• What are the principles of culturally appropriate or culturally sensitive development?
• How do these relate to development theory and practice generally?
• How may these principles be applied in practice generally within your target community, and specifically in your professional work?
• What may enhance your capacity as a culturally competent development practitioner in this context?
In the present day world, there exist a number of cultures. In this work we will concentrate on Islam culture and the various community programs and services that are followed. An attempt will be made to understand the basics of this community. Also the personal views and thoughts will be discussed on this community.
1. Core principles of community development:
The core principles of community development include the followings.
1. Applying democratic principles:
Applying democratic principles means that the thoughts, expectations and desire of every person in the community is heard. This way the decision is reached after achieving the majority support (Grimson, 2010).
2. Law of Universality prevails:
The law of Universality states that everyone is equal and should be given equal opportunity, right and services irrespective of the financial background and social status.
3. Non-authorization principle in practice:
The non-authorization principle confirms that all the society members are given equal weightage and everyone is given equal importance in the decision making process (Bluhm, 2013).
4. Self-determination values:
Self-determination values confirm that the community members interact with each other to identify their concerns and reach out to a most desired outcome.
5. Community ownership values:
Community ownership values bring out the sense of belongings not only among the assets of the community but also with the issues and problems. This way the community work together with its members to develop solutions which can help sustenance of their community.
6. Developing community support:
Community support system is developed so that the service integration can be reached by increasing coordination between community members who are expected to share their finance and service to serve the whole community like a family (Durkheim, 1997).
The principles of culturally appropriate or culturally sensitive development include the followings.
1. Fairness to all. This does not means that everyone gets the same thing, but they receive what they actually desire for.
2. The involvement of the community members is as important for its success.
3. Leadership should be embraced and leader should be followed by all the community members.
4. Proper planning for the community development and programs should be made so as to achieve whole community benefits.
5. Community should evaluate its stands and outcome of earlier decision at regular basis so that the reforms can be made accordingly.
6. Community members should be fair and responsible towards their community (Lughod, 1991).
7. The funds should be amalgamated from each community member and should be used for the common good.
8. Final motive of every community is to achieve social change that could help the community member to improve his quality of life and achieve best in life through proper education, good food and positive thinking (Merry, 2003).
The development theory is actually a set of theories that are meant to achieve the most desired outcome for the community or society. These theories suggest various ideas and thoughts that could bring social change. The development theory helps in establishing goals for the principles of cultural sensitive development concept discussed earlier. The relation with the cultural sensitive development with the development theory therefore includes the followings.
1. Basic needs theory application:
The cultural sensitive development follows the basic need theory of development theory which states that every society or community member should have access to the basic needs such as food, shelter, clothing and medical attention so that he could live a good healthy life. Due to this reasons Islam community develop plans and create funds so that the social welfare projects are initiated which could help the poor, and downtrodden to get a minimal level of living requirements (Guang & Trotter, 2012).
2. Recognizing dependency theory:
Dependency theory states that developing or underdeveloped countries assist the developed countries in the development projects. That is the cheap labor comes to developed countries with huge capital to work in projects of development. This way both the economies are interdependent on each other for some reasons. Similarly, in Islam, the rich donates money for the projects which supports the dwelling and food requirements of the poor. On the other hand, poor offer services that help the rich in earning more.
3. Thriving for achieving sustainable development:
Sustainable development stands for developing without compromising the interest of the coming generations. That is the environment, economy and social factors are not disturbed for any reasons to maintain peace and prosperity in the society. Similarly, in Islam the sustainable development is thrived to be achieved without affecting the environment, politics and economy of the country. The social welfare projects initiated by the community centers are meant to serve humanity. Therefore efforts are made to serve humanity and bring in tolerance towards other community in the country so that they could all live together in harmony (Robbins, 2012).
4. Principles applied in practice:
In practice the principles applied flows in the following direction.
A. Basic need theory applied:
1. Fairness to all:
In Islam every member of the society is considered equal. All are considered as children of “Allah” or almighty. Therefore there is no reason to discriminate between the society members on either basis. The judgment method and social welfare are both done on principles of universalities wherein everyone is considered equal before law and has the right to access the fundamental benefits from the community.
2. The involvement of all the community members:
Islam advocates the involvement of all the community members so that the decision taken should represent the thought and desire of each community member. The regular community meetings and the decision taken through majority acceptance are a regular feature in Islam. The community mostly meets on Fridays in Mosques where under the religious head called “Molvi”, the issues and problems are discussed and the decisions are passed also sometimes called “Fatwa”. The basic behind these decisions is mostly to work for the social welfare and safeguard the interest of the community.
