Implement, implement, implement! — the German perspective
By Wolfgang C. Goede
Published: January 17, 2012
Participants at the two-day seminar on comprehensive community development at the Ökologisches Bildungszentrum conference center, located in a beautiful, sprawling urban park/garden in Munich, Germany.
In September 2011, Munich celebrated a premiere. For the first time ever, the techniques of comprehensive community development were presented in Europe.
More than 30 professionals from a wide array of social work and volunteering participated in a two-day training run by James Capraro, a 35-year veteran of neighborhood revitalization efforts in Chicago and a senior fellow at the Institute for Comprehensive Community Development.
The method of improving neighborhoods left a deep impression on the participants. It provides Germany with a new innovative tool to enhance the participation of its citizens, foster its civil society and, thus, reinforce the overall democratic system of the country.
The event started with a session which introduced comprehensive community development to the general public.
Franz Kohout
Professor Franz Kohout, political scientist at Bundeswehr University in Munich, delivered the keynote address. He pointed out that the voluntary engagement of citizens in their communities and the related associations is where democratic society is nurtured and developed.
A tradition of political party domination
German society has traditionally been dominated by its political parties, which discourage or even stifle the engagement of citizens.
This has drastically changed over the last 35 years, during which all kinds of initiatives and participative movements mushroomed. But participation has remained the domain of the middle class.
Privileged by its education, this segment of the population uses the new democratic tools to improve its position, whereas the lower class and immigrants refrain from participation and, consequently, remain needy. This division reminded Kohout of a class society, and he expressed his hope that comprehensive community development will help to bridge the gap in the country's citizen participation.
The main topic of the public meeting as well as the training was Capraro's nine-step process of community participation and community development.
A talent search
The day started with one-to-ones. These are interviews geared towards connecting people with one another. They also serve to focus people on common and mutual problems which they share in their community.
Apart from that, it is also a talent search, said Capraro. Who are the most knowledgeable, outspoken and motivated people, the natural leaders who will carry on the process?
Maren Schüpphaus, leader of the Network for Community Spirit, facilitates one of the sessions.
Once they are identified, they are asked to focus on the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats of the community (SWOT). And based on their responses, they are asked to work together to develop a quality-of-life plan that envisions the state of the community in ten years' time.
At a rollout session, the project is presented to the political representatives and the city's planning departments.
This public meeting indicates a power shift. The new neighborhood leaders are up on the stage while the decision-makers are in the audience listening.
New neighborhood power
This is a unique demonstration of the new neighborhood power, explained Capraro. It unifies the people and shows that there is a new force underway.
Jim Capraro
Capraro showed a video of a rollout in Southwest Chicago which had been attended by 700 people, including many immigrants from Mexico who did not speak English. But that was not a problem because simultaneous translation of the event into Spanish was offered.
The meeting was packed with impressive testimonials summarizing the problems which had already been tackled. It ended with everyone screaming "Yes, we can!" and "Sí, se puede!" (By the way, this was several years before Barack Obama made this the battle cry of his presidential election campaign in 2008.)
Capraro went on to explain relational power, a term which Germans are not familiar with.
It comes from engaging in relationships, getting connected and using the strength of this network for the betterment of the neighborhood.
Conflict and confrontation?
In this context, Capraro was asked about the difference between community development and community organizing, which has become popular in Germany during the last decade. He responded that the latter generally only pursues one tactic to change social conditions, namely conflict and confrontation.
Experience shows, however, that the conflict-confrontation method is only one of many tactics that can be used to build up and accumulate neighborhood power, he said.
Nevertheless, there remain many situations where confrontational tactics are needed, he conceded. Ideally, community development and community development complement one another, as he explained in an essay titled: "Community Organizing + Community Development = Community Transformation. "
The participants of the seminar enjoyed very much the fact that the curriculum offered a mix of American and German elements. This made it more familiar and balanced and offered a multi-cultural approach.
Play-acting
The highlight of the public evening was a theater workshop. The participants formed breakout groups, applied what they had learned about comprehensive community development and presented: "New visions for my neighborhood," which was somewhat akin to the rollout of a quality-of-life plan.
The theater workshop.
Chicago engagement know-how and Munich dramaturgy skills blended within 90 minutes to a very well accepted and digested knowledge cocktail.
The second day of the training session was dedicated to practices.
Participants conducted one-to-ones with each other, being careful to ask questions and note responses, rather than trying to dominate the conversation.
"Silence is your friend," recommended Capraro as the iron rule, noting that the subject of the one-to-one will tend to talk more if the questioner listens silently.
In addition to this exercise, the participants gathered for peer-coaching. In small breakout groups, they described how they would implement the new knowledge in their work. The listeners were not allowed to comment or judge; they only could ask questions.
This reinforced the discipline which is needed to conduct a one-to-one and, moreover, helped everyone to define the outcome of the seminar and to make a commitment as to her or his personal follow-up.
'Fill this with life'
It was very much appreciated by the audience that the trainer left his trainees with a very loose set of rules—no dogmas.
As he explained, "It's up to you how to fill this with life.” Use your imagination, your common sense and, every once in a while, do a gut check, he recommended.
Every community is different, so his method has always to be adapted to the specific needs. "You know what's right," Capraro said. "You survive your mistakes!" The most important factor, however, is the application of the quality-of-life plan.
"Implement, implement, implement!" he urged his audience.
Dr. Gerolf Bender, a physicist and coach for change-making processes, commented at the end of the two day training: "America at its best! Jim was very lively, an excellent story teller, always in close contact with his audience, relaxed and expressing with every word, every gesture. Community development is going to be fun.“
The political system is bankrupt, says Bender, so citizens need to band together and work jointly on community projects, more than ever before, if they want to avert disaster.
"I was hoping for inspiration and clues how to deal with this,” he concluded, “and I'm happy to say that I have received them."
Wolfgang C. Goede is, by training, a political and communication scientist as well as a journalist. He works as a senior editor with a popular science magazine. Before his journalistic career he was a community organizer in Chicago and San Francisco. He is engaged in grassroots participation projects in Germany, elsehwere in Europe and in Colombia.
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