The Drum Beat 225 - Center for Participatory Change

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CENTER FOR PARTICIPATORY CHANGE - North Carolina, USA

Click here for a brief summary.

Click here for the CPC website.

info@cpcwnc.org

The Center for Participatory Change (CPC) is an NGO that promotes economic and racial justice in the mountain counties of North Carolina. CPC staff see the Appalachian region in which they work as similar to many parts of the developing world - with a history of having its labor and natural resources exploited for the profit of people and corporations from outside the region.

CPC's mission is to help people across Western North Carolina recognise their own power, work together, and transform their communities. In practical terms, they support the development of grassroots, community-based organisations, which they believe are the fundamental vehicle of lasting social change. This strategy has 3 levels:



1)Each grassroots organisation carries out development projects to improve their local community in concrete ways: workshops to promote immigrant workers' civil rights; educational programmes for underserved children; cooperatives that make traditional crafts as a source of supplemental income; markets for farmers to sell their products. Each group determines its own projects and is fully responsible for its own plans, actions and decisions.

2)The development process results in trained leaders and strong organisations that have both the skills and the membership base to influence policies, decisions, and control of resources in their local area.



3)When these community organisations from across the region come together in networks and coalitions, they have the power to share ideas and strengthen each other, and they are also able to develop a shared agenda for broader social change.

Also see - Participatory Change: Ten Steps in Supporting Grassroots Rural Development

Click here for a summary.

Click here for the full document within the CPC Toolbox.

FOCUS AREAS

Click here for more information on the CPC site.

The Center for Participatory Change supports about 30 community organisations in a 15-county region. While these groups conduct a broad range of development projects, they tend to focus in 2 general areas:



Racial Justice

Racial discrimination is deeply ingrained in U.S. society, and it affects nearly every aspect of life, from employment and education to housing and health care. This work includes developing strong leaders and strong organisations in African American, Latino, Native American and immigrant communities; engaging European Americans in racial justice efforts; and creating opportunities for people to come together across the lines of race, culture, and language, to tap the power of a truly multi-racial, multi-cultural coalition.

Economic Justice

Poverty and economic exploitation are also major social issues in Appalachia. CPC's work in this area includes support for cooperatives that earn extra income for their members, often farmers or craftmakers; and supporting groups that promote workers' rights, such as fair pay and safe working conditions, particularly for immigrant workers.

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Access all information on The CI site related to human rights, development and communication - no longer available

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PROGRAMMES

Click here for more information on the CPC site.

CPC carries out its work through 4 programmes:

Community Organising

Bringing together people from disenfranchised communities to first identify problems and opportunities in their area, and then plan and carry out projects to address those issues. The projects are determined by each group, so they are different in each community, and specific to that community's strengths and culture.

Capacity Building

CPC's training and technical assistance programme focuses on experiential learning: working hand-in-hand with community leaders, so that they develop the skills to run and maintain their organisation independently. There is no set programme, but they respond to each group's particular needs as they develop. Training topics include the wide range of skills needed to build and maintain a community organisation: planning projects, running a meeting, managing conflict, working with the media, raising money, evaluation, group decision making, and so on.

Networking

While each community group makes a difference in its local community, they have much more power when they work together in coalitions. One example is the coalition of immigrant and Latino centers across the region. Individually, they focus on the immediate needs of immigrants: housing, transportation, language, education. As a coalition, however, they are able to take a broader perspective and work to reform attitudes and policies around immigration and workers' rights.

Grantmaking

CPC also manages the Self Development Fund, a small grantmaking programme that provides grants of up to US $1000 for newly organised community groups in Western North Carolina. Grant applications are reviewed by a panel of grassroots leaders from groups that were previous recipients of seed grants from the Self Development Fund - so that participating groups get to sit on both sides of the funding table.

PUBLICATIONS

Click here for more information on the CPC site.

CPC develops publications to reach a wide range of audiences, from community leaders in North Carolina, to development practitioners around the world. Their work has been inspired and informed by participatory development work in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia, and they are keen to share the lessons they are learning with rural communities in North Carolina.

The Toolbox

Although CPC's work is focused in the mountain counties of North Carolina, they recognize that their efforts are part of a global justice movement. They have created a Toolbox of "how to" information that shares some of the lessons they and their partner organisations have learned. Topics include strategies for community organising, starting an organisation, the basic building blocks of a strong community group, fundraising and more. This Toolbox is posted on their website, for free access to community leaders anywhere in the world.


Click here for the Toolbox on the CPC site.

Evaluations

CPC conducts qualitative evaluations of their work through interviews with community leaders and publishes them in documents called evaluation briefs. In addition, Evaluation Briefs on both processes (Skills, Values & Approaches in Facilitating Participatory Change) and outcomes (Outcomes in Grassroots Support Work) are available for download.

Mountain Views

CPC publishes a quarterly newsletter that shares success stories from community groups in the region and how-to information on building community organisations. Available free by mail within the US and Canada. Contact info@cpcwnc.org

Professional Articles

CPC staff also share more in-depth information about their model with development practitioners through peer-reviewed journals. Recent articles are available for download - click here.

KEY LESSONS

While much of their work is specific to their own region and culture, reflecting on that work has helped them define a set of core perspectives for participatory development:



Believe in People.

Participatory development starts with a rock-solid belief that it has to be the people who define and create positive change in their community, and that the people truly can come together to improve their lives and their communities.

Draw Out People's Wisdom.

Participatory development is built from the knowledge and wisdom that people have gained from their experiences - the main job for professionals is to draw forth people's wisdom, knowledge, and ideas.

Listen.

Listening to grassroots leaders - deeply, fully, and actively - is critical; this means asking a question, staying quiet, and working to hear what the person you are talking with is trying to say.

It Comes from the People.

Grassroots leaders are seen not as 'service recipients' or 'clients' who receive a pre-determined programme, but as agents or actors, people who can work together to make significant and long lasting change.

Build Relationships.

Participatory development is built on relationships and trust. Friendships, having fun, laughing, and joking are the foundation upon which significant social change is built.

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PULSE POLL

The degree of sustainable long term impact on any development issue is directly proportionate to the level of leadership by people immediately affected by that issue multiplied by the scale of public debate and private dialogue on that issue multiplied by the extent to which the issue in question is a 'local' action priority in any given context.

[For context, please see The Drum Beat #222]

Do you agree or disagree?

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