[Dialogue] [Springboard] Alinsky & Freire and ICA's approach

Larry Philbrook icalarry at gmail.com
Thu Jan 13 14:33:17 CST 2011


Dear Jim and anyone else,

is it possible to access to your Neighborhood Academy work?

Bill Staples is hosting a group in ICAI this year on updating our 
community development approaches.  His image is eventually a community 
development certification similar to CPF or CToP F.  Anyone who has 
resources they are willing to share please let us know.

With respect, Larry

On 1/14/2011 3:41 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 theprinciples
>         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>>
>
>         connectwith 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/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20110114/03f54eec/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Dialogue mailing list