SECTOR: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Our work in community development is both at the grassroots and at the level of institutional strengthening.

GRASSROOTS

At the grassroots level, our work primarily entails leading and supporting interventions in communities around the world focused on transforming social and economic conditions. Our work is characterized by a culturally based, participatory action research approach which engages development stakeholders in every aspect of the process.

INSTITUTIONAL

Four Worlds has worked with many professional agencies to integrate a community development approach into their program objectives and processes. We work with departments, programs and large organizations to strengthen their capacity to move from rhetoric to action. This involves training, mentoring and coaching and working through the implementation of plans that reflect community development methods and processes.

TRAINING

Four Worlds has delivered over 500 workshops and seminars on community development principles and techniques to groups as diverse as village court workers in Papua New Guinea, program managers on reservations in the United States, and senior public servants in Canada.

LEARNING MATERIALS

We have published papers, manuals, reports and a full-length book (Recreating the World, 2012) on community development principles and practices that brings together many years of experience. Among the tools that Four Worlds has developed is the Community Story Framework © 2010, a participatory action research tool for engaging communities in assessing their own situation and needs and mobilizing themselves for action.

SAMPLE PROJECTS

Canada
An eight-year collaboration between Four Worlds and Sagamok Anishnawbek First Nation (near Sudbury, Ontario) focused on developing a comprehensive community-generated needs assessment and a ten-year framework for action, as well as strengthening leadership and community capacity to develop and carry out change initiatives. A six-module accredited training program was developed to support this process. (2003 - 2010)
Similar projects are now underway with Peguis First Nation (Manitoba), and Chippewas of the Thames First Nation (Ontario). (2010-present)

Ukraine
Worked with a network of NGOs across Ukraine to develop capacity for community development and grassroots social change in partnership with the Canadian Bureau for International Education (1999 – 2002)

Zambia
Assisted CARE Zambia in resolving an entrenched deadlock with the Lusaka City Council and the Zambian Ministry of Local Government related to the official recognition and functionality of local development institutions of 13 peri-urban settlements, a crisis which had blocked the flow of millions of dollars of aid money from reaching severely impoverished communities for almost two years (2000-2001)

Pakistan
Guiding development planning, institutional development, and training and education for community development in 114 villages of the northern and central Hunza region of Gilgit-Baltistan, focused on poverty alleviation (2008-present)