Building Social Capital through Community Resilience - Coursework Example

Building Social Capital through Community Resilience Introduction Communities at risk can be analysed to meancommunities that are disadvantaged in many ways. These communities have difficulties coping with live especially on issues that revolve around meeting the basic needs. These communities have great potential, but due to differences in the way different social policies are employed towards them, they lack the capacity to come up with initiatives that can support them. Several factors are attributable to the misfortunes of these communities. Poverty Poverty is a serious problem that is intertwined with other misfortunes of communities. For instance, studies have documented that communities with highest levels of poverty have been associated with highest levels of illiteracy. When people fail to attend to formal education, they lack means of sustaining themselves. Poverty makes such communities develop other mechanisms of earning a living since the formal way that is fostered by education is lacking. This is what makes most of them especially the youth to engage in alcoholism and other substance abuse. They lose hope in life and all what they care about is on how they can remain on high by engaging in drugs. Due to desperation, they develop the urge to shun away from problems affecting them and resort to crime. They feel that the administration has shunned them away and engaging in crime and other antisocial behaviors acts as the way out. Even in situations where such communities have resources they can utelise in order to make a living out of them, they lack means off exploiting such resources. The rich and the might consequently take advantage of such situations to deprive such communities what is rightfully theirs. For instance, they use such communities to vote for them and entice them by promising them on the way they would bring developments in the community if elected. Nevertheless, most of them disappear as soon as they become elected. They cannot allow the community to be enlightened because this means that the community would not accept any form of deceit from the politicians. The politicians like the poverty and other misfortunes of such communities in order to give them small tokens that they can use to convince them to vote for them. Lack of social policies that help in building resilience Mathbor (2007) argued that for any community to develop, it is critical to have social policies put in place to support the community. This is fostered by bringing in policies that are well in line with what the community need and the capacity of the community to develop resilience with the support of the policies put in place. The government should lead in aiding for the building of social capital. For instance, for any community to develop, it is indispensable to have social amenities put in place by the government. This includes schools, health facilities and other social infrastructure that foster development. Communities with less number of learners have high chances of being unable to cope with different challenges that could have otherwise have been solved by professional produced by education. When there are less or no health facilities, the community faces the risk of not being able to function as required due to illnesses. Building resilience In order for such communities to come out of the situations that affect them, there is a need to build resilience. This is the way through which the community can be able to utelise the resources available to them in order to come up with different development projects that can support them in different ways. For instance, such communities would be able to take their children to school. This translates to the community developing different professionals that would help the community develop in different ways. Developing capacity to such communities means that the communities will be able to have effective healthcare centers. However, several factors must be considered when building social capacity. This depends on the community in question, the culture of the community, availability of resources and the willingness of both the community and the government to build social capital (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998). Community participation Community participation is the process of engaging the communities in the decision making that are aimed at bettering the community (O’Brien et al., 2010). Although some social polices do not require that the community contribute in the decision making, informing the community on the intended decisions is vital since it helps the community in preparing for the changes that are anticipate as a result of the new policies. However, some policies require the community to directly take part in the development of the policies. For instance, the government may decide to build a school. It would be indispensable for the administration to employ the locals in constructing the school. This helps the community in solving the issue of unemployment since some people would get some earnings that would help them take care of some of their needs. Disaster preparedness and management Some communities have a challenge of being unable to cope with disasters. For instance, hurricane sandy was a massive storm that led to a loss estimated to be over $50 billion as a result of damages caused by the storm (Abramson & Redlener, 2012). 97 people perished while many were displaced. The clinicians that volunteered to help those affected were besieged by many casualties that visited them. It is reported that even the generators failed and this forced the clinicians to work in darkness. This is an example of the failure to have well structured disaster preparedness. Each of the situations of the storm denotes of the failure of systems some of which are argued to have been predictable. For instance, it is reported that 8 deaths were attributed to problems that emerged as a result of carbon monoxide emanating from generators and stoves that were used to supply heat. With such a deliberation, there is a disparity on the way disaster preparedness is handled and the practicability of the implementing strategies put in place. The other challenge is on how the public responded to the disaster. There is a big problem with how communication is carried out in times of disasters. This is as a result of hierarchical structures that always hinder management issues such as evacuation process. Knowledge and education could be argued as one of the best ways through which disaster preparedness and management can be enhanced. For instance, in the case of hurricane handy, knowledge