Sustainable community development: from what's wrong to what's strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the transformative power of community-based support, advocating for an approach that focuses on people's strengths rather than their deficiencies. Through examples from Leeds and Wirral in the UK, and Rwanda, the talk illustrates how identifying and mobilizing local assets can lead to sustainable change, fostering a sense of ownership and empowerment. The narrative calls for a shift in traditional helping paradigms to more respectful, grassroots-driven models, highlighting the importance of community builders in facilitating this process.

Takeaways

• 🤔 The script discusses the complexity of 'helping' and suggests that traditional forms of assistance might do more harm than good.
• 🌟 It emphasizes the importance of starting with the strengths within individuals and communities, rather than focusing on their deficiencies.
• 📚 The speaker cites various studies and foundations that support the idea of leveraging existing capacities for community well-being.
• 🔍 The focus on problems rather than strengths can lead to unintended harms such as defining people by their problems, misallocation of resources, and the erosion of active citizenship.
• 🏘️ The script shares examples of community-led initiatives that have transformed neighborhoods by identifying and mobilizing local assets.
• 👵👴 In Leeds, the approach to helping older people involves integrating them into the community life, rather than isolating them in programs for the elderly.
• 👷‍♂️ The story of Robin highlights how identifying and supporting passions can turn individuals from being perceived as in need to becoming community contributors.
• 🎨 Frank's story from Wirral illustrates how art and creativity can be used to engage a community in environmental improvement and civic pride.
• 🌐 The script calls for a global shift in the way we approach help and assistance, advocating for a 'back-yard revolution' that starts from the grassroots level.
• 🌱 It suggests that by focusing on strengths, we can foster a more inclusive, beautiful, and fruitful world where everyone has the power to redefine problems.
• 💪 The final message is one of empowerment, stating that we are the change we seek and that liberation is a collective effort, not a one-way act of charity.

Q & A

What is the central theme of the speech about helping others?

The central theme of the speech is the importance of starting with the strengths within individuals and communities when offering help, rather than focusing on their deficiencies or problems, which can unintentionally cause more harm than good.

What does Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggest about the experience of change for people?

Rosabeth Moss Kanter suggests that when change is imposed on people, they experience it as violence, but when people initiate change themselves, they experience it as liberation.

What is the 75-year Harvard study mentioned in the script, and what does it emphasize?

The 75-year Harvard study mentioned in the script is a longitudinal study on 'what makes happiness possible?' It emphasizes the importance of leaning into relationships and creating community over focusing on individual wealth.

What are the five ways to wellbeing as identified by the New Economics Foundation?

The script does not provide specific details on the five ways to wellbeing. However, it implies that the New Economics Foundation has helped identify methods that contribute to individual and community well-being.

What are the four unintended harms caused by focusing on what is wrong with people and communities?

The four unintended harms are: 1) Defining people by their deficiencies rather than their strengths; 2) Misdirection of funds intended for those in need to service providers instead; 3) The retreat of active citizenship in the face of increasing technocracy, professionalism, and expertise; 4) Communities internalizing a sense of deficiency and passively waiting for external rescue.

What is the alternative approach to helping suggested by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann?

John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann suggest an alternative approach that focuses on identifying and building upon the strengths within communities, by engaging residents in conversations about change from their perspective and encouraging them to share stories of collective action.

What are the six building blocks for sustainable and enduring change according to the communities studied?

The script does not specify the six building blocks. However, it mentions that these blocks represent the assets and resources within communities that, when identified, connected, and mobilized, can lead to sustainable and enduring change.

Can you provide an example of how the community in Leeds is addressing the issue of loneliness among the elderly?

In Leeds, the focus is on building bridges between older people and the center of community life, rather than isolating them in services for the elderly. An example is Robin, who, after losing his wife, found purpose and community by sharing his passion for making walking sticks with others.

What is the significance of the pirate ship, the Black Pearl, in the Wirral community?

