Week three is so far the most interesting week compared to the previous ones. This week, the fellows were exposed to community development and planning by civil society in Glasgow. We were brought to Easterhouse, an area in Glasgow which is supposed to be socially and economically deprived. In Easterhouse, we visited the Citizens Advice Bureau in that area. The main task of the bureau is to advice community on civil matters. The bureau is run by a small number of staffs and volunteers from the community itself. The bureau also runs trainings for the volunteers, though I also wish they could do some public outreach and education programme on various issues that affect the community. Perhaps, the limited number of manpower and lack of resource (as many NGOs faced) have also limited their course of work. Despite that, their digital data system is very impressive and act as the bureau and also the community‘s source of reference on diverse categories of issues. Check out this website for further information on Scotland’s Citizen Advice Bureau.

Later in the week, we visited Dumfries, a rural area bordering England in the south of Glasgow, where we underwent group work with students from Glasgow’s Community Development faculty and the students from Dumfries’s Crichton Campus. We did a research exercise which required us to asses the local community’s views on themes of our choice. It was a nice coincidence that me and Nadiah, the fellow from Sudan were assigned to conduct the assessment in the Crichton Campus‘s area. We formed a group of five people where two were from Dumfries and one from Glasgow. Apparently, a public protest was held by the students of the campus against the decision to close the Glasgow University.  Check out the news here. We chose this particular issue as the topic of our research. We observed the rally closely, interviewed the protesters and also university staffs that we encountered. Being an outsider, its easier for me to sympathize with the cause of the students and university staffs. However, during debriefing session, it was also revealed that the group lobbying for the university branch to stay did not identify the more strategic parties responsible for the decision. This was reiterated by Kate in our class. Perhaps, then the next question would be; can they addressed the issue successfully   if they are not aware of the important parties that they should influence in the course of their lobbying? This and a lot more of other experiences I get while chatting with the locals demonstrate an important point to me; people sometimes are not apathetic. Can they afford to be so if they have crucial issues that scream for attention or solution? Hence, sometimes, people just don’t know where or how to channel their voice. Maybe, in
Glasgow, a lot of the community planning efforts have put up a framework for community involvement or consultation, but it is either the public is a)-unaware, b)-cynical about these efforts especially if it is by the local authorities, or c)-couldn’t be bothered. But in
Malaysia, efforts to involve community in policy making or development programmes are yet to see the light of the day. Sad to say, even if there are such attempts, it was easily dismissed as an act of tokenism. Difficult, don’t you think so? Well, nobody say being government of the day is going to be an easy task!

 

 

Well, all I can say is that be it a third world or developed country, community planning does give rise to few common problems and perhaps we need just the same kind of strategies to address it? Well for example, there are many reasons that cause poverty and yet there is only one kind of poverty. The kind that need immediate and effective attention and strategies from all of us!