Political Settings

Pursuance Project

Organization's slogan: 
Pursuance -> Collaboration -> Justice
Civic Organization Disclaimer: 
Possible disclaimer: This information has been entered by a person who isn't associated with the organization. It may be incomplete or contain mistakes. If you are associated with this organization and would like to maintain this information, please get a Public Sphere Project account and ask us to transfer ownership of this information to you.

Pursuance is open source software that enables individuals to organize in the pursuit of shared goals. Individuals and/or existing organizations can form or join a “pursuance” to work toward a common goal. Pursuances combine secure task management and discussion features, allowing newcomers to quickly get up to speed and enabling productive team-wide collaboration. Pursuances can interact with each other, cooperating on shared goals or assigning tasks to one another.

Organizational engagement: 
Active
Volunteer Opportunities: 
Come get involved! You can join us on our Mattermost chat server and volunteer your skills. We're especially on the lookout for: Developers (React) If you're a coder, and especially if you're proficient with React, we want you! Enter the "pursuance" Mattermost channel and tell us a bit about yourself. Pursuance's tech stack consists of React, Redux, Bootstrap; Go, Postgres, PostgREST; WebSockets; NaCl and miniLock for crypto. For more information, review the overview of the Pursuance system. Designers We're looking for designers and UX experts who can lend their keen eyes to the Pursuance team. Join us in the "pursuance" Mattermost channel and introduce yourself! Artists and creative types We're preparing a Kickstarter and trying to put together some great merch options for our backers. Handy with GIMP/Photoshop or Inkscape/Illustrator? Got an eye for creative product design? Have good ideas for designs that others can execute? Come on in to the "Creative Design" Mattermost channel and talk to us! Want other ways to get involved? There are other ways to support Pursuance: Donate to Pursuance! The Pursuance Project is a nonprofit organization of dedicated volunteers - it needs your financial support. Every bit helps! Join our Mailing List! Our monthly mails include updates on the platform's development and ways to get involved. Sign up here!
Contact information: 
team@pursuanceproject.org

Full LV Pattern Deck in Chinese (reduced filesize)

in
Resource name: 
full-lv-pattern-deck-chinese-reduced
Resource type: 
Pattern cards

Towards a New Public Infrastructure

in
Resource name: 
Towards a New Public Infrastructure — preprint
Resource type: 
Articles

Journal of Community Informatics

Organization's slogan: 
The Journal of Community Informatics provides an opportunity for Community Informatics researchers and others to share their work with the larger community. Through the Journal's application of a rigorous peer review process, knowledge and awareness concerning the community use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is being brought to a wider professional audience.
Civic Organization Disclaimer: 
Possible disclaimer: This information has been entered by a person who isn't associated with the organization. It may be incomplete or contain mistakes. If you are associated with this organization and would like to maintain this information, please get a Public Sphere Project account and ask us to transfer ownership of this information to you.
Organizational engagement: 
Active
Organization's headquarters: 
Vancouver, BC, Canada
Organization's geographic focus: 
worldwide

http://

Contact person: 
Michael Gurstein

Community Animators

Pattern ID: 
752
Pattern number within this pattern set: 
102
Justin Smith
The Public Sphere Project & St. Mary's University
Version: 
2
Problem: 

Development professionals often find it difficult to adequately assess the broad spectrum of problems a community faces, as well as grasp and utilize the various assets the community has to work with. The lack of grassroots knowledge has proven problematic in that development schemes are often mismatched in scale and relevance to the community’s needs, abilities and liabilities. Thus the conceived solutions for encouraging community capacities and livelihoods fall short of their objectives.

Context: 

Through their lived experience, community members trained in assessment techniques and information gathering can provide contextual understandings of the assets and liabilities a community possesses that would otherwise go unnoticed to the outside professional. Similarly they can act as agent for the process of conscientization and subsequent mobilization for peoples to pursue change and empowerment.

Discussion: 

In response to the failures of 'top-down' approaches to development, a shift towards emphasizing participation and empowerment have begun to make their way into the mainstream of development practice. This move toward "bottom-up," "farmer-to-farmer," and "grassroots" communication has been a fundamental reorientation. Following, the 70s and 80s, years often associated with the dark ages of development a new light has come about through alternative practices that seek to employ the community’s themselves in defining their needs, mapping out there assets and coming to terms with their own liabilities.

Through a variety of participatory processes both community members and development professionals have had the opportunity to jointly design community improvement schemes that are both appropriate to the community's needs and wants, as well sustainable and empowering.

As a result of relative success, the role of the community animator has become an increasingly important component for enabling this process of cooperation and participation between the development practitioner and the community members themselves. In some ways the animator acts as both initiator and on-going advocate for his or her community's development through regular open communication with both community members and the representative staff working in the area.

In the past highly educated teams of researchers and development field workers would enter a community and employ any number of assessment tools to identify community needs. Some of which were participatory in nature (see Power Research pattern). Upon return to their offices these assessments would be used to design various projects ranging from indoor lavatories, to treadle pumps, to community telecenters. In many cases it was shown that these projects failed to support the kind of long-term growth in people’s livelihoods they were thought to bring. Rather than looking at what the community wanted or needed from their cultural and social point of reference; these professionals designed projects relative to their point of reference.

Instead of persisting with this paradigm, NGOs such as the Institute for Integrated Rural Development (IIRD) have pursued vigorous development campaigns in Bangladesh. In this example the community animator has become a central agent for helping to identifiy and express the needs and desires of a community, as well as initiating and supporting change to include, informal education, ideas for micro-enterprise, and even supporting the creation of women’s self-help groups that have enable a number of women in rural areas to gain access to credit and thus empower them to pursue economic generating activities.

Here organizations such as IIRD would send exploratory panels out to the communities, as a "get to know you" campaign. Over a period of time they would identify predominately young men and women that they would sponsor for further education. The pool of students would often serve as the primary group that would go on to perhaps become powerful community animators.

Not only were they given a valuable education they still retain those familial bonds to their community that often gives them an immediate advantage in having the lived experience of their particular area, as well the rapport of being a community member.

However, problems of jealousy and apprehension can be potentially problematic and it is important that groups and agencies that do seek to draw advocates from the field they seek to assist find ways to mitigate the potential social conflict that might arise. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to completely eliminate it. But it is perhaps a far better approach than previous alternatives

Solution: 

The community animator can act as a critical link between the community and any NGO Collaborator. It should be noted that by those in the field for social change that local citizens and activists can often better activate a community’s sentiments and bring about awareness for the possibility to realize change than an outsider who may be perceived to have little understanding of the real issues at stake.

Beyond the processes of concientization that a community animator can bring to the process; NGOs can also assist these community members in training for information gathering and needs assessments to help refine the basic kinds of projects and programs that might be of benefit to a community.

Verbiage for pattern card: 

Development professionals often find it difficult to adequately assess the broad spectrum of problems a community faces — or the various assets the community has to work with. This often means that development schemes are mismatched with the community's needs, abilities and liabilities. Community Animators can act as critical links and local citizens can often better activate a community to realize change than an outsider.

Pattern status: 
Released
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