Connecting the Dots

It is week 10 and we have come to one of the last few weeks of the semester. Over the course of the semester, we have looked at various research papers and journal articles to better understand the multi-faceted concept of 'Community Development'. This week, we were prompted to revisit the different terms that we had discovered and engaged in discussions in class over, and categorise them according to four themes: Community Development, Culture, Democracy and Change.

To do so, we were broken into five groups and given a piece of paper with a table of terms, of which we had to give either a definition or a statement to represent each term. Our written answers had to come from the allocated readings by various authors, thus giving us clearer insights and refreshing our memories on what we had previously read on.

This activity highlighted the importance for us to bear these concepts in mind and to use them to deepen our understandings on community development. It is fundamental for us to not simply accept the terms as of themselves but to challenge them and to constantly see how they are connected or disjointed from other terms. As we head to India in a few months' time, our knowledge of these terms would come in useful with our interactions with the various organisation staff and locals as we seek to understand their processes, interventions, challenges and opportunities.

We ended class on a powerful note as we listened to a speech made by Ela Bhaat; founder of Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) , one of the organisations which we will be visiting in India.

In her speech she asserted, 'We need to recognise that poverty is violence. It is violence perpetuated with the consent of society. A society that is silent or looks the other way in the face of poverty is giving consent to exploitation, injustice and war.'

Watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50SH5sPc_9o

Can we simply stand still and do nothing?

Our final product with the different terms plotted according to the four themes.

Next week, we will be sending in our drafts for our storyboards as we will be shooting videos to capture the experiences and the lessons learnt during our visits to the organisations. Exciting times ahead!