The Black Pearl, a pirate ship created by Frank, a community artist, serves as a tourist attraction and a symbol of civic engagement. It was built by involving community members who felt forgotten, turning driftwood and a littered beach into a beacon of community strength and environmental improvement.

What is the 'back-yard revolution' mentioned in the script, and how is it changing communities?

The 'back-yard revolution' refers to a shift in focus from what's wrong with people and communities to what's strong within them. It involves building on existing strengths to create a better future, and it is happening worldwide through initiatives that identify, connect, and mobilize community assets.

What is the core belief of the speaker regarding the solutions to intractable problems?

The speaker believes that the solutions to the most intractable problems start from the grassroots level, from the inside out, and that there is no division between 'them' with the problems and 'us' with the solutions – there is only 'us', working together for common liberation.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Paradox of Helping

The speaker begins by pondering the common question 'can I help you?' and its implications. They explore the concept of help, acknowledging its beauty but also its potential to cause harm. The speaker references Rosabeth Moss Kanter, emphasizing the importance of self-driven change over forced change. The main idea presented is that effective help should start with identifying and building upon the strengths within individuals and communities, rather than focusing on their deficiencies. Evidence from various studies supports this approach, yet many programs still focus on problems, causing unintended harm such as defining people by their problems, misallocation of funds, and the erosion of active citizenship. The speaker calls for a shift in the way we think about and implement help.

05:01

🌟 Strength-Based Helping in Action

This section delves into the practical application of strength-based helping, as advocated by John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann. The speaker shares insights from their travels, highlighting the six building blocks identified by communities as essential for sustainable change. They discuss the transformative potential of focusing on community strengths and give examples from Leeds, UK, where community builders work to combat loneliness and empower older citizens like Robin, who found purpose in making walking sticks and leading a community group. The story illustrates the power of engaging individuals based on their passions and abilities, rather than viewing them as mere clients of services.

10:02

🎨 Mobilizing Community Strengths: Frank's Story

The speaker introduces Frank, a community artist in Wirral, UK, who embodies the strength-based approach to community development. Frank's passion for involving everyone in improving their environment led to the creation of the 'Black Pearl,' a pirate ship made from driftwood, symbolizing the potential of including everyone's gifts. The project not only beautified New Brighton beach but also engaged the community in a meaningful way, fostering a sense of ownership and pride. The story serves as an example of how focusing on community strengths can lead to innovative solutions and positive change.

15:03

🌱 Grassroots Solutions to Global Challenges

The final paragraph discusses the global impact of the strength-based approach, with the speaker sharing experiences from the UK, Australia, and Rwanda. In Rwanda, community builders worked with schools and villages to address issues like street children and teacher welfare, leading to the creation of a school that serves as an economic hub and a supermarket for teachers. The speaker emphasizes the importance of grassroots actions and the role of community builders in facilitating these changes. They conclude by highlighting the quote from Lilla Watson, urging for collective liberation and collaboration, and by affirming that we are the agents of change we seek.

Keywords

💡Helping

Helping, in the context of the video, refers to the act of providing support or assistance to others, particularly in a way that empowers rather than disempowers. The speaker emphasizes the importance of helping from a position of recognizing the inherent strengths within individuals and communities, rather than focusing on their deficiencies. This approach is contrasted with traditional forms of help that may inadvertently cause harm by defining people by their problems rather than their potential.

💡Shadow Side

The term 'shadow side' is used to describe the unintended negative consequences of certain forms of help. In the video, it refers to the idea that some methods of assistance, while well-intended, can actually do more harm than good by reinforcing negative perceptions of the people being helped. This concept is crucial in understanding the speaker's argument for a more positive, strengths-based approach to assistance.

💡Liberation

Liberation, as mentioned by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in the video, is the experience of freedom and autonomy that people feel when they are able to bring about change themselves. It contrasts with the feeling of violence that can result from external impositions of change. The speaker uses this concept to highlight the importance of empowering individuals and communities to take action and create change from within.

