A Strategy for Social and Economic Community Empowerment

SUMMARY: We are sharing with you a strategy for social and economic community empowerment and request your support in the execution of the strategy. Please read detailed information about our strategy and then fill out the Donation Form at the end of this page.

Definitions

The World Health Organisation (WHO, 2020) breaks down the concept of community empowerment as follows:

• Community empowerment refers to the process of enabling communities to increase control over their lives.
• Communities are groups of people that may or may not be spatially connected, but who share common interests, concerns or identities. These communities could be local, national or international, with specific or broad interests.
• Empowerment refers to the process by which people gain control over the factors and decisions that shape their lives. It is the process by which they increase their assets and attributes and build capacities to gain access, partners, networks and/or a voice, in order to gain control.
• Enabling implies that people cannot ‘be empowered’ by others; they can only empower themselves by acquiring more of power’s different forms.
• Empowerment as action refers both to the process of self-empowerment and to professional support of people, which enables them to overcome their sense of powerlessness and lack of influence, and to recognize and use their resources.

(Adapted from World Health Organisation, 2020; emphasis added)

Community Development

Community development is also understood as a professional discipline and is defined by the International Association for Community Development as “a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes participative democracy, sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through the organization, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings

Rationale

SiA dreams about “A Community with Sustainable Environmental, Social and Economic Development”. As stated in SiA Mission, SiA intends to enable the community to achieve sustainable development through sustainable agriculture, social-economic development and environmental conservation initiatives.

Because of the demand for community empowerment in Tanzania, SiA developed Strategic Goal #2: (Community Empowerment) that aims to induce and facilitate innovation of social and economic community development initiatives that will help the community to achieve sustainable economic and social development.

In response to SiA Strategic Goal #2: (Community Empowerment), SiA is currently implementing the Sustainable Community Development Programme (SCDP) that aims to induce and facilitate social and economic community development initiatives that will help the community to achieve sustainable economic and social development.

SIA Community Empowerment Plans

In Community Empowerment SiA plans to do the following;

1. Facilitate and promote innovation of social and economic development initiatives that will help marginal communities to achieve sustainable economic and social development
2. Promote youths social, educational, economic, political, and psychological empowerment for their sustainable social and economic development
3. Facilitate women social, educational, economic, political, and psychological empowerment for their sustainable social and economic development
4. Promote and facilitate child protection initiatives that create a way for children to achieve sustainable development in the future

Implementation of SIA Community Empowerment Plans

SiA is currently doing the following;

1. Continuous developing and implementing marginal communities, youths, and women empowerment Projects
2. Inducing and maintaining partnership in Project planning and Management for innovation of Initiatives
3. Developing and conducting community empowerment campaigns
4. Developing and conducting gender and development campaigns

Call for Donation and/or Partnership

SiA is requesting your donation to support the implementation of the above strategy.