COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Hindu women at the Navratri Dance Festival in Colchester

 Engaging with communities requires wisdom, skill, an understanding of diversity and diverse cultures, and the ability to inspire and motivate. The benefits of this can be huge in terms of recruitment, audience development, cost reduction in public services, local participation and empowerment.

At Diverse Ethics, we have the experience of working with communities over decades, and achieving amazing results through transformation, communication and engagement of all kinds of people, from young to the elderly.

We suggest the following practical steps:

• Step out of your office and into the local communities where they live and operate
• Do a mapping exercise to identify the communities in your locality
• Understand their cultures and ways of operating
• Find out what is common between your work and their aspirations
• Build a relationship on their terms, not yours
• Understand that communities are often under-resourced and marginalised, so be sensitive to their experiences
• Be open to learning and growing through the experience - often the margins of society are much richer than the core
• Value the right methods and approaches of communication

Diverse Ethics can help you in all these areas, and also train your staff to be effective in their work.

Article added on 9th April 2010 at 8:11am
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