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COMMUNITIES AND COMMUNITY PRACTICE IN LOCAL TO GLOBAL CONTEXTS ■ 21 closer to reducing poverty among world populations. Whether we are among nations with greater or lesser wealth, we all have policy- level and community- level work to do to increase opportunities for those living on less than $1 a day. We will return to the concern for poverty and the urgent need to engage in pol- icy and community strategies in chapters 7, 12, and 13. POWER AND THE MISSION OF EMPOWERMENT The concepts of power and empowerment have a close association with social justice and human rights. Power is typically defi ned as the ability to exercise infl uence, control, or authority over decisions, resources, or outcomes. Power derives from a number of sources depending on the context and history of a situation. Power may come from historical events or conditions that infl uence a wide range of contexts such as the status of families, occupations, resources, poli- cies, networks, religions, castes, gender groups, ethnic/tribal groups, age groups, or sexual preference groups. Negative uses of power often emerge as the result of a combination of discriminatory factors based on gender, race/ethnicity, reli- gion, socioeconomic status, age, sexual orientation, geographic location, or dis- ability (VeneKlasen and Miller 2002:337– 39). Feminist views of power include both power with and power to do, “an alter- native to the patriarchal fi nite notion of power . . . power [is] a widely distrib- uted energy of infl uence, strength, effectiveness and responsibility” (van den Berg and Cooper 1986:6). We discuss these kinds of power in greater detail in chapter 5. In her work Black Empowerment: Social Work in Oppressed Commu- nities, Barbara Solomon (1986) presented the fi rst social work text devoted to helping practitioners to assist people in freeing themselves from internally im- posed restrictions and in developing empowerment strategies to overturn exter- nal challenges to their exercise of human, civil, social, and po liti cal rights. According to Homan (2008), “Power is not dominance. Dominance is the way some people use power. . . . Power can be used in a spirit of cooperation as easily as it can occur in a climate of confl ict” (131– 32). It is important for com- munity groups to study the history of power. Those seeking to change condi- tions need to understand the nature of power and infl uence and to be aware of differential access to resources and information. When exploring the meaning and use of power, it becomes clear that power can have both negative and posi- tive results. The use of power can result in state- sponsored violence, or it can result in moral leadership, mediated equity, and peaceful revolutions. The roots of this kind of empowerment in the Western historical development of social work were provided in Barbara Levy Simon’s (1994) The Empowerment Tradition in American Social Work. Her analysis concluded that “full participation by citizens in the social contract hinges . . . upon the interrelated trinity of civil

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22 ■ COMMUNITY PRACTICE: PURPOSE AND KNOWLEDGE BASE liberties, po liti cal rights, and socioeconomic entitlements” (1994:45). In that work, Simon points to the many infl uences in developing and broadening the social work knowledge base for empowerment, including Gandhi, African In de pen- dence Movements, Freire in South America, the civil rights and the black power movements in the United States, liberation theology in South America, femi- nism, gay and lesbian liberation, and the disability rights movement. Richard Es- tes (1993) and Paul Hawken (2007) added worldwide indigenous movements and the all important movements toward environmental protection and restoration. People who have been working together toward empowerment often express their newly gained insight and collective effi cacy in song, art, and drama. Si Kahn (1994), songwriter, singer, and community or ga niz er, provided a manual, How People Get Power, to help organizers envision and carry out work that em- powered people in local communities. Successful community workers from various corners of the globe have effectively facilitated the incorporation of local music, poetry, drama, and other cultural expressions into community awareness and empowerment activities (Boal 2000; Chambers 1997; Couto and Guthrie 1999; Kleymeyer 1994; Slocum et al. 1995). VeneKlasen and Miller (2002) describe citizen empowerment as “a pro cess of learning and action that strengthens people’s self- esteem, analytical and or- ga niz ing skills, and po liti cal consciousness so they can gain a sense of their rights and join together to develop more demo cratic societies” (59). As commu- nity groups become empowered, they are better able to engage in planning, action, and evaluation of programs and projects that will improve the quality of life for all community members. Mea sur ing empowerment, evaluating how people become more engaged as social actors and how changes come about in the community, requires forethought and participation by community mem- bers to specify what the changes will look like. Brueggemann (2006) suggests that when social workers engage with people to develop empowerment they should aim to “help people break the bonds of external and internal oppression, raise consciousness, challenge perceptions, and stimulate refl ection” (488). Empowerment is an outcome we work toward and a pro cess that we work through as we describe the eight models of commu- nity practice in part II. CONCLUSIONS In this introductory chapter we have set forth our perspectives on the meaning of community along a local to global continuum. We introduced a strong focus for incorporating social justice and human rights in the work of community practice, including a discussion of the importance of eradicating poverty and of developing

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TABLE 1.1 Eight Millennium Development Goals with 2015 Targets GOALS TARGET FOR 2015 1. Eradicate extreme poverty and Halve the proportion of people living on less than hunger. a $1 a day and those who suffer from hunger. More than a billion people still live on less than US$1 a day. 2. Achieve universal primary Ensure that all boys and girls complete primary education. education. As many as 113 million children do not attend school. 3. Promote gender equality and Eliminate gender disparities in primary and empower women. secondary education, preferably by 2005, and at all levels by 2015. Two- thirds of illiterates are women. 4. Reduce child mortality. Reduce by two- thirds the mortality rate among children under fi ve. Every year, nearly 11 million young children die before their fi fth birthday. 5. Improve maternal health. Reduce by three- quarters the ratio of women dying in childbirth. In the developing world, the risk of dying in childbirth is 1:48. 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria Halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS, and other diseases. the incidence of malaria, and other major diseases. 7. Ensure environmental Integrate the principles of sustainable development sustainability. into country policies and programs and reverse the loss of environmental resources. Reduce by half the proportion of people without access to safe drinking water. More than one billion people lack access to safe drinking water, and more than two billion lack sanitation. 8. Develop a global partnership for Develop an open trading and fi nancial system that development. includes a commitment to good governance, development, and poverty reduction— nationally and internationally. Address the least developed countries’ special needs and the special needs of landlocked and small island developing states. Deal comprehensively with developing countries’ debt problems. Develop decent and productive work for youth. In cooperation with pharmaceuti- cal companies, provide access to affordable essential drugs in developing countries. In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefi ts of new technologies— especially information and communications technologies. Source: Adapted from the UNDP Human Development Report, 2006.

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