consultative nature: it was "their" program, with roots in the local
community
• it balanced the really hard community development stuff with fun stuff -
music, band uniforms, screen-printing and jewellery-making
• it included a balance of men and women
• it offered all local Aboriginal people a range of opportunities to be
involved
Unfortunately there were also problems, which prevented it from being a total
success:
• the over-dependence on its inspirational leader

• the fact that the core group was small - really only 5 or 6
• it went too fast - 4 to 5 years would have been more realistic than the 18
months it lasted
• it relied on government funding, which does not always become
available at the appropriate time
• violence and family jealousies were simmering just below the surface.
Derek concluded that this program demonstrated that the suggested “Planning
Frameworks” (see chapter 5) and the key factors emphasized throughout this
project do actually work, and that groups on the outer can and do fly!
In discussions Carole explained that she struggled with the concept of

sustainable social change, and, after unpacking it, concluded that the key was
the passion for change within an individual. Individual resilience was a more
realistic goal than group or community evolution. Charlie, on the other hand,
felt that sustainable social change was a feasible dream, depending on key
concepts like ownership, clout, social impact and meaningful interaction. One
aspect that concerned Charlie was whether the National Front, for example,
could use exactly the same justification to support their social movement; the
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74
key he decided was stressing the community development principles of social

justice and self-determination.
Workshop Exercise 7
Strategic questioning and engaging groups on the ‘outer’
Rick led a session on the ALAWI Youth Movement & Strategic Questioning.
Rick suggested that the dominant approach to working with groups on the
‘outer’ is to see them as being in ‘need’ and so to identify their ‘needs.’ But this
is equivalent to seeing their deficits. An alternative approach is to view the
group positively, to identify their strengths and assets as opposed to their
‘needs.’ But how do you do this? Rick offered the following strategic
questioning tool. It is self-evident. The type of questions in the right-hand
column are likely to construct them as problems, whereas the questions in the
left-hand column are more likely to construct them as positive resources.
FOCUS AND DESCRIPTION QUESTIONS
Are these types of questions likely to Are these types of questions likely to
generate a sense of agency, hope, pride create a sense of passivity, blame, gloom
and purpose? and doom?
Where in Marrickville do most Lebanese What do Arabic Muslims in Marrickville

Muslims live? How many? Is the need?
population increasing or decreasing?
When was the Alawi Youth Movement What sort of vilification and abuse do they
established in Marrickville? suffer?
What opportunities does the Alawi What are your main concerns?
Community Hall/Complex present?
What role do the backyard cheeses play in Why do some families make their own
strengthening the community’s sense of cheeses?
identity and belonging?
OBSERVATION QUESTIONS
Large family groups seem to be a feature Do you all live in large, family groups?
of the Lebanese Muslim community. What
is the nature and size of these family th
groups?
75
of the Lebanese Muslim community. What

is the nature and size of these family
groups?
What are some of the rallying points for Who are the richest families?
volunteer effort in the Alawi community?
In terms of the built environment what is Why don’t residents clean up the litter?
important to various parts of the Alawi
community?
ANALYSIS QUESTIONS
How does the Alawi community build a Is the Alawi community disintegrating?
sense of community and identity?
What are some of the ideas that have been Why are Lebanese Muslims leaving
proposed to support young people with Marrickville?
their schooling?
Is it possible for community groups to How many young people are unhappy at
play a more active role in schooling? school? Why can’t parents support kids
with their schooling?
Why do so many people litter?
FEELING QUESTIONS
What do you like about your community? Do you like your community?
What sort of colour, smells and images do Do you believe there are false images of
Arabic-speaking communities contribute your community?
to Marrickville?
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76
VISIONING QUESTIONS
generate a sense of agency, hope, pride create a sense of blame, gloom and
and purpose? doom?
Are there possibilities for a Living Street Can an urban environment ever be
project in South Marrickville? transformed for the better?
How would you like the environment to Are people’s fears of terrorism relevant to
be different? Marrickville?
What are the dreams for the next

