Previous Page Next Page 
(c)  2025 Columbia University Press. All Rights reserved.

Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives resources

Extracted Text (may have errors)

xii ■ PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS the opportunity to participate in newly funded War on Poverty organizations such as Mobilization for Youth and citizens’ groups focused on creating educa- tional opportunity for African Americans. We were privileged to work beside cou- rageous people struggling for human rights for their children and themselves, and to connect with historical as well as current theories, concepts, and models for community or ga ni za tion in the literature. Gamble completed her master’s degree at Columbia University and, after working with Head Start on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, took a position in North Carolina to do rural community development and later worked with the Welfare Rights Or ga ni za tion. During the mid- 1970s she spent two years in Ven- ezuela working with International Social Ser vice, after which she returned to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to teach community or ga ni za tion at the School of Social Work and volunteer with the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), among other organizations. Weil completed her master’s degree in social work and worked fi rst at Univer- sity Settlement and then as deputy director of the Delaware Offi ce of Economic Opportunity and the Wilmington Delaware Housing Authority, before studying for her doctorate at Hunter College/CUNY School of Social Work in New York City. After completing her degree, she joined the faculty at the School of Social Work of the University of Southern California where she engaged in consulta- tion, research, and collaborative work with multiple Asian American communi- ties, the Viet nam ese refugee community, Latino groups, and pregnant and par- enting adolescents. She also worked to develop ser vices for women who were victims of domestic violence or rape/sexual assault. During these years both of us worked in multicultural settings, sometimes fi nding ourselves the only Caucasian and the only woman in various programs and new projects. We both gained strong respect for grassroots community lead- ers and paraprofessionals and received profound lessons from the tenacity and courage of these wise street- level social advocates. We both married, raised our sons, and learned to juggle the double joys and demands of family and profes- sional obligations. In 1988 we met for the fi rst time as faculty members at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, School of Social Work, when Weil accepted the associate dean position. We connected on several levels. Both of us had grown up in humble surroundings, Weil in a working- class family in Raleigh, North Carolina, Gamble on a small farm in northeastern Colorado. We shared a pas- sion for social justice and community work stimulated in part by past experi- ences. We also both understood that as women, taking a strong social justice ap- proach in social work could be perceived as aggressive and would present some challenges. Our similar backgrounds naturally led to our discussion of current social problems and practice concepts. We both taught courses relating to com-

Help

loading