💡Capacities

Capacities, in the video, refer to the inherent abilities and strengths that individuals and communities possess. The speaker argues that focusing on these capacities, rather than on what is wrong, is a more effective and respectful way to help people. This concept is central to the video's theme of promoting a strengths-based approach to assistance.

💡Pathology

Pathology, in the context of the video, refers to the tendency to focus on problems, deficiencies, or disorders within individuals or communities. The speaker criticizes this approach, suggesting that it can lead to harmful stereotypes and neglect the positive aspects of people's lives. The video advocates for a shift away from a pathology-focused perspective towards one that recognizes and builds on existing strengths.

💡Active Citizenship

Active citizenship is the idea of individuals taking an active role in their communities, engaging in civic activities, and taking responsibility for creating change. The video discusses how traditional forms of help can undermine active citizenship by promoting dependency on external experts and services. The speaker advocates for a model of assistance that encourages and supports the active participation of community members.

💡Technocracy

Technocracy, as used in the video, refers to a system where decision-making is dominated by technical experts, often at the expense of community involvement. The speaker warns that an over-reliance on technocracy can lead to a decline in active citizenship and a loss of community autonomy. The video calls for a more inclusive approach that values the insights and contributions of all community members.

💡Assets

Assets, in the video, are the resources and strengths that exist within communities. The speaker discusses the importance of identifying, connecting, and mobilizing these assets to create sustainable and enduring change. This concept is key to the video's argument for a community-centered approach to assistance that leverages local knowledge and skills.

💡Community Builders

Community builders, as mentioned in the video, are individuals who facilitate and support community-led initiatives. They help communities identify their strengths and mobilize their resources to address local challenges. The video highlights the role of community builders in promoting a strengths-based approach to assistance and in fostering a sense of ownership and agency among community members.

💡Inclusion

Inclusion, in the context of the video, refers to the practice of involving all members of a community in decision-making processes and initiatives. The speaker argues that traditional forms of help can exclude certain individuals or groups by defining them as problems or deficiencies. The video calls for a more inclusive approach that recognizes and values the contributions of all community members.

💡Grassroots

Grassroots, in the video, refers to initiatives and actions that originate from the local level, rather than being imposed from above. The speaker emphasizes the importance of grassroots actions in creating sustainable change and argues that solutions to community challenges should be developed and implemented by the community members themselves. This concept is central to the video's theme of promoting a bottom-up approach to assistance.

Highlights

Helping others is a powerful human impulse, but it can also have a shadow side.

Helping should start with what is strong within individuals and communities, not just what's wrong.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter emphasizes that change initiated by others can be experienced as violence, while self-initiated change is liberating.

Evidence from a 75-year Harvard study suggests focusing on relationships and community over self and money for happiness.

The Kettering Foundation's work shows the importance of democracies functioning properly.

The New Economics Foundation identifies five ways to wellbeing.

Governmental and non-governmental programs often focus on what is wrong, causing unintended harm.

This harmful focus can define people by their deficiencies rather than their capacities.

Funds intended for those in need can end up going to service providers instead.

Technocracy and professionalism can undermine active citizenship and grassroots action.

Communities defined as deficient may internalize this view and wait for external rescue.

John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann's work emphasizes starting with community strengths.

Their research across North America identified six building blocks for sustainable community change.

Community builders in Leeds focus on connecting older people with community life, not just other older people.

Robin's story in Leeds shows how focusing on individual passions can lead to community leadership and inclusion.

In Wirral, community artist Frank mobilized people to create a pirate ship, transforming the community and the beach.

The back-yard revolution is shifting focus from problems to community strengths worldwide.

Demonstration sites in the UK show the impact of focusing on community strengths in practice.

In Rwanda, community builders are empowering locals to identify and address their own challenges.

Lilla Watson's quote emphasizes the importance of working together for mutual liberation.

The speaker concludes by encouraging everyone to recognize their own power to effect change.

Transcripts

Translator: Monica Ronchi Reviewer: Saskia Clauss

Thank you.

The question: "can I help you?" is a question that millions of people

ask millions of other people every single day.

What does it actually mean to help another human being?