generation?
CHANGE QUESTIONS
generate a sense of agency, hope, pride create a sense of blame, gloom and
and purpose? doom?
How can leaders in the community be Why hasn’t government done more? Why
supported? don’t the community leaders do more?
What are some exciting initiatives you Is there enough money to plan and take
have heard about? action?
How might change happen? Are there sufficient skills and knowledge
to manage change?
In summary there are some actions we can take to maximize the social impact community
leadership projects might have:
• Think big - keep generating a range of different ambitious dreams for the
future
• Ensure that there were opportunities to develop new skills as well as

discuss values and dreams; to forge new partnerships and develop new
resources (Lesley)
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77
• Create safe spaces and opportunities for people to chat and dream
together. Try to bring a mix of people together, create a time-out for
them, time to reflect and regularly discuss what they were trying to do
and why
• Provide stimuli from other community successes - pictures, videos,

articles, books, speakers including community artists and activitists
• Encourage everyone to refocus their time and commitments to create

time to be involved
• Try to link the different projects together whenever possible, e.g. through:
o Publicising each other
o Looking for opportunities for joint projects
o Share venues
o Run joint activities
o Social happenings/outings/excursions
• Keep it honest:
o Keep on track
o Embed it in the community
o Establish mechanisms to devolve power to the people
• Keep it vibrant and organic, constantly opening up the projects to new

people, with new energy and ideas; otherwise it will shrivel and die.
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78
Sustaining the will to

Chapter
9 exercise leadership in
local communities
A) We can open people’s eyes to the possibilities, with a mixture of skills,

techniques, theories and dreams, for instance three participants said:
I would like to say though that the Community Leadership workshops were a
great experience and the skills I picked up will be useful in my career and in
involving myself in my community. (Sue Stevens email 17.12.03)
I have been inspired by the revolutionary work of people like you and Rick &
your team at a time of increasing conservatism in this country and I
have been sad to miss the opportunity to be more involved.
(Marie Mooney email: 19/12/03)
I'm beginning to get a little bit of a handle on adult ed and capacity building
(Gabrielle Kuiper 19/12/03)
B) We can encourage them to think strategically and give them the opportunity
to put their strategies into action, eg Frank Storey explained that the Sydney
Community College differed from Outreach in that it wasn’t part of any
government bureaucracy; that it was run by a Board, made up of community
representatives. Frank explained that Marrickville was in the college area but
that it was relatively under serviced in terms of Adult & Community Education,
compared to Balmain and Leichhardt and that there were significant unmet
needs in the Marrickville area, particularly among NESB students and in the
South Marrickville area. He encouraged people to contact him:
• to discuss any ideas for courses in their projects, as he could organize

practically anything the community wanted, as they had a huge range of
teaching subject expertise on their staff.
• If they wanted to work for the college in teaching classes, or if,
• If they were interested in joining the college council Board, the next AGM
was at the Balmain Leagues Club next Wednesday evening.
This led to two participants attending the AGM and becoming elected to the
Board of the SCC - Carole Strong and Maria Lemos.
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79
C) encouraging them to work together in pursuit of their dreams. For instance,

Julie Killiby gave this example at our May Workshop:
As regards "sustainability", it is quite apparent in the example given of a SaCC
operated transition from home to school program (in partnership with
Marrickville West Public and Pathways Early Intervention Services Inc) that
“the fundamental priority is helping to ensure all children get a sound start to
life, particularly in their first three years.” The Dream is for a community fabric
strong enough to nurture each child to his/her full potential.
The visioning of the pathway to this dream entails mature responses from a
service network, which puts effort into cohesive, communicative collaboration.
Specifically, I picture a wide range of agency, community and departmental
people popping in & out of community hubs such as in a SaCC project,
becoming familiar with the happenings, and contributing and involving
themselves wherever possible.
It’s the same principle as the spontaneous interactions hoped for when trellises
provide green linkages between people in neighbourhoods.
D) Use existing resources more creatively and effectively. Also in the May
workshop, Carolyn Hummerston (principal of Wilkins Public School), produced
a map which highlighted that her school was right in the centre of the
Marrickville area. Carolyn outlined her dreams for the school which included:
• expanding on the Outreach English classes already begun there

