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Map 8: 'Outreach' to
'Transformation'
Analysis of
very different, but equally substantial pilot
projects, suggests that transformation of communities to a
sustainable state can ultimately only be achieved by long-term conservation management plans involving
a symbiotic relationship between local communities and local agencies. This means
that the community must be seen not just as a certain number of
service users, and not just as categories of people (youth, elderly, people in a certain
condition, people of a certain ethnic background, people with low
income) but as a web of choosing and interacting individuals who
have the potential to develop multiple productive activities both
under their own control, in partnership with public authorities and
through constructive influence on the public service agencies.
Contemporary experience is that
disadvantage produces isolation, not solidarity. Solidarity needs to
be rediscovered or recreated. For this reason small community groups
have a potential importance out of proportion to their size. A
strategic approach to community involvement needs to be aware of the
condition of the whole community sector across the locality and have
a developing relationship with these groups, and not only through
intermediary bodies.
Without
implying
that all outreach projects should necessarily develop in this
direction (every local area being different), a possible trajectory from
ineffective stop/start outreach to transformation can be presented in the form of
three stages, as in the following diagram
.
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