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Showing posts from March, 2008

Saathiyon salaam hai…

The Community Development Exchange defines ‘community development’ as: “The process of developing active and sustainable communities based on social justice and mutual respect. It is about influencing power structures to remove the barriers that prevent people from participating in the issues that affect their lives…Community workers (officers) facilitate the participation of people in this process. They enable connections to be made between communities and with the development of wider policies and programmes…Community development expresses values of fairness, equality, accountability, opportunity, choice, participation, mutuality, reciprocity and continuous learning. Educating, enabling and empowering are at the core of community development.” Community development, and struggle for the rights of the downtrodden that are embedded in Gandhinian philosophy have their manifestations in present day India. Mahatma Gandhi was a man of the masses – ready to take up the cudgels on behalf of