Community-Development Web Sites (Updating Links in Progress)
Here are some interesting links to community development
web-sites. If you learn of more sites, please let us know (hagopian@u.washington.edu)
and we'll add them. Thank you!
"The [University of Washington] Homeless Coverage Study Group began
collecting a corpus of data in order to conduct a media and public
policy analysis of the recent City of Seattle practice of “sweeping”
encampments of homeless people on city-owned property... What we found
throughout the documents and visual representations we examined was a
kind of demonization of the homeless and their living conditions. We
locate much of the original discussion of filth and disease, ever-
present in the media descriptions, in the City’s public relations
campaign and changes in administrative rule."
Stephen Fawcett and colleages, Work Group for Community Health and Development, University of Kansas. See his Community Tool Box, too.
The On-Line Conference on Community Organizing and Development:http://comm-org.wisc.edu/
Also, for student based organizations on the University of Washington that focus
on Community Development projects for health science students and rural and
urban medically underserved, visit SPARX (Student
Providers Aspiring to Rural and Underserved Experiences) at http://depts.washington.edu/sparx1/
Dr. Amitai Etzioni served as Professor of Sociology at
Columbia University. He founded and was the first president ('89-'90) of the
international Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics He is the editor
of The Responsive Community: Rights and Responsibilities, a communitarian quarterly.
In 1991 the press started referring to Dr. Etzioni as the "guru" of
the communitarian movement. See Amitai Etzoni's web page: http://www.gwu.edu/~ccps/
Building community in your neighborhood is being promoted by a variety of agencies, organizations, and on both sides of the political spectrum. Go to the Seattle Times to see an article for suggestions: http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=howto06&date=20021006&query=neighbors
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health maintains a
website of
service-learning course syllabi and other curricular materials - we have
several courses listed there that have similar titles/areas of focus to
what you mention below - and there are links to other websites with
health syllabi:
http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/index.html
If you haven't seen it already, check out _Organizing for Social Change_, by
Kim Bobo, et al. Many organizers consider it the bible of organizing, and it
contains a wealth of pragmatic instruction and resources for doing better
organizing work. http://www.midwestacademy.com/
-Especially for folks in Seattle, you can find inspiration in _Humbows, Not
Hot
Dogs! Memoirs of a Savvy Asian American Activist_, by Bob Santos...review at
http://www.realchangenews.org/2002/2002_07_24/reviews/humbows_not_hot_dogs.html
Uncle Bob's story chronicles his life as one of the instigators
of the community-driven direct action that is largely credited for saving
Seattle's International District and promoting the community's ongoing health.
Particularly interesting is his description of ongoing alliances between Asian
American, Latino, Native American, and African American community organizations
in Seattle who have held together against the Strategy and Vision Problems that
Cynthia Peters describes. Better yet, talk to Uncle Bob yourself, he is still
the executive director at Inter*Im Community Development Association
(http://www.interimicda.org/).
Newsletter: http://www.sdchip.org/
Along the lines of rural health and community development, go to this link to see a film about Jack Geiger's work to create a rural Community Health Center in Mississippi that embraces the social determinants of health.