• involving the main cultural groups more fully in the school
• retaining a currently unused piece of government land as green space for
the community
• making her school an integral part of the local community.
Despite illness and a slow start, all of these ideas are now beginning to take
shape, with the support of teachers, parents and the community
E) taking the initiative: guest lecturer, Mike Newman, recommended a more

robust approach:
• Countering consensus
• Using anger
• Acknowledging violence
• Transforming people
• Fostering choice
• Taking action
Mike discussed examples of ‘failure’ & ‘success’. He warned of the dangers of

needing to ‘achieve consensus, the lowest common denominator’. Conflict
makes things ‘infinitely more creative’. He highlighted the importance of
alliances, which meet the interest of each party, and do not have a definite
period - hard-headed negotiation to ensure that our own particular interests are
served by the alliance. Recognise that some things have a finite lifetime and
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80
don't preserve alliances past their use-by date. To illustrate his argument Mike
shared his thoughts on three of his heroes: Jane Thompson (the English Feminist
activist), Myles Horton, the inspiring founder of Highlander College in
Tennessee, and Paolo Freire, the legendary popular educator in South America.
F) really involve the people you are working with and pursue excellence not
something that is second rate. This seemed to be the main message of local
Aboriginal leader, Lester Bostock, whose words of wisdom, in the video he
showed and in his talk after it included:
• Doing what the people need….those decisions must come from the group getting
people to understand each other
• The only way we were going to get Aboriginal film-makers was to train them
ourselves….. once you've been given skills, you're never the same again.
• Whatever there is, there is a way around it……. You don't get used to it
[discrimination] you learn to live with it
• You help people without asking what they are going to do for you
• The big secret to leadership is developing your own network; your network is like
gold… that then tells you how to go about things
Others said about Lester in the video:
• I think he set standards for us

• He was a visionary person
• He strives for excellence
• He just won't give in on anything
• A good rock and roller and footballer
• Strength of purpose and courage…..determination to succeed
The video and Lester's talk were inspiring - the group expressed how privileged
they felt to have had the chance to hear him tell his story - he had achieved all
the things we were striving after, over a long period and in a sustainable way.
Summary: real and sustainable social change can be achieved, and some of the
key factors we agreed on were:
• use a range of different approaches & channels
• dream big and tackle the big issues
• meet on their turf
• establish a safe comfortable time and space for discussions
• "loiter with intent" - put in the time - be visible
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81
• work down through the layers and levels of disadvantage to the most
disenfranchised
• offer a range of options and opportunities, including some fun stuff -

changing the world is hard work - people need to celebrate achievements
and regain energy\
• be flexible and build in negotiation mechanisms at every step of the way -

ensure it remains "their" project
• set up sustainability mechanisms from the start:

o spread the load - don't rely on one or two people
o delegate and involve at every opportunity - preferably to pairs or
teams
o establish mutual support networks
o establish emergency support mechanisms
o encourage and nurture creativity and flexibility and sense of
belonging
o encourage new members - don't become a clique
• It is particularly important to ensure the roles of key players devolve to

others. At our September workshop, we concluded that to ensure this
happened you should:
o Include this concept within the aims, with terms like co-leading
and co-learning
o Underlying principle of sharing and involving rather than keeping
control and promoting dependency
o Delegate effectively and create opportunities for others to grow
and evolve
o Encourage veryone be clear about what they are happy to do
o Consciously coach/mentor/skill others
o Share roles
o Clearly define different roles and levels of involvement
o Ensure people get satisfaction from it and feel useful
o Concentrate the dreams on the project/program rather than the
leaders
WE ARE PREPARING EVALUATION FRAMEWORKS FOR THE FINAL

DRAFT.
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82
What we
Chapter
10 would do
next time
There were a few lessons in this Program, and so, in retrospect, we would
probably do some things a bit differently next time, for instance:
1. Limit workshop numbers to 20 if possible, to enable maximum

interaction, involvement and commitment. Where more than 20 leaders
want to be involved, parallel workshops should be organized, with the
opportunity to meet in social get-togethers, and work in joint projects.
2. Spell out more clearly in our advertising materials that this was not
simply a skills development program like submission-writing, but rather
an interactive organic community program in which the real work would
be done in the project teams.
3. Spell out more clearly, when recruiting participants, the expectations that
would be placed on them during this program; that they would be
expected to plan and implement community leadership projects, and that
these projects should be collective as opposed to individual projects.
The most important parts of a workshop come from what has happened
in a community before the workshop itself, and what happens when
people go home and act (Horton, 1990, p.153).
4. Given the above, most of the selection process should then be self-
selection; explaining that we were not interested in people becoming
involved in this Program just because they held offices of authority or
had tertiary qualifications. We were interested rather in whether they
saw themselves as exercising leadership in their community, were willing
to try out new ideas, and wanted to try working with new partners in
new ways. A series of questions could have been prepared to help
potential participants judge whether or not this Program was for them.
5. Attach an experienced social activist educator to each project team, in a

