WORLD COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE 2018 AND POST-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP (JUNE 24 - 28, 2018; KILDARE, IRELAND)
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Report of
WORLD COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE 2018
AND
POST-CONFERENCE WORKSHOP
(JUNE 24 - 28, 2018; KILDARE, IRELAND)
By
Mr. Wong King Lai
(Community Development Enhancement Fund Limited)
Mr. Lee Wing Kin
(Christian Family Service Centre)
Mr. Chan Wing Sun
(The Hong Kong Council of Social Service)
Submitted on 2 October, 2018Table of Content
1. Introduction p.2-3
a. Introduction to the conference
b. Introduction to the hosts
2. Evaluation of the Event programme p.3-4
a. The Conference Programmes
b. The Practice exchange
3. Observation p.5-7
4. Conclusion p.7
11. Introduction
a. Introduction to the conference
The World Community Development Conference 2018 (WCDC) was jointly organised by the
Community Work Ireland (CWI), Maynooth University, and the International Association for
Community Development (IACD). It was conducted at 25 to 27 June 2018 at Maynooth
University. In 24 June, there was an international induction to introduce Ireland to
participants. In 28 June, the conference organisers arranged a day of practice exchange to
allow practitioners to visits different community development organisations in Dublin. There
was another practice exchange organised from 29 June to 1 July at Wild Atlantic Way.
However, the delegates had only participated the one at 28 June.
Through the conference, the organisers targeted to provide a unique opportunity for
practitioners, participants, academics, policy makers, funders and other stakeholders to share
perspectives on current contexts and challenges for community work. It encompassed cutting
edge inputs, papers, creative installations and poster presentations on rights-based community
development, addressing and engaging locally, nationally and internationally with key current
issues. The discussion topics had included global challenges to community development,
measurement to the impact and outcome, intervention methods, ethics and values, education
and training of community development, collaborative innovation, community economic
development, sustainable development, rural and urban challenges, racism, rights of
disadvantaged groups such as migrants, people with disability and women, and economic,
social and cultural rights.
b. Introduction to the hosts
CWI was established in 1981. It is the leading national organisation that promotes and
supports community work as a means of addressing poverty, social exclusion and inequality
and promoting human rights. It is a membership organisation comprising over 800 individuals
and organisations who support community work and work in the most disadvantaged
communities throughout Ireland. It has played an important role in advancing policy and
programmes that meet the real and pressing needs of disadvantaged communities throughout
Ireland seeking to ensure the meaningful participation of communities in the decision-making
processes that affect their live.
Maynooth University was the first university in the Republic of Ireland to offer professional
2programmes in community work and youth work. Since 1981, the Department of Applied
Social Studies has earned an unrivalled reputation for teaching, research and development in
these areas on an all-Ireland basis.
The IACD was established in the United States in 1953 and is the only global network for
professional community development practitioners. It is a non-governmental organisation
accredited with the United Nations serving a global network of members active in the field of
community development. IACD supports development agencies and practitioners to build the
capacity of communities to realise greater social and economic equality, environmental
protection and political democracy. Members in more than 70 countries include practitioners,
educators, researchers, students, policy analysts and organisations. The key priorities for
IACD are: to advocate for the discipline and the methods of community development; to
support and engage with members and the discipline by promoting and providing quality
international practice exchanges, conferences, continuing professional development support,
website resources, publications, research and policy analysis and commentary and to promote
regional and country fora and support frameworks for community development practitioners
(community workers, managers, academics and students) around the world.
2. Evaluation of the Event programme
a. The Conference Programmes
More than 70 keynote speeches, parallel sessions and practice workshops had been hold
which included more than 100 speakers. The opening keynote speech was given by Mary
Robinson, the former President of Ireland and former United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights. Moreover, there were numerous famous practitioners and academics who
came from different parts of the world to contribute their effort to the conferences such as
Prof. Alan Twelvetrees, Prof. Keith Popple, and Prof. Ron Hustedde.
The different conference sessions, lunches and the conference dinner provided chances for the
delegates to exchange with community development workers who came from different parts
of the world. It did not only allow delegates to know operational information about different
projects but also allow delegates to learn from the ways that different practitioners used to
deal with their difficulties such as funding issues, ways to indicate outcomes of community
projects and conflicts within communities. Some of the discussion topics had echoed issues
identified in the Hong Kong society such as positive outcome of community economic
development projects, issues about climate justice and disadvantaged communities,
community health programmes, and community child-care programmes.
3In the final day of the conference, the IACD launched the International Standards for
Community Development Practice in its annual general meeting. It provided an inclusive
definition to the community development practices which conclude the main themes of
different conference sessions. It is claimed that ‘(c)ommunity Development is a
practice-based professional and academic discipline that promotes participative democracy,
sustainable development, rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice, through
the organisation, education and empowerment of people within their communities, whether
these be of locality, identity or interest, in urban and rural settings’ (IACD, p.13). More
observation of the delegates will be introduced in the coming parts.
b. The Practice exchange
The delegates visited a few projects run by the community development organisations in
Dublin. The organisations visited included:
The Migrant Rights Centre Ireland
It is a national organisation working to promote justice, empowerment and equality for
migrants and their families. It has taken a stand with migrants to tackle the root causes of
inequality. Uniquely for a national migrant organisation, they use a community work
approach with a focus on participation, leadership and empowerment, and have a strong track
record in securing policy changes.
Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre
It is a national NGO that works to promote Traveller and Roma human rights through
research, policy development, advocacy and collective community action. In Ireland,
Travellers and Roma are minority ethnic groups who experience very high levels of exclusion,
discrimination and racism. Using a community work approach, the mission of Pavee Point is
to contribute to improvement in the quality of life, living circumstances, status and
participation of Travellers & Roma through working innovatively. During the visit, it was
identified they had provided different health services to serve the needs of the Traverller and
Roma including dental services, provision of mother maternal health resources, drugs and
alcohol projects, and mental health projects.
St. Michael’s Family Resource Centre
Established in 1986, the Family Resource Centre aims to foster community development in St.
Michaels Estate and the surrounding area by enabling and empowering local people to
become active participants in the process to influence social, economic, political and cultural
change. It has a long history of using community arts as a tool for engagement and
4consciousness raising. The center that the delegates visited is a children service centre which
provides after school caring services the children leaving in the community. It organized play
groups, and provided meals to the children. The staff shared that in the past, the centre had
served people affected by the urban renewal happened in that area. They provided services to
help the affected families to solve their difficulties and raise their concerns.
Bluebell Community Development Project
Based on the identified needs of the Bluebell community with an anti-poverty and social
inclusion focus, the community development project has provided service in inclusive means.
It aimed at creating an environment for positive changes and addressing inequality. Similar to
the Community Centres in Hong Kong, they have daily outreach to engage the community. To
addresses the needs of the neighbourhood through groups and programs such as coffee
moring, care and repair services, sport day, family fun day, and computer classes. Moreover,
they are also part of a collective human rights complaint challenging the Irish government’s
failure commitment to provide adequate housing for its citizens. To advocate for policy
changes, they have organized different training, lobbying and protesting for a better
community.
3. Observation
a. Community development as innovative intervention to needs of communities
It is identified that community development is an innovative method being used to
serve needs of deprived communities around the world. As a bottom up intervention,
community development workers could sort out different assets of the communities
and redirect it to serve the needs of different community stakeholders. For example,
in a study on the impact of Asset Based Community Development project in
Ethiopia, it is suggested that community workers can mobilize resources within the
community and from different partners to bring changes in attitude, self-awareness,
collective action, production scheme, irrigation system, social participation, women
status, skill development, self-planning and implementation as well as follow up of
development activities. In UK, in order to raise consciousness of women and
provide alternative to male domianated media, community workers organised
women to run community radio. It allowed women to voice out their needs and
reconstruct their identities. Moreover, in the project run by the Taiwan Indigenous
Dmavun Development Association, community work has been used to rebuild the
community of Ta-An River Bank that suffered earthquake. After the natural disaster,
the community did not only meet the problems emergency relief but also the
problem of economically disadvantage, organizational chaos and uneven
distribution of welfare resources. The community workers tried different innovative
5means such as community kitchen, mutual support programmes, and cultural
activities to serve the material needs of the indigenous people.
b. Community development as means to smoothen policy implementation
Community development is able to support policy formulation and implementation.
It can facilitate the policy implementers to assess the needs and respond to
communities in a more ideal ways. For example, in Ireland, the Primary Care which
is the coordinated delivery of health services at local level extensively involves
different community stakeholders to local Community Health Forums. It is argued
that such arrangements can help the government to address different social
determinants of health and ensure local needs are met. In another example, it is
found that community work approach is used to help the local government in India
to involve different community stakeholders in the planning of public spaces. The
programme included intensive, community-driven planning activities including a
workshop to bring together key stakeholders and decision makers to provide input
into crafting the high quality action plan. The bottom-up participation allowed the
local government to promote the use of public spaces and improve implementation
and evaluation.
c. Rights-based approach that emphasises citizens are entitled certain living standard
It is observed that local community development projects have shared many
similarities with projects around the world. For example, in the past 10 years, there
have been increasingly numbers of community economic projects, community arts
and cultural programs, and community planning projects. However, as the delegates
observed, foreign community workers tend to emphasize the citizens rights when
they plan for different innovative projects. For example, workers that arranged
community economic projects addressed that right to earn enough money for basic
living is a right to citizen living in urban areas. Those organize community planning
workshop argued that use of public space is a basic right. It is found that
community workers and social workers have depth discussion to the basic living
rights and encompassing imagination to the relationship between practices and
social justice.
In the International Standards for Community Development Practice launched by
the IACD, it is addressed that the purpose of community development is ‘(t)o work
with communities to achieve participative democracy, sustainable development,
rights, economic opportunity, equality and social justice.’ (IACD, p.13). The
concerns of community workers should be broad enough to involve different
6aspects into their considerations. As all delegates agreed, it is a good reminder to
social workers in Hong Kong.
4. Conclusion
This is a fruitful conference that provided chances for the delegates to exchange with
practitioners, academics, and policy makers around the world and have more
understanding to foreign services. In fact, our observation suggests that local service
development since the year 2000 has echoed the global trend. Community development
has been used as a flexible and innovative mean to intervene to the needs of different
communities. Increasing focuses and strategies have been figured out. Since the new
Community Development Resources Book is going to be launched, it is a good time to
review how community development can contribute to the sustainable development of the
local society.
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