[Springboard] [Dialogue] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's approach
Len Hockley
lenh at efn.org
Thu Jan 13 14:24:18 CST 2011
Where did the Post Office Project fit in? Last fall we ran into Bert
Chamberlin who was a leader it it. Was it Harrison Sims that worked
with it?
Len
On 1/13/2011 11:41 AM, James Wiegel wrote:
> Hi, Martin, a few things to add on . . . the early "story" lodged in
> my mind is that, whereas, on the south side of Chicago, there was some
> sense of structure and identity as a community and so mobilizing to
> get the attention and support of the political structures was an
> effective approach. On the west side, with the rapid change in
> population as former east european residents fled to the suburbs and
> were rapidly replaced by African Americans moving up from the southern
> states, there was no sense of structure and identity, so what the
> Institute called "Comprehensive Community Reformulation" was the need.
>
> 1. AARP, American Association of Retired Persons, hired John Oyler
> for a couple of projects over several years. They had invested
> heavily in training their field staff in community organizing
> techniques (choose an issue, rally and mobilize people around the
> issue and put pressure on political leadership / public agencies to
> respond). They were finding that that approach did not work for every
> situation. John developed with them a training tool, grounded in ToP
> and based in ICA's earlier approaches to community development. I
> think they talked of the one as community organizing and the other as
> community building. In that instance, community building referred
> more to developing the capacity of people to do their own development
> on an ongoing basis. He may still have access to those manuals and tools.
>
> 2. John also worked for a number of years in partnership with the
> Jacobs Family Foundation (now, I think, the Jacobs Center for Non
> Profit Development) and as part of that, I worked with Raul Jorquera
> and John in a multi-year review and update of ICA's earlier community
> development curriculum and approaches which eventually resulted in
> ICA's Neighborhood Academy program. In the early work with human
> development projects around the world, ICA put an emphasis on
> Economic, Social and Human development. We even had educational
> sections in the early consults on these dimensions of local
> development. While 5th City had an Economic Guild, an Education
> Guild, a Style Guild, a Symbol Guild and a Political Guild, during the
> consults for the first 8 of the 24, the political dimension was not
> emphasized (part, I think, due to the "facilitative" character of
> ICA's work, part also due to the necessity and assumption of working
> with the blessing of political leadership.
>
> Anyway, one tool that was created out of those initial projects was
> called the Nine Programs Chart which sort of summarized and refined
> the primary areas of work that kept coming up out of the consults and
> strategic planning we did with those initial communities. Jacobs
> Foundation wanted us to take a broader view of the field (among other
> things, they brought in a couple of people from the Near East
> Foundation to share their work with PRA in community development --
> these were connected with ICA MENA in Cairo as I recall. Theresa
> Lingafelter went to Boston to do a review of the Dudley Street
> Initiative which, for a time in the 90's was seen as a significant
> model for Neighborhood work. One of their initiating efforts had to
> do with mobilizing the community to stop the illegal dumping of refuse
> including rotten meat in their neighborhood.
>
> As a part of the research for this neighborhood academy, we redid the
> 9 programs chart into fifteen, to be more inclusive and also more
> relevant to work in the US. See attached. In that model, there is a
> column on Political Development which includes the community's
> abiliity to organize and bring pressure on government and political
> leaders to meet their needs called "Community Voice".
>
> Jim Wiegel
>
> You think that because you understand ONE, you understand TWO; because
> one and one make two. But you must understand AND. Sufi Proverb
>
> 401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353-2401
> +1 623-363-3277 skype: jfredwiegel
> jfwiegel at yahoo.com www.partnersinparticipation.com
>
>
>
> UPCOMING TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES FROM PARTNERS IN PARTICIPATION
> ToP Facilitation Methods, Feb 15-16, May 17-18, Sept 20-21, 2011
> Facilitation Graphics, Mar 15, 2011
> ToP Strategic Planning, Nov 8-9, 2011
> The AZ Community of Practice meets the 1st Friday- Jan 7, 2011
> Facilitation Mastery : Our Mastering the Technology of Participation
> program is available in Phoenix in 2011-12. Program begins on Oct
> 12-14, 2011. See our website for further details.
>
> --- On *Thu, 1/13/11, Janet Sanders /<janetasanders at hotmail.com>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Janet Sanders <janetasanders at hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Springboard] [Dialogue] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's
> approach
> To: m.george.walters at gmail.com, dialogue at wedgeblade.net,
> "Springboard Dialogue" <springboard at wedgeblade.net>
> Date: Thursday, January 13, 2011, 9:24 AM
>
> In the early 90's some of the movement folks in Omaha, Nebraska
> joined with the parish movement component of Alinsky's work. Rev
> Don and Marlene Johnson were quite involved at the time. When I
> visited my brother in the Omaha area I got updates from the
> Johnson's. It was influential for several years. Jan
>
>
>
> Janet A. Sanders
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From: m.george.walters at verizon.net
> To: dialogue at wedgeblade.net; springboard at wedgeblade.net
> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:31:02 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Springboard] [Dialogue] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's
> approach
>
> Disestablishment posture and tactics on the part of many, not just
> Alinsky, was seminal input to our thinking that derived the
> Trans-establishment posture. Establishment, Disestablishment and
> Trans-establishment postures and tactics are always options in any
> given ethical context. No right/wrong or good/bad can be assigned
> to any of the three. I believe in an ethical context, when
> analyzing a situation, they are points of identity. When
> determining action, they are elements of choice.