more openly provocative facilitating role. We did assign a UTS staff
member to each project team, but their role was more that of a recorder
and resource person; perhaps it should have been a more active and more
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83
long-term role. In addition to learning from the participants in the

workshop experience, the Program staff should have an opportunity to
interact in the field with the participants, to work with them in putting
their agreed ideas into action.
6. Devote more time within the project to discussing the debilitating effect
of “over-busyness;” and working out strategies to refocus participants’
jobs and create time and space for the projects. However enthusiastic the
participants, if they cannot find time or energy for the projects, they will
not be able, through them, to bring about significant sustainable social
change for the better within their communities. We are not suggesting
that the participants put aside additional time for the community
leadership projects, nor that they see them as additional tasks, but rather
that the projects be integrated into their current paid or voluntary
community work. The coordinators of the community leadership
program, and the participants, should negotiate with employers about
how, the community leadership projects, can be made part of their
ongoing work duties.
In addition, we would once again base our program on the following key
principles, which we consider essential factors for such a program to be
successful:
7. Agree on underpinning principles for the projects, as without them, the

projects will lack heart and sustainability, and they may end up being
sidetracked on projects which will get them no closer to their long-term
dreams. It is important, however, not to get bogged down in discussing
definitions of “leadership” and such like terms: whatever the terms used,
agreed working definitions are sufficient, as the crucial factor is the spirit
behind the terms and the attitudes of the people involved.
8. Emphasise the key role that learning has in any community movement or
program. We should always be, in the words of the great Irish adult
educator, Tom Lovett, looking for the educational opportunities in any
situation. Without participants learning together, any program will lack
the energy for the long haul.
9. Remind participants constantly that the challenge is to produce more

leaders rather than more followers. This means that they do not try to do
everything themselves, but rather persuade others to do it with them; in
other words be inclusive and participative rather than managerial.
10. Draw on the traditions of Popular Education (see chapter 6) in the

workshops The emphasis should be on dreams, questioning, planning,
and collective action. Therefore a blend of workshops, social get-
togethers and projects is recommended.
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84
11. Ensure that these workshops are experiential and by that we mean, in the
words of Myles Horton, the founder of Highlander College in Tennessee
(1990, pp 148 – 157) that they should:
• be based on the mining of the experience that the students bring with
them. And assume that people have within themselves the potential
intelligence, courage and ability to solve their own problems
• think of an educational workshop as a circle of learners
• have a goal arising out of a social problem [or problems] that the
participants perceive. There are no given answers to the problems we
dealt with, and we don’t pretend to have any. They have to be worked
out in the process of struggling with the problem. The knowledge
needed for the solution has to be created
• find ways to keep in touch with the participants and their communities.
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85
References
Baum, Fran, Moving Targets: Evaluating Community Development, in Health Promotion Journal
of Australia, vol: 2 (2), 1992
Community Development Stories, from Neighbourhood & Community Centres in NSW, LCSA,
http://www.mapl.com.au/E2.html
Crisp, Beth, R, Swerrisen & Duckett, Four approaches to capacity building in health. Health
Promotion International, Oxford University Press, 200, vol. 15, no. 2
Dorsey, David, Positive Deviant, Fast Company Issue 41, p.284, (2003),
http://fastcompany.com/online/41/sternin.html
Erban, Rosemary; Kowish, Peter, Franz & Wenzel, Eberhard, People Empowerment versus
Social Capital, from Health Promotion to Social Marketing, Health Promotion Journal of
Australia, 1999, vol. 9
Fee, Tom, Celebrating Ten Years of Leadership: the Promise of the Program for Community
Problem Solving, National Civic Review, Fall, 1999, vol. 8813
Fitzgerald, Robert, Capacity Building: The Agenda for Community Services,
http://www.csc.nsw.gov.au/Speeches/Capacity_Building/capacity_building.htm
Flowers, Rick, Community Capacity Building, Keynote Address to Rural Community Health
Conference, October, 2001
Green, Roy & Wilson, Andrew, Social Europe and the Third Way: the ‘New Labour’ Challenge
to European Social Policy, paper for Kurswechsel, August 2001
Horton, Myles, The Long Haul, Doubleday, New York, 1990.
Miller, Clive, Defining and Measuring Social Exclusion, 1999
Murphy, John & Thomas, Barrie, The Role of Business in Community Capacity Building: An
Alternative Approach,
http://communitybuilders.nsw.gov.au/finding_fundsaccessing/c_cap_building.html
Onyx, Jenny & Bullan, Paul, Measuring Social Capital in Five Communities, Journal of Applied
Behavioural Sciences, March 2000, vol. 36, issue 1
Pearson, Noel, 2002,a, Opening Address, Social Entrepreneurs Network Conference, Melbourne,
4/3/02, http://text.sen.org.au/resources/speeches/1020212702_30054.html
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Information Development, University of Adelaide
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Europe, Macmillan, UK, 1997
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urban renaissance, York Publishing Services, York, UK, 1999
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Society Pamphlet no. 63, Arena Publications: Melbourne
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To-day, Summer-Fall, 1995, vol. 23
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Improvement Program – Airds, Campbelltown Council, 1999
Tett, Lyn, Working in Partnership? Limits and possibilities for youth workers and
schoolteachers in Scotland, paper delivered at UTS in 2003.
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THIS IS A DRAFT PREPARED FOR A FORUM

