Community development in Bulgaria from the perspective of human relations theory and practice

1
Community development in Bulgaria from the
perspective of human relations theory
and practice

• Rumen Petrov,
• Haralan Alexandrov
• BIHR,
• New Bulgarian University

2
Community development and human relations

• Development
• Development is a gradual process of achieving
  greater complexity in a given environment that
  will enable organism (individual, group,
  organization) to adapt better.
• Development leads to increased self-organization
  of the human system (individual, group, society)
  which is recognizable by the increased capacity
  of its parts (individuals) to self-organize
  themselves to achieve individuality, solidarity
  and creative collaboration between each other.

3
Community development and human relations

• Development and change
• Technology
• Economy
• Politics
• Institutions and society
• World view

4
Community development and human relations

• Community
• Community is the web of personal relationships
  amongst those who share physical neighborhoods,
  socio-economic conditions or common understanding
  and interests.
• Community generates belonging. To belong to a
  human group means to recognize and to be
  recognized by this same group of people.
• The relationship thus established is one of
  interdependence between the individual and the
  group.

5
Community development and human relations

• Poverty
• Community development theory defines poverty
  as social exclusion and works towards its
  alleviation recognizing its roots in human
  relations based on stigma and oppression
• Community development challenges the dominant
  assumption in Bulgaria that the state is the only
  agent of development and welfare provider.
  Government in CD paradigm promotes development by
  allocating public resources to poor (deprived)
  communities and devolves decision making and
  managerial authority to them.

6
Community development and human relations

• Community development
• The process of developing active and sustainable
  communities based on social justice and mutual
  respect. It is about influencing power structure
  to remove the barriers that prevent people from
  participating in the issues that affect their
  lives.
• Community work
• Community worker

7
Community development and human relations

• Bulgarian challenges control from above and from
  the centre
• Heavily centralized and domineering central
  government prone to corruption and lack of
  accountability.
• Inhumane public services. Their primary task is
  not human development. They are in between the
  failed human control agenda and the still
  emerging human development one.

8
Community development and human relations

• Bulgarian challenges dependency
• An attitude and belief that a group can not
  solve its own problems without outside help.
• It is a weakness that is made worse by
  charity.
• Counteracting dependency is itsprime goal.
  This requires abilities to recognize and
  counteract structural and cultural sources of
  dependency including governmental and
  international policies.
• To be persuasive we (when acting as CD
  workers) need support our claims with evidences.
  This means research.

9
Community development and human relations

• Bulgarian challenges promoting community
  development
• Through competent critique of public policies
  with special attention on their development
  (counter-dependent) objectives. The more it is
  based on evidences the more useful it will be.
• Research, volunteering, networking and
  counter-dependent civil action.
• Introducing language and practices of community
  development in formative settings (schools,
  universities, lifelong learning) and within
  relations with their surrounding communities.