Glenn Laverack's Approach to Community Empowerment

Abstract

This article aims to present Glenn Laverack’s approach to community empowerment. This concept is very important for community-based development projects. The community empowerment is comprised of nine components – these are participation, local leadership, organizational structure, assessment of problems, promotion of conscientization, resource mobilization, links with networks, support of outside partners, and self-management. Generally outside practitioners occupy higher power than villagers; but the practitioners should utilize positive manner of power for promotion of villagers’ power from within and using shared power with them. As a result, the ‘parallel track’ of combining top-down and bottom-up methods should be used as the appropriate strategy for community development.