ESTABLISHING A WORKING RELATIONSHIP WITH THE COMMUNITY

BASIC VALUES IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZING

TO EFFECTIVELY IMPLEMENT COMMUNITY, THE ORGANIZER AND COMMUNITY WORKER MUST POSSESS VALUE OR
GIVE IMPORTANCE TO HUMAN RIGHTS, SOCIAL JUSTICE AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY.
 Human Rights
Every individual is with worth and dignity this is even recognized by the
UNCharter and the 1987 Philippines Constitution. This is the essence of our
humanity-to be human, and to be humane is to live with worth and dignity.
However, the many of our social problems make us say "madaling maging
Tao, pero mahirap magpakatao." At times, humans are robbed by others of
their self-worth and human dignity. In some instances, the individuals'
themselves allow others to dehumanize- the robber (called the oppressors)
and the "robbed" (called the oppressed).
Community organizing is anchored on the belief in human's worth
and dignity. As community organizers, we recognize the inherent
rights of individuals-the right to life (and a secured life and Survival),
the right to liberty (and self-determination) and the right to property
(which includes the right to enjoy the fruits of our labor).
 Social Justice
One Filipino president once said: "Those who have less in life must
more in law." That is, the poor should have more access to law to at
least. But, of course, this does not mean deprivation
In this module, we mentioned the social opportunities that must be accessed by
the people in order to meaningfully satisfy their basic needs. By providing equal
opportunities to people, human worth and dignity is upheld.

 Social Responsibility

We said in the preceding part of this modules that we are part of a community: that
the condition of our community affects us also. As part of a community, we should not merely
limit ourselves to our personal concerns but should. We should also develop interest on the
concerns of others and move jointly to achieve common goals. This only emphasizes the need
to be responsive to the needs of our community. However, the challenge for community
worker is how to assist the community members acquire the needed abilities to response to
their needs. That is, how to make develop their “response-ability”
STEPS IN COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION
PROCESS

This section presents the different steps needed in community organization

process.

 Area Selection

Though site selection must follow the general design of your program, certain criteria
have been used to determine the project areas. This site must be a depressed area
with majority of the population belonging to the sector your program wishes to
organize. An area with about 150-250 households would be ideal if the Community
organizer is working with a partner. The area must not have a serious peace and
order problem.
Initially, the organizer can gather Socio-economic, demographic and geographic data selected municipalities from the
municipal agencies to assist the organizer in the selection of the project site. The organizer can also inquire from friends or
contacts regarding the characteristics of possible project areas. It is also best to consider your level of commitment, as well
as that of the other project staff, which could affect your personal adjustments to Situations in the field.

 Community Entry

Once the area has been selected, the organizer is now ready to enter the community. Begin with a visit to the local
community officials to inform them of the objectives and nature of the objectives and the nature of the organizer's stay
in the community, Select a home to live in which will facilitate the organizer's work. Choose to stay with a family of good
reputation. Adapt a lifestyle and personality that is in keeping with the community. When talking of the program avoid
raining the people's expectation. Keep a low profile. Avoid attracting unnecessary attention to yourself, be honest and
sincere and share strengths as well as weakness to the people.
 Community Integration

The first and basic step in community organizing is integration or becoming one
with the poor community to get to know the culture, economy, they visit people,
engage in small talk, share the people's work, take part in informal group
discussion, share the people's housing, food entertainment, and meetings.
Integration is a continuing effort to immobile community life. It is accomplished by
living with the people and sharing the some experiences with them; the organizer
can participate in economic activities, share in their household work, or join them
in social activities.
 In the process of integration certain
things should happen to the integration:

1. He or she should come to respect the people and see the liberating aspects of
their culture that gave them the strength to struggle. The so-called culture of silence
is a sociologist's abstraction. The poor are though, determined, full of good
naturedness. They also have the weakness of other gunman beings.

2. The organizer should see how the social analysis he or she may have made of the
national situation is concretized in the people's lives. He or she can see to what
extent the social analysis, too, is only an abstraction. Reality is much complex and
complicated.
3. The organizer should try to see or intuit God's activity among the poor, since
the poor are the privileged site of god's work today, according to the teaching
of the churches.

4. He or she should in the end be accepted as member of the community

5. Finally, the organizer's values and lifestyle should change. He or she should
become more understanding and intolerant, more dedicated, more realistic and
a poor man or woman as much as possible.
To integrate well, the organizers should live in a poor urban or rural community in an ordinary house and eat the food the people eat. Integration guarantees that a person's
commitment to change society is attuned to what the people want by a way of change and not to some theoretical model or ideological or religion. Integration is basic to all
others steps. If the organizers are not one with the people, they can never really learn the true dimensions of the people's problems or how to motivate them to change.
 Social Investigation

Social investigation is the process of systematically looking for issues to organize the people around. The organizer, immersed in the community, looks for problems that
the people feel strongly about to the extent that they will act on them. He or she looks for something concrete, for example, sater and latrine problems, that are
objectively problems that are obvious forms of community integration. The organizer's few months will be spent on getting to know the community well to be able to
draw up a program that will maximize the participation of the community members. A community study must be regarded both as phase of a long process and as a long
process itself. As a process, it is a continuing activity set to fulfill definite expectations as definite periods. Making a community study can take several forms, including:
gathering and reviewing secondary date sources such as records and documents, holding personal interviews, conducting a survey, and observing people and their
environment.
Initially, the organizer can prepare a guide for a community study which can be
divided into major areas of investigation Such as the physical environment,
economic, socio-political and cultural aspects of the community. The organizer can
also look into organizational aspects by getting a list of existing organizations in
the community, their nature, objectives, leadership membership and activities. The
organizer's preliminary can include the community's:

1. Physical characteristics (e.g. location, area size, natural resources, climate, etc.)

2. Demographic characteristics (e.g. population size, age, and sex composition,

occupational groupings)
Once the organizers have been integrated to the community, he or she can conduct an in-depth
study to explore the community's different economic, political social structures and their various
interrelationships. This can also include an assessment of the people's levels of consciousness
based on their socio-economic classes. Once you do this you are now doing social investigation.
How to do social investigation? There are three ways in general: the first is to study the documents
and reports that talk of the people's problems. The second way is to learn from the people
themselves how they feel about the problem, how they see a problem's details, complications and
significance. The third way is to study the problem as it is affected by the power structure of the
Community, that is, to study how prevalent usury is in slum areas.
He can see for himself and learn from the people how common it is and what a weight it is put on people.
He should also see how it serves certain specific needs of the community that are not served by
government or other agencies and how the local leader is often the principal usury. This last piece of
information warns him that action against usury will be opposed by the leader and his friends. A piece of
advice though avoids excessive drinking as well as courting or flirting with men and women in the
community. Do not gamble. Remember, too, that an important component of organizing is documentation.
Hence, it will be an advantage to keep the diary of daily activities, experience as well as impressions of and
reflections of interactions with the people in the community. This can be a use for reference in the future,
which can also be share with other organizers. After a period of about one or two months, the organizers
are now ready to write the result of the community study. Community data can be reported and the initial
phase of community organizing can be documented. This will also help the community organizer to evaluate
the feasibility of the program in the community.