of the threat posed by the storm could have helped in coming up with mechanisms of evacuating people along the shores as a way avoiding escalation of the problems associated with the storm. The role of professionals in building social capital Any stakeholder involved in the process of building social capital has the responsibility of ensuring that the intended goal of the programme designed for the same works effectively. This translates to working towards ensuring that the programme or project aims at resolving disputes, consensus building and facilitating mediations that hinder social capital building for instance, in instances where a community has a problem in sharing of the available resources, professionals such as project managers should ensure that the community agrees on who to take what and at which capacity. In some situations, some communities have the capacity of dealing with issues that affect them. However, they lack the ability of deciding issues requiring to be attended first. Therefore, in such instances, professionals mandated in spearheading community social building efforts should ensure that the community identifies priority issues first before taking part in attending to all issues proposed. Professionals should also ensure that the communities they are serving have a clear idea of what is required of every member of the community in the effort to building social capital. For instance, in the old days, femininity and masculinity has been a big barrier of projects and development. This is attributable to the notion that men should be the only ones involved in leadership while women were required to take care of the household chores. However, it is the responsibility of the professional to ensure that the community is well educated on the advantages and disadvantages of the beliefs it might be having and that which can hinder building of the social capital. In situations where the community have had strategies of improving or building social capital but failed, professional should ensure that they provide the community with an alternative method of building the social capital. This should, however, comply with the culture of the community and the intended purpose of a programme of project proposed. Methods that can be used to build community resilience Nahapiet & Ghoshal (1998) noted that economic development and physical infrastructure of a community are indispensable factors that help in building resilience. Studies document that social cohesion, trust help in facilitating social interaction. This is considered ideal in regard to helping the community in addressing different challenges that face it. In this regard, it is correct to argue that one of the most significant ways of enhancing resilience is by putting the community together and encouraging them to coexist. Nevertheless, this cannot be achieved if the community in question has social challenges that put the people at conflicts. For instance, having a community with big margin between the rich and the poor poses a big challenge on how the poor can cope or coexist with the rich. Therefore, the government and other stakeholders must take part in enhancing the lives of the people in order to facilitate social cohesion, which acts as an ingredient of social capital and resilience building. In a different dimension, the government should act in a way to suggest that the community can rely on it in times of disasters. During the Superstorm sandy, many people surveyed noted that the first people they thought of consulting after the storm were family members and friends including those that were far. This shows how the affected community could not first trust the government in helping them. Nevertheless, the government can achieve this by having measures that help in dealing with such tragedies immediately without delays. This may include having emergency response centers near the community. In addition, these centers must have the required capacity to handle any predictable disaster. This includes availability of resources required to request for reinforcement whenever the disaster is bigger than would have been anticipated. According to social learning theory, behavior is as a result in inner responses to given situations. The theory proposes that individuals can shape their behaviors by observing what others do and the consequences of their actions. In this regard, both the government and communities should have a learning lesson from the past experiences. This would make them have a clear picture of what should be done incase such a similar disaster strikes in future. However, there is a tendency of people ignoring current situations as soon as they end. Educative campaigns on what should be done to help communities build resilience must be put in place. Different NGOs and the government must come out and sensitise the community about what they should do whenever a disaster strikes. Additionally, other social issues affecting communities must also be addressed by the same means. Conclusion In assessing programme evaluation approaches, there should be different measures of capacity of a community to adequately overcome any disasters that might strike. For instance, the evaluation should entail assessing the availability of all necessary resources that a community might need to manage a disaster. Additionally, there should be the required capacity to execute a disaster management. In case there are no enough resources that can be used to manage a disaster, there should be clear defined ways through which the required resources can be obtained. This may include collaborating with the community and involving other stakeholders in providing aid that can be used for the same. Basically, all what is critical in building community social capital and resilience is a well coordinated programme that includes everybody in the decision making. Enhancing social cohesion of the community is equally necessary as this helps the community to join hands in eliminating challenges. Reference list: Mathbor, G. (2007). Enhancement of community preparedness for natural disasters: The role of social work in building social capital for sustainable disaster relief and management. International social work, 50 (3), 358-367. Nahapiet, J. & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage. The Academy of Management Review, 23 (2), 242-266. O’Brien, G. et al. (2010). Approaching disaster management through social learning. Disaster Prevention and Management, 19 (4), 498-508. Abramson, D. & Redlener, I. (2012). Hurricane Sandy: Lessons Learned, Again. Accessed on 5th May 2014 from; https://academiccommons.columbia.edu/catalog/ac%3A157010 Read More