Reflections on Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki, and Dow’s Freirian praxis in health education and community organizing: A case study of an adolescent prevention program Any initiative that actively engages adolescents to take control of their lives by illustrating how they can actively and positively participate in their social environment instead of being a victim of it, is powerful. Wallerstein, Sanchez-Merki & Dow (2006) explore a program that utilized at its heart Freirian empowerment education methods and Ronald Rogers (1984… Read More
Reflections on Minkler’s Community organizing among the elderly poor in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district While I am very enthusiastically in support of participatory action research as well as asset-based community development (ABCD) I am also in favor of combining methods to use, whatever is most effective. In this case, neither of the above seemed to work for the Tenderloin Senior Outreach Project but a combination of methods utilizing adaptations… Read More
Reflections on Klitzman, Kass, and Freudenberg’s Coalition building to prevent childhood lead poisoning While this article was written in 2006, and Klitzman, et al (2006) discuss lead poisoning in the water system of New York City, I have to ask, why there is no initiative federally to eliminate the poisons in our water, when, albeit only limitedly, unfortunately, the 14th amendment was used to break down some Jim… Read More
Reflections on Gutiérrez and Lewis’ Education, participation, and capacity building in community organizing with women of color Gutiérrez and Lewis (2006) discuss a topic close to my heart and one that will be an aspect of my participatory action research in the future, community organizing in communities of color, especially with women and girls of color since societally they are the most oppressed and taken for granted and forgotten by the larger… Read More
Reflections on Roe, et al’s Community building through empowering evaluation – A case study of HIV prevention community planning Roe et al (2006) offer an intriguing commentary on community in this country and a unique counterpoint on how it should function. The United States is seen as stereotypically individualistic, which is, unfortunately, a reality in a majority of this country, while AIDS is seen as an area where “effective prevention must be community-based, ecologically… Read More
Reflections on Kretzmann & McKnight’s Building Communities from the Inside Out (pp. 1-107) Kretzmann & McKnight (1993) provide us with the equivalent of a bible, one to implement asset-based community (or capacity-focused) development from the ground up. This isn’t about assessing needs, deficiencies, and problems, but discovering a community’s capacities and assets. This is an important distinction because it takes the standard way of solving community problems with… Read More