Or indeed to help an entire community.

I believe that helping is a powerful and often beautiful human impulse,

but I also believe that helping has a shadow side,

that certain styles or forms of helping, are actually doing more harm than good.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, the Harvard academic,

puts it beautifully when she says that when we do change to people,

they experience it as violence,

but when people do change for themselves, they experience it as liberation.

Today, I want to present a very simple idea

and the idea is this:

if we want to help people in a way

that does no harm to them and their capacities in their communities,

then the best place to start

is with what is strong within them, and within their communities,

and not with what's wrong.

There is an abundance of evidence that calls us to this way of helping,

including the 75-year study on 'what makes happiness possible?',

the longitudinal study from Harvard

which reminds us that it’s best to lean into our relationships

and to create community,

rather than lean into ourselves and money.

And the work of the Kettering Foundation,

which studies what happens when democracies work as they should.

And indeed here in the UK, the work of the New Economics Foundation,

which has helped us to see the five ways to wellbeing.

Still, despite the fact

that thousands and thousands of pieces of evidence call us to the idea

that we should start with the capacities

and the abilities in people and in communities,

we see this great preponderance

in governmental and non- governmental programmes alike,

around the focus and the obsession with the starting on what is wrong,

what is broken,

what is pathological within people.

Sadly, that focus has caused huge harm to millions of people around the world,

especially poor people and especially communities.

And it has created four harms, unintended as they may be in particular,

the first of which is

that it actually takes people who we are trying to help,

and it defines them not by their gifts and capacities,

and what they can bring to the solution,

but by their deficiencies and their problems.

The second unintended consequence

of this top-down obsession with what’s wrong,

is that money which is intended to go towards those that need the help, doesn't.

It actually goes to those who are paid

to provide the services to those who need help.

The third unintended consequence is that active citizenship,

the power to take action and to respond at the grassroots level,

retreats in the face of ever increasing technocracy,

professionalism and expertise.

And finally, entire neighbourhoods,

entire communities that have been defined as deficient,

start to internalise that map,

and believe believe that the only way that anything is going to change for them,

is when some outside expert, with the right programme

and the right money, comes in to rescue them.

These are unintended harms.

No caring professional wants these things to happen,

but it is also clear that no community needs these things to happen.

Fortunately, there’s another way of thinking about helping.

We can begin to actually reflect on a form of helping

which starts with a focus on what's strong, not what's wrong,

and literally turns our traditional ideas of helping inside out.

John McKnight and Jody Kretzmann,

two professors at North-Western University,

in the late eighties brought this idea into sharp focus,

when they spent over four years travelling,

almost like an Odyssey,

across 300 neighbourhoods in North America, some 20 cities.

And as they went into these neighbourhoods

which were largely known by others as backwaters of pathology,

known by the sum of their problems,

John and Jody started a different conversation.

They invited people to tell them stories

about how change happens from their point of view.

They invited people to share stories about a time when they and their neighbours

came together to make things better.

And the stories they shared,

some three thousand stories in all across those four years,

they brought a focus, they brought a way of seeing

what actually is used by citizens, and by people in neighbourhoods,

to create change.

They helped us to see the raw ingredients that people use

to make change happen from inside out.

These are the six building blocks that those communities said

are the building blocks that make change happen,

when it’s sustainable and it's endurable,

and it respects the assets that exist already in communities.

Over the last thirty years we've travelled across the world,

and from communities in Tallahassee in the USA,

to Torbay in the UK,

we have heard the exact same report from the mouths of indigenous communities.

People telling us that these are the assets

that must be identified, connected and mobilised,

if we are going to see real change happen in our world.

Imagine what would happen

if our traditional ways of helping people were flipped.

If instead of focusing on what was wrong with individuals,

and indeed with entire communities, we started with a focus on what’s strong,

and then we figured out how to negotiate a new relationship,

a more respectful relationship.

I think what would happen is that we'd see transformation

in a way that we could never have imagined.

Fortunately it's already happening.

