Sustainable community development: from what’s wrong to what’s strong| Cormac Russell
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5xR4QB1ADw
How can we help people to live a good life? Instead of trying to right what’s wrong within a community Cormac argues we need to start with what’s strong. We need to help people discover what gifts they have and to use those gifts to enrich those around them.
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Two professors, John McKnight & Jody Kretsman, that were at Northwestern University (Related website: Coady International Institute, http://www.coady.stfx.ca) researched hundreds of communities in the United States and found the raw ingredients within those communities and how they effected change from the inside out.
Here are the five building blocks ALL of those hundreds of communities told them about.
-The skills of local residents
-The power of local social networks
-The resources of public, private and non-profit institutions
-The physical and economic resources of local places.
-The Stores of our shared lives
-AND THESE ARE THE EXACT SAME BUILDING BLOCKS that international communities and indigenous communities have also identified within themselves.
Cormac Russell is Managing Director of Nurture Development, the leading Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) organisation in Europe, and faculty member of the ABCD Institute at Northwestern University, Illinois.
He works with local communities, NGOs and governments on asset-based community development and other strengths-based approaches, in four continents.
Cormac served on the UK Government’s Expert Reference Group on Community Organising and Communities First during its term in 2011-12. His book “Asset Based Community Development (ABCD): Looking Back to Look Forward” was published in 2015.