>
> George
>
> M. George Walters
>
> 4240 Sandy Shores Dr
>
> Lutz, FL 33558
>
> USA
>
> Tel: +1 (813) 948-7267
>
> Fax: +1 (813) 333-1787
>
> Mob: +1 (813) 505-9041
>
> URL: www.ResurgencePublishing.com
>
> Professional Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/mgwalters
>
> *From:* dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] *On Behalf Of *Martin
> Gilbraith (ICA:UK)
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 13, 2011 08:22
> *To:* Colleague Dialogue; Springboard Dialogue
> *Subject:* Re: [Dialogue] [Springboard] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's
> approach
>
> Hi all, thanks for all your responses so far, its all very
> intersting to me,
> Martin
>
> On 12/01/2011 22:35, Len Hockley wrote:
>
> There is also a great story (true or not) about Alinsky and King
> meeting in O'Hare airport just before the housing march.
>
> It seems King was carrying on about how his movement was so
> "grassroots and unstructured" and Alinsky comes back and says "The
> only movement without structure is cow shit."
>
> Len
>
>
> On 1/12/2011 11:13 AM, Bill Schlesinger wrote:
>
> The primary difference between our approach and Alinsky’s (who did
> not lecture in any early Academy I remember in the 60’s) was
> methodological, not an establishment/disestablishment orientation.
> Alinsky’s approach depended on a responsive establishment that
> would not simply shoot organizers. It relied – as did Ghandi’s
> and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s approaches – on the moral values
> perceived by the establishment system. ‘Rub raw the sores of
> discontent’ was intended to energize marginalized communities to a
> level of dissatisfaction with the ‘status quo’ that would then
> provide the emotional strength to make specific demands of the
> ruling elite, and to expose contradictions of normative value
> within the ruling elite in order to create open dissension and a
> change of practice in that elite. That was a basic strategy of
> the Civil Rights movement.
>
> Our approach – ‘locality development’ in social service literature
> – was more focused on organizing available resources within the
> marginalized community (‘Every local community can feed itself’)
> and creating a partnership with identified elements in the wider
> society. The intent was to develop an approach that did not rely
> on a specific response from the governing elite (‘OK, OK, we’ll
> put a stop sign on the corner’).
>
> Bill Schlesinger
>
> Project Vida
>
> 3607 Rivera Avenue
>
> El Paso, TX 79905
>
> (915) 533-7057 x 207
>
> (915) 533-7158 FAX
>
> pvida at whc.net </mc/compose?to=pvida at whc.net>
>
> www.projectvidaelpaso.org <http://www.projectvidaelpaso.org/>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:* dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> </mc/compose?to=dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net>
> [mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
> </mc/compose?to=dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net>] *On Behalf Of
> *Len Hockley
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 12, 2011 11:43 AM
> *To:* Colleague Dialogue
> *Cc:* Springboard Dialogue
> *Subject:* Re: [Dialogue] [Springboard] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's
> approach
>
> For what it is worth, it has been noted that Alinski was a
> lecturer a one of the early Academys. Also, he did early work in
> Detroit where we had his people come and talk with us. As I
> remember it he was a bit too disestablishment for the likes of us.
>
> I looked up the IAF in Portland (OR) within the last 15yrs were
> they were still active in parishes.
> Len
>
>
> On 1/11/2011 8:28 AM, R Williams wrote:
>
> Martin,
>
> There are those who will be able to address your questions much
> more directly than I, but here's one strand you might pursue. If
> you Google "Industrial Areas Foundation" (IAF) and go to the
> Wikipedia page you will find reference to Ernesto Cortes, Jr. as
> the Alinski protege who took Alinsky's approach from the 1940s and
> in San Antonio, TX made it a congregation-based process.
>
> Ernesto (Ernie) Cortes went to RS-1 in the late 60s or early 70s
> and at one time was a part of the San Antonio cadre. When I was
> in the Houston house I remember him from various meetings in San
> Antonio. If you could find a way to get in touch with him you
> might get some answers to your question as far as Alinsky is
> concerned. I expect what he may be able to share with you ways in
> which EI/RS-1, etc. influenced his work in deciding to be
> congregation-based as well as that of IAF in general.
>
> As for Freire, his book /Education for Critical Consciousness/
> must have had an influence in our development of imaginal
> education, not just the course but the process used in our whole
> educational approach, although we referred more to Kenneth
> Boulding and /The Image/. His later book, /Pedagogy of the
> Oppressed/, although I believe not published at the time, is
> consistent with, but in some ways clearer than, his earlier book.
