April 2024 CD Practitioner Gathering Harvest - CDLI
On Wednesday, April 10th we hosted our fourth gathering for community development practitioners of 2024!
We had three discussions with notes/resources provided in each. See our shared harvest here or in the slides below. If you see a conversation that has no notes but you are interested in it please reach out to let us know and we can include it again in a future COP date that works for you cdli@caryacalgary.ca.
In the share back participants identified key take away/points of reflection that came from these conversations:
Room 1: Embedding social capital as part of your community development practice.
Social Capital as we talked about it:
The hidden things that people are knowledgeable about and are interested in that go beyond their assigned “role”.
External forces can see it as “the community has the social capital, they should be able to do it” but when they don’t, then the community gets blamed - set up for failure, because they need more than social capital.
Confidence building - people don’t believe they have the “capital”, helping understand that they have the power “Mining” for resources that are already there - but in a sustainable way.
Room 4: How can we support honest/challenging conversations to happen safely in community.
Let things happen and don’t force them!
It ALL starts with conversation.
Sharing experiences will help us understand each other and bring a sense of belonging.
Note: When having honest/challenging conversations remember to connect with each other after the session.
Room 5: Pivoting from international development lens to community development lens.
Small communities internationally are similar. Needing to come together and provide what is needed.
Look for strengths and champions and try to support them.
CDLI looks forward to welcoming Community Development Practitioners (paid or volunteer) again on May 10th for our fifth Community of Practice Open Space Gathering in 2024! Dates for the year are in the graphic below.