3. Leadership in community:
Leadership in community is supported in Islam. The various clergy, religious heads and leaders such as “Molvi”, “Imam”, “Mufti” and “Ayatollah” takes over the meeting and give their thoughts and speeches so that the community can be guided towards the best outcome. This way the leadership in community help in deciding the right way which could help them grow, prosper and sustain in the multi-cultural society.
B. Sustainable development applied:
4. Proper planning:
Proper planning is followed in Islam wherein the people of the community are involved in the decision making. The planning is done by taking advices of the people from different background that keeps the pros and cons ahead of the planners so that the most desired outcome is reached. Planning in Islam is guided by the principles of Islam which consider the followings.
a. The poor should get the basic requirements.
b. Religious tolerance should be applied.
c. Islam principles should be safeguarded from outer world interventions.
d. Principle of Universality to be applied.
5. Evaluation at regular intervals:
The community meetings and the leadership messages helps in evaluation of the plans and policies of the community. This way an evaluation of the earlier policies is made at regular intervals so that the community achieves its target goals and objectives as per the principles of Islam.
C: Dependency theory applied:
6. Role of community members:
Every community member is expected to give his services and take part in the community affairs. This way the role of every community members is prefixed so that the community welfare programs can be executed from time to time to achieve desired outcomes.
7. Using community funds:
The use of community funds is made as per the directions of the principles of Islam which wants to give food to every needy person. Also the health care services to the downtrodden and sufferer is also provided at low or no cost. Finally the community fund is used to finance the community development projects so that it could help in identification of the whole community in the world and gain benefit for the community members (Robbins, 2012).
8. Achieving social change:
Islam basics confirm that it wants to achieve social change by bringing social welfare in application. That is the community members who are affluent and has access to huge funds should pay a percentage of their earnings to the community welfare programs. This way the fund collected from the community members can be used for the same community members who are poor and has no access to finance. Therefore a social change where the rich donates for the food, shelter, clothing and health of the poor is among the goal of Islam which could bring social change (Freire, 1985).
1. Things that may enhance capacity as a culturally competent development practitioner:
The things that may enhance our capacity as a culturally competent development practitioner includes the followings.
1. Increasing self-awareness:
Self-awareness means understanding own culture. Therefore by increasing self-awareness we can lean about the basics of our own culture like how did it rise, what are the principles etc.. This way we will be aware of what actually we are following and convince ourselves on various grounds that may relate to the development of understanding about community concept.
2. Educating myself:
The education can help in getting us aware of the community programs, thoughts and decisions that have been taken earlier. This way we can understand about what is happening around the world with our community and how it has been affecting it. The interaction and relation between other communities can be recognized and the cause of issue or problem if any may be easily be identified (Bluhm, 2013).
3. Adding skills:
By adding skills to upgrade our way of understanding things can help in easy assessment of our community and other community as well. The skills added may include the followings.
a. Patience.
b. Tolerance.
c. Ability to process information.
d. Ability to understand other people thoughts and expectations.
2. The global development paradigm impact on local development interventions and resulting changes to a culture and society:
The global development paradigm is having great impact on local development interventions. Actually a total change in culture and society has been observed through the increasingly globalized world economy. The days of identifying each other with religion, community and backgrounds are now gone. People in the present day sit together with similar clothes and thoughts which are meant to promote harmony and peace in the world. The various issues of past related to community are losing grounds as the present day people are more interested in safeguarding their jobs than participating in any social or community rally. People want to live together than making space for them and their community. Life has changed and there is hardly any time with anyone to take leave from job and participate in the community development plans (Trickey, 2011).
While working in office no body is asked for his social or community background, but the interviewers asks for education backgrounds and achievements. This way the community background and related are no more importance in the present day world. This is because the priority of the intelligence and knowledge is given more preference than any other thing. However the fund raising for the community development has not changed. The businessmen, servicemen and others who are interested in funding the social projects donate in community centers so that they can continue to support the humanity. That is they could spend on the food, clothing, shelter and medical assistance of the poor who cannot at their own end could achieve all these. Therefore people in the present world have enough money to support the idea of community development and initiate social welfare projects but they don’t have time to take part in rallies or functions which are also a part of the community development program (Nagel, 1994).