>
> Randy
>
> --- On *Tue, 1/11/11, Martin Gilbraith (ICA:UK)
> /<martin at ica-uk.org.uk> </mc/compose?to=martin at ica-uk.org.uk>/* wrote:
>
>
> From: Martin Gilbraith (ICA:UK) <martin at ica-uk.org.uk>
> </mc/compose?to=martin at ica-uk.org.uk>
> Subject: [Springboard] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's approach
> To: Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> </mc/compose?to=Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>, "Springboard
> Dialogue" <springboard at wedgeblade.net>
> </mc/compose?to=springboard at wedgeblade.net>
> Date: Tuesday, January 11, 2011, 9:46 AM
>
> Hi everyone, I am hoping that colleagues with longer memories
> might be able to help me with some history please...
>
> The 'big idea' of the UK's new coalition government is Big
> Society - variously, applauded as empowering the people,
> and/or derided as a cynical cover for devastating public
> spending cuts - see
> http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/policy-campaigns-research/big-society/big-society
>
> A major initiative within this agenda is a forthcoming
> Government-funded programme to train and support a cadre of
> 5,000 Community Organisers, explicitly based on the principles
> of Saul Alinsky and Paulo Friere - see
> http://www.urbanforum.org.uk/briefings/community-organisers-briefing
>
> I beleive that Friere was an influence on the early
> development of EI/ICA's methods and approach, and I understand
> that Alinsky was developing Community Organising in Chicago
> around the same time as EI/ICA was in Fifth City.
>
> What I would really like to learn more about is *to what
> extent and how did Friere and/or Alinsky influence the
> develpment of EI/ICA and our methods and approach; and to what
> extent and how might our methods and approach have influenced
> the development of Community Organising?
> *
> My partner Derek put this same question, more or less, to
> George Packard several years ago when he was here in the UK
> just after Derek had taken a course in Faith-based Community
> Organising through his local Unitarian church - but I don't
> much remember what he said, and I'd love to have any more
> specific recollections and (better still) any documents that
> might be relevant.
>
> I am hoping this might inform how we seek to position ICA:UK
> in relation to this emerging new agenda, and that I might
> draft an article (for ICA:UK Network News if not also
> elsewhere) based on what I receive.
>
> many thanks for any recollections or insights you can offer,
> best wishes,
> Martin
>
>
> --
>
> *Martin Gilbraith* <martin at ica-uk.org.uk
> <http://us.mc593.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=martin@ica-uk.org.uk>>
>
> connect with me at _http://uk.linkedin.com/in/martingilbraith _
>
> *Chief Executive, ICA:UK*
> registered charity #1090745 & company limited by guarantee
> #3970365
> registered in England & Wales, at 41 Old Birley Street,
> Manchester M15 5RF
> tel/fax: 0845 450 0305 or 0161 232 8444 - _www.ica-uk.org.uk
> <http://www.ica-uk.org.uk/>_
>
> The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) - a global network of
> autonomous not-for-profit organisations in 30 countries
> /"concerned with the human factor in world development"/
>
> *IAF Certified Professional Facilitator* & Chair
> The International Association of Facilitators –
> _www.iaf-world.org <http://www.iaf-world.org/>_
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Springboard mailing list
> Springboard at wedgeblade.net
> <http://us.mc593.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=Springboard@wedgeblade.net>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/springboard_wedgeblade.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Dialogue mailing list
>
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Dialogue mailing list
>
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Dialogue mailing list
>
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=Dialogue at wedgeblade.net>
>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>
> --
>
> *Martin Gilbraith* <martin at ica-uk.org.uk
> </mc/compose?to=martin at ica-uk.org.uk>>
>
> connect with me at _http://uk.linkedin.com/in/martingilbraith _
>
> *Chief Executive, ICA:UK*
> registered charity #1090745 & company limited by guarantee #3970365
> registered in England & Wales, at 41 Old Birley Street, Manchester
> M15 5RF
> tel/fax: 0845 450 0305 or 0161 232 8444 - _www.ica-uk.org.uk
> <http://www.ica-uk.org.uk/>_
>
> The Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) - a global network of
> autonomous not-for-profit organisations in 30 countries
> /"concerned with the human factor in world development"/
>
> *IAF Certified Professional Facilitator* & Chair
> The International Association of Facilitators – _www.iaf-world.org
> <http://www.iaf-world.org/>_
>
>
> _______________________________________________ Springboard
> mailing list Springboard at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/springboard_wedgeblade.net
>
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> Springboard mailing list
> Springboard at wedgeblade.net </mc/compose?to=Springboard at wedgeblade.net>
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/springboard_wedgeblade.net
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Dialogue mailing list
> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/springboard_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20110113/20bf7cef/attachment-0001.html>
More information about the Springboard
mailing list