Empowerment

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Empowerment
An intentional, ongoing process involving mutual
respect, critical reflection, caring and group
participation through which people lacking an
equal share of valued resources gain greater
access to control over those resources.
Rappaport stated that empowerment focuses on
peoples strengths and directs attention to
social change one of the orienting concepts of
community psychology
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Empowerments Roots
Back again to the 1960s for the roots of
empowerment where activists, community
organizers and educators joined with
disenfranchised groups to transform social
relationships and redistribute social power.
The word was first used in the mid-1970s in
describing how social workers can engage
African American communities to regain power
over their lives.
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A Question of Semantics
Empower - to give somebody power or authority
to give somebody a greater sense of confidence or
self-esteem Empowered - having been given the
power to make choices relevant to one's
situation Empowering organizations have
structures and cultures that encourage and
facilitate empowerment Empowerment - the
granting of political, social or economic power
to an individual or group the process of
supporting another person(s) to discover and
claim personal power
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(AN photo)
By FATIMA SIDIYA ARAB NEWS - Published Dec 1,
2010

• A Forum on the Participation of Women in
  National Development ended with a series of
  recommendations to improve the lot of women in
  the Kingdom and empower them.
• Ahmad Al-Ghamdi, head of the Commission for
  Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in
  Makkah Region, speaks to journalists at the
  forum. Challenging a ban on women driving, he
  said Clerics have studied the issue and no one
  has come up with a verse that would forbid women
  driving ... I do not consider it to be
  forbidden.

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Components of Empowerment

• Efforts to gain access to resources - the
  elements
• available for the satisfaction of human
  needs and
• desires
• Objects, conditions, characteristics, energies
• Resources are a battleground for power
• Scarcity paradigm Western societies
• Synergy paradigm Collectivist societies
• Participation with others to achieve goals and to
  create social change
• Understanding of the sociopolitical context

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Power

• Perceived vs. actual power
• Power over vs. Power to
• Sources of power
• Legitimate power
• Reward power
• Coercive power
• Referent power
• Expert power
• For disenfranchised groups the personal sources
  of
• power - referent and expert power - may be
  more
• critical in their efforts to access and
  control resources.
• Power to Empower

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Aspects of Psychological Empowerment

• Intrapersonal aspect -
• Self-esteem, sense of control, self-efficacy
• Interactional aspect -
• How people understand and seek to influence their
  social environment
• Behavioral aspect -
• Citizen Participation

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Microsystem Level

• Empowering organization offers opportunities
  for members to gain control over their lives.
  Members develop skills such as leadership and
  resource management, boosting self-esteem
• Empowered organizations engage in change
  efforts, mobilize community resources, influence
  policy decisions or establish alternative systems
  of service delivery

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Elements of Empowerful Organizations

• An inspiring belief system
• Opportunities for involvement
• Leadership
• Organizational Structure
• Innovation
• Celebration of Identity

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Guiding Principles
Empowerment and context links individual
well-being with larger social and political
processes Empowerment and social change
addresses the unequal distribution of and access
to resources that is at the root of many problems
in society Empowerment and diversity
co-empowerment for multicultural society,
collaborative empowerment, synergy Empowerment
and values emphasis on peoples rights, should
we empower all groups, morality as a resource
prevails over the morality of the
powerful Empowerment and strengths directs
attention toward health and competence,
collaborative relationships, eco-identities