3. A critical reflection on the cultural values or models, understanding of your target culture and factors that could help in work of effectively cross culturally:
The cultural values and models presented in this unit completely help in understanding the concept of cross cultural communications and related. These models has helped in understanding the basics of the Islam culture which includes principle of fairness, universality, social welfare, leadership embracement, other culture tolerance, funding for poor and achieving social change. However these cultural values that are reflected are not actually applied in the present day world. Due to the entrance of miscreant and irresponsible person in the community the global impression of the community has faced serious setbacks. For instance the religious meetings that were called by the clergies were actually meant to discuss the issues and problems prevailing in the society so that the poor can be supported and the community can gain from collaborative assistance. Also development programs were suggested that could help the whole community in gaining benefit. However the same is not achieved in the present environment. The community decisions at present consist of mostly “Fatwa’s” that are actually meant to take aggressive actions considering attack on community. This way the irresponsible outcome suggested by the not so rationale clergymen and religious head has resulted in defaming the community so much that the people in some countries have to hide their community backgrounds even from friends.
The model suggested above gives an insight to the basics and actual thoughts of the Islam community principles and values than the one explained and evaluated incorrectly by some clergymen. We can evaluate easily that the Islam principles are meant to help others especially the poor people. Also the rich people of the community are advised to donate some part of their earnings for the community welfare projects so that the every community member is facilitated with the minimum requirements. Finally the religious tolerance has been suggested which has been seriously missing in application in the present day world (Lughod, 1991).
4. Worldview and values impact on the work:
My own worldview and values are very similar to the basics of Islam. Like the Islam community basics the international and community development projects that will be participated on following grounds.
1. Everyone gets equal share from the social welfare schemes and programs.
2. Poor should be offered with the minimal support for food, shelter, clothing and medical attention.
3. Tolerance will be followed so that any community sect does not have to face discrimination.
4. Respect to the thoughts and beliefs of the community members will be displayed.
5. Efforts will be made to help evaluate the right meaning of the principles of the community so that the right message is conveyed to the common people.
5. My strengths or weaknesses in living and working cross culturally:
I have a number of strengths and weakness in living and working cross culturally. These are as follows.
A. Strengths:
1. I have the ability to understand and convey the right message and meaning of the community’s basics and principles.
2. I want to serve humanity and not any particular community or religion.
3. I am tolerant to every religion.
4. I consider all people are human before they belong to any religion.
5. I believe in the development of humanity in all aspects.
B. Weaknesses:
1. I prefer peaceful change than conflicts. Actually I am not sure about the respond of the affluent clergyman and religious leaders whom I might contradict on their evaluation on Islam. This way I don’t like to enter in any conflict, rather bring social change through consistent and swift actions than radical decisions.
2. I may not be able to convince other community members who are die hard followers of extremism who may not accept me and my thoughts.
(Guang & Trotter, 2012)
3. An overview of the future in living and working cross culturally:
The things that I might do in future for living and working in cross culturally include the followings.
1. I will participate in social welfare project irrespective of the community it belongs to.
2. I will make friends in different communities.
3. I will join my friends and colleagues in enjoying different occasions or festivals in different communities.
4. I will not discriminate in my service for people belonging to other community.
5. I will donate for the community development programs without asking for the community fund it belongs to.
(Merry, 2003)
4. Other cultures perceive selected culture:
Other people perceive my selected culture to be very strange. They consider my selected culture known for aggressive activities only. Therefore it is very clear that the recent happenings have changed the idea of the Islam community. The people who were earlier looked upon as ethical and moral agents are now looked as aggressive members of the society. This clearly shows that the cross cultural communication has completed been diverted or ended. People have made their own perceptions that the said community is an extremist community and its members should be avoided. However it is not a recommended method of looking upon some particular community because the way they are depicted in the world is just not as per the fact and actual principles of the community. Therefore I would rather discuss my findings about this particular culture with other members by sharing following thoughts.
1. This community or culture is meant to serve humanity.
2. This culture has huge religious tolerance displayed in its basics. However the interpret is done incorrectly by the influential people.
3. This culture gives shelter, food, clothing and even medical assistance free of cost to the people.
4. The community gatherings are not meant to discuss and decide on attacks but to work for the development and improvement of the social status of the people especially poor and downtrodden by giving them free education and minimal living requirements.
(Freire, 1985)
5. Preparations for working cross culturally after this unit:
The preparations I would consider prior and during the period of time living and working cross culturally after this unit will include the followings.
1. I will register myself with a community service center without even enquiring about the community office it belongs.
2. I will gather information about the community where I get the work so that I could understand their way of living.
3. I will give away my services without any discrimination so that the expected outcome is delivered from me.
4. I will read books and gather historical knowledge about the real facts about different communities so that the wrong evaluation and interpretations of others cannot affect my decision making.
5. I will try to work as per directions so that the interest of any community member is not harmed.
(Lughod, 1991)
Conclusion:
In the end, the cross cultural communication and related concepts helps in understanding about the true facts and knowledge of other community. Various models have been discussed to help understand the Islam community. Personal thoughts and views have also been displayed to give a better explanation of the personal thoughts and believe.
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