We are doing some work and we've had the privilege

of coming alongside some community builders in Leeds.

Leeds is a city, as you know, in the UK,

and over the years we’ve trained a number of community builders

in the city council,

but also in the neighbourhood networks.

In Leeds one of the things they cared deeply about,

is how older people can live well and age well close to home,

and also how they can ensure

that those who are aging,

do not die with an experience of loneliness

and feelings of uselessness.

One of the things that they’ve also come to understand,

is that there is no programme and there is no service for loneliness.

The only way that we can address loneliness,

is by building community, by building deep relationships

and so traditional models, which take older people

and put them together with other older people

in programmes for older people, will not be sufficient to end loneliness.

Today in Leeds, their focus is not on building a bridge

between older vulnerable people at the centre of their services,

but on building a bridge between older people,

and the centre of community life.

Take Robin.

Robin was in his mid-seventies when he first came in contact

with the community builder that we trained in Leeds.

He had just lost his wife, and he was experiencing

all of the challenges, and the traumas,

that you experience with bereavement.

But the community builder that engaged with Robin,

didn't just listen to those emotions, though she listened.

She also asked Robin what his passions were,

what he cared about enough to act upon,

what made his eyes dance in his head.

And what Robin said when she asked those questions was,

he was passionate about making walking sticks.

That was his great passion,

taking branches from fallen trees and carving them into walking sticks.

Today Robin is a leader of a group that he set up,

made up of all age groups,

who are learning how to make walking sticks

and sharing those walking sticks with people in the community.

The significance of the story is this:

Robin is not a client in a service.

Robin is a citizen at the centre of his community, using his gifts,

along with the gifts of his neighbours,

to make a better community and a more inclusive community.

So often when we label people as vulnerable,

or as deficient, or as problematic, what we actually do

is define them out of community, and redefine them,

not as friend and as neighbour, but as client in a service system.

And I think that when we do that,

we take some of the soul away from the person,

all in the name of helping them.

Sometimes, we don't just do that to individuals.

In many communities around the world,

we've actually done it to entire villages,

in some cases entire continents.

We have to figure out a way of lifting those labels,

which obscure the gifts of communities, the resources, the capacities,

the untapped reservoir of possibility, and creativity, and invention

that exists in every single community,

if only we could focus on what was strong within them,

so that they could use that strength to address what's wrong.

Well one of the places where we're learning a lot

about how to make those invisible resources more visible,

is in a place called Wirral, another place in the UK.

One of our community builders has been working across the Wirral

to find the hidden treasures that exist in that community,

and one of the people that we've discovered is Frank.

Frank is a community artist who has such a driving passion

for changing his community

and for seeing the strength in every single individual.

He believes that there is nobody whose gifts are not needed

to create the kind of Wirral that he believes is possible

if we include everybody's gift.

Frank is an artist, so he sees things through the eyes of an artist,

and one of his passions is making sure

that the environment looks as well as it possibly can in the Wirral

for those who live there, and for those who visit.

New Brighton beach is one of his recent projects,

and he was really disturbed by the fact

that there was so much litter and detritus on the beach.

He decided that he wanted to mobilise, so he got his community involved.

Most people when they see litter,

what they do is one of two things typically:

either they organise a litter-pick with volunteers,

or else they lobby the council to try and get them to do something about it.

Frank had a different idea.

Frank's idea was to create a pirate ship.

This is the Black Pearl.

The Black Pearl today stands

as one of the biggest tourist attractions on the Wirral.

But it is also a beacon of civic engagement,

because Frank didn't just build that boat or that ship himself,

he invited people, many people who felt exactly like the driftwood

that was coming onto the shore, forgotten and cast aside.

He invited them to bring their gifts.

To bring their gifts, to create this icon of impossibility,

this tribute to the possibility that comes when you invite people from the grassroots

to identify the solution in their own words,

and to create the solution with their own hands.

You know everywhere I go,

I find that when people create things themselves,

they own them in a way that you can never ever own

that which has been created for you.

