Community Action

Rovelyn P. Belencion
According to Local Government
Association (info@local.gov.uk ),
community action is any activity
that increases the
understanding, engagement
and empowerment of
communities in the design and
delivery of local services.
 An example of which is capacitating the women
in the production of face masks using indigenous
or local materials. In the said sample activity, the
women would not only be trained but they will
be empowered- empowered in the sense that
these women will be given an employment
Example of CA opportunity not just for a day or a week but
probably for months or even a year or years. A
mere clean-up drive or tree-planting would be a
community activity but it lacks a long- range
empowerment, therefore it does not answer to
the call of a community action.
 1. To help and encourage the children and
the youth.
Building a strong and capacitated base could be
done through community action activities like
Purposes of literacy program, leadership training workshop,
Community or any program that promotes mental health,
Action and the like, where children of school age and
the so-called out-of-school youth are to be
encouraged to participate to hone their reading
and leadership skills which they could use later
on to be of help to the community.
 2. To help and support the marginalized
sector.
This sector has reference to the impoverished
Purposes of members of the community, the members of
Community the indigenous people’s groups, or even the
women sector. Through community action
Action activities, these identified sectors in the
community would become the participants to
training programs or workshops to help them
be emancipated from their pitiful plight.
 3. To invigorate and honor the elderly.
For this reason, community action planners
must also consider programs to elicit the youth
Purposes of in them, community initiatives to revive their
Community stamina and vigor, activities that would make
Action them feel they are still partners in
developmental programs of the community
and activities that would revive and sustain the
wisdom of being the elders in the community.
 4. To strengthen the community, as a whole.
Strength is determined not only with the
number of population or the size of the territory
Purposes of but with the empowerment exuded by all of the
Community members of said community. The human
resource of the community is more that the
Action physical and geographical make-up. At the end
of the day, when the community folks have all
been vitalized, the entire community becomes
dynamic.
 1. Community action is about putting
communities at the heart of their own local
services.
This means that the people in the community are
motivated in making the community’s objectives
Importance of
and needs as their focus and they themselves will
Community
be the ones taking charge of the services to satisfy
Action
such. The community members are the
participants to any community action initiative and
whatever and however they are capacitated, they
themselves will be the ones who shall deliver the
identified service and gain from it.
 3. Community resilience.
Importance of This means that the community
Community could become self-sustaining with
Action
the skills and knowledge they are
capacitated with.