WWOOFing it Up in Kiwiland: organic farming in New Zealand 2012

3 years later and life brings me back to New Zealand. This time for a longer period, for a different purpose, with a different outlook on life than last time. I hope what transpires from a few years of travelling as far and as wide as possible across this beautiful country is a basic but decent knowledge and experience in organic farming, self sustainable living, and food production. Come and join me, there's loads of room in the car.

Monday 14 September 2009

Trials and Tribulations (Rantings) of a Community Development Worker... and for the record, I am NOT a social worker


So here we go...maybe only the CDW of you will really understand these descriptions of expasperated dialogues with those unversed in the jargon...and before you exclaim "But Wing, aren't you meant to be the bridge between the 'top-down' and the 'bottom-up', the 'haves' and the 'have-nots', the 'elite' and the 'marginalised'"? you know the answers are "Yes, Yes and Yes!" ...but when people just don't get it, I can't help but get EXASPERATED!

Community Development is about empowering groups to take control of theirs lives and the world around them through critical refelection with the aim of social action. It is counter hegemonic, it is decentralisation of power, it is empowerment, it is dialogue based on mutual respect and faith in human beings as creators. It values social justice, self-determination, working and learning together, reflective practice, sustainability and participation. It is organic. It embraces change. It turns conflict into opportunity.
I have been trying since I got here to get people thinking about Popular Education. I'm not here to observe. I'm not here to 'fix problems', do a job and leave, or find the answers. I take action to support groups to work themselves through the never-ending process of change to find better ways to achieve the better things only they can define. I never had the answers. I never claimed to. And people have to get out of that individualistic mentality that traps them into thinking as such. No-one has all the answers.
Rant over... and now I think about it, this happens all the time in the UK... only difference is I don't have only 7 weeks to change it...

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