Search results

The motive behind any community education and training ought to be understood in terms of a desire to support and foster local culture through the absorption of ideas, knowledge and skills, and not in terms of an imposition process. 'Education through cultural diversity, rather than education for cultural diversity' (Veeraraghavan, 2002), expresses the positives of the above sentiment but, while embracing a concept of community whereby shared vision, openness and broad-mindedness are some legitimate building blocks to inclusive citizenship, sits at odds with government microeconomic reform that has the potential to be confining, constraining and exclusive. Training and education, through 'low-key' activities such as narrative-sharing workshops, have in some cases explored the development of strategies that will help staff become better equipped to deal with situations of resource poverty in the rural community welfare sector; to reengage with a whole-of-community approach to building capacity and citizenship. This paper explores the ideas so far investigated during current research, that the concepts of community and citizenship are developed through passionate leadership that is balanced with knowledge of organisation structural constraints, notions of capability, and the democratisation processes used to build communities through the implementation of innovative and creative models of engagement.