an initiative of Marrickville Council

Centre for Popular Education

with Andrew Chodkiewicz, Beryl Winter, Bruce Ashley, Carolyn Hummerston,

an initiative of Marrickville Council

Centre for Popular Education

First published 2004 by Centre for Popular Education UTS

Copyright „ Rick Flowers and Derek Waddell

STRENGTHENING LOCAL COMMUNUNITY LEADERSHIP

Having said this, we believe that investment in community leadership

There is nothing more disruptive or divisive to the social cohesion of

2. Strengths and Challenges of Marrickville 15

3. Program Structure and Rationale 18

6. Program Values and Philosophies 56

7. Learning and Teaching Community Leadership 63

9. Sustaining the will to exercise leadership in

10. What we would do next time 82

What do we mean by community leadership? Who exercises leadership?

Many churches do provide significant leadership, particularly in the Pacific

Horton explained his reasons for this preference as follows:

Rick was surprised recently to learn about an initiative to ‘train’ unemployed

What are the Qualities an ideal Community Leader should possess?

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS SKILLS and KNOWLEDGE

• Does not appear to be a leader • Self-knowledge

• Reliable, honest, true • Genuinely listens

• Adventurous risk-taker • Takes people with them

• Determined & courageous • Reflective

• Loyal & generous-hearted • Able to inspire

Some additional thoughts from subsequent workshops included:

• Identify the need or the injustice.

Putting Something Back

The Personal Element

What makes a leader? Leadership qualities are self-confidence, communication

Anne Power (1997, p.136-137), in her research in Housing Estates in Europe

As our Community Leadership Program evolved, the key questions arising

• Who are they?

• Do they identify themselves as leaders?

Perhaps, as we have discussed already, it is more useful to talk about exercising

• The potential to exercise leadership;

What's Leadership, Community, and Community Leadership?

Going on previous experience facilitating these sort of sessions with similar

• Carol Strong, Marrickville Youth • Mathew Peet, aerosol artist

I recently was surprised to learn about an initiative to ‘train’ unemployed

Consider definitions of community leadership in the case of unemployed people

The three most important qualities of community leadership

QUALITIES OF COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

• What sort of change do you want?

• What are some examples of personal change you are pursuing?

• What are some examples of community changes you are pursuing?

ORIENTATION AND IDENTITY

• How do you define your identity: as an unemployed person, a resident of

CAPACITY, POWER AND CONFIDENCE

• Who has power to bring about community change?

• Who perceive themselves as powerful and influential?

WELL DEFINED DREAM AND PURPOSE

• Do you have the energy and confidence to support others to be involved

• Do you have ideas about fostering the participation of other people?

• Do people respect and enjoy collaborating with you?

• Are you a good mentor and motivator?