The pirate ship has really effected a huge transformation in that community,

needless to say New Brighton beach is cleaner than it’s ever been,

but also thousands of other, below the radar initiatives

that we just don't see are happening on the Wirral,

because community builders are taking care to identify, connect and mobilise

the assets that exist in every community.

I'm so heartened to be able to report to you that all over the world,

this back-yard revolution which is shifting the focus

from what's wrong with our people and our communities,

to what's strong within our communities,

and how we can build that strength to create a better tomorrow,

is happening everywhere.

We spent the last six years in the UK

really focusing in on how we could create demonstration sites across the UK,

places that were living evidence of what happens

when you take a theory, and you put it into practice

I am proud to say that in May

we are going to be working with our partners, The Bank of Ideas,

to do the exact same thing across Australia,

and there are many other countries where we are seeing

this back-yard revolution come into reality.

Just a few weeks ago I was very privileged to spend some time in Rwanda.

I started my journey in Rwanda three and a half years ago,

training community builders in the Gasabo district of Kigali,

which is the capital of Rwanda,

and they've been working over the last three and a half years

with 49 schools and 484 villages in Kigali.

I would love to share every single one of the stories,

because each of them touches a human emotion within us

in a very, very special way,

but I don't have time.

So let me just share one.

This is a school where the community builder

came alongside parents, people without any credentials,

people who had huge self-doubt in their power to change anything,

but the community builder invited them to identify

what they cared about enough to act upon,

and then invited them to take action on those issues.

And they identified two things that they felt really needed to change

if their school, and their village, was to realise its potential.

The two issues that they took on,

the first was the fact that there were street children in each of their villages

that were not connected to community, not connected to family,

and not connected to school.

They didn't gang press these kids into school,

but they came alongside them,

and they formed relationships with them,

and they found out what it would take for them

to reconnect back into community life

and back into school.

And the kids said very clearly:

'We do not want to go to school and learn books, school is boring'

Hands up who thought school was boring?

I certainly did.

They did not want to go to school,

what they wanted to learn was how they could connect

with people who were interesting, people who knew how to make tables,

people who knew how to fix engines.

They wanted to connect with people

who didn't have any formal teacher training,

but who could teach them the skills

that would allow them to have a life they wanted.

Today they're in school, but it's not like the school most of us have gone to.

They are in a school that looks as much like an economic hub as it does a school,

it’s a school that is focused not just on educating people,

but also giving people the skills they need for life.

The other challenge they had,

was supporting teachers who lived on meagre salaries,

to be able to live with dignity and pride,

and have a morale in teaching their children.

What did they do?

They sourced local produce,

and they created a supermarket in the school,

so that teachers can use their salary

to buy the food they need at reduced prices.

These are ordinary people, uncredentialed people,

doing extraordinary things, and we see this every single day

when we start with focus on what's strong and not what's wrong.

Imagine what the world would look like, if we were able to take those stories,

and to proliferate them, and to look at their significance,

and see that the two things that mattered most

was the grassroots actions of citizens, but also the help of community builders.

In each story there was a community builder,

who was supporting the village and the individuals

to identify what was strong within them and figuring out how to use it

to address what was wrong, and make what was strong even stronger still.

Imagine the world if everybody who was defined as the problem,

secured the power to redefine the problem.

Imagine how more inclusive, how more beautiful a world we’d have.

how more fruitful a world we'd have.

I believe that the solution

to the most intractable problems that we face starts from the grassroots,

from inside out, and it starts with the belief of the fact

that there is no two-tiered society,

where one group of people with all of the problems,

are rescued by another group with all of the solutions.

There is no them and us, there is only us.

Lilla Watson, the great aboriginal elder, educator and activist, once said:

'If you've come to help me, you're wasting your time,

but if you've come because your liberation is bound up with mine,

then let us work together'.

So as we look to a brighter tomorrow,

and as I conclude,

let's recognise the fact

that we are the people we've been waiting for,

we are sufficient unto the challenge,

and we are becoming the change we seek.

Thank you.

(Applause)