Community Engagement and Citizenship Course

Community Engagement, Solidarity, and Citizenship

• The course focuses on the application of social science to understand and examine contemporary community challenges.
• It emphasizes community-action initiatives, including community engagement, solidarity, and citizenship.
• These initiatives are guided by core values like human rights, social justice, empowerment, and gender equality.
• The course aims to enhance students' sense of shared identity and encourage contribution to the common good.
• Students learn to integrate applied social sciences into community-action initiatives.

Community Dynamics and Community Action

• Analyzing community life and understanding how it works
• Determining how socialization influences community dynamics
• Investigating how social, cultural, and environmental factors shape community changes

Course Description

• The course utilizes social science ideas and methods to examine the challenges of contemporary community life.
• Community engagement, solidarity, and citizenship are key focus areas.
• Core values of human rights, social justice, and gender equality guide the initiatives.
• The goal is to foster a sense of shared identity and encourage contribution to the common good.
• It empowers students to apply social sciences to community action.

Community

• The study of community helps us understand our own community's daily life.
• Understanding everyday interactions, or socialization, reveals how reality is perceived.
• Everyday interactions help people understand and deal with contemporary community challenges.

Community (Applying Social Sciences)

• Community study uses imaginative and rational social science ideals.
• The purpose is to investigate how the process of socialization affects communities.
• Social science viewpoints are used to formulate a framework for analyzing community dynamics.

Objectives

• Explain the relationship between studying community dynamics and action, applied social sciences, and future career options.
• Illustrate the importance of analyzing community dynamics and action.

Guide Questions

• Why study community dynamics?
• What is the importance of community for individuals and collectives?
• How does understanding the community impact individuals and others?

Vocabulary Words

• Community: Derived from the Latin word "communis," meaning common or shared.

Community Action

• Any activity intending to increase community understanding, engagement, and empowerment.
• Actively serving people within the community.

Community Dynamics

• Describes changes within a community arising from social, cultural, and environmental factors.
• These changes can be positive or negative and influence community development.

Empowerment

• Empowering people to make decisions, plan, and act to control their community situations.
• Empowering people through internal group initiatives and benefits for all members.
• Supporting community networks and linkages for advocacies

Non-Geographical Community

• A community formed based on shared needs, interests, identity, practices, and roles within social institutions.

Geographical Community

• A community where members share a common geographic area (e.g., village, province, neighborhood).

Micro-level Community

• A community formed based on personal ties among members.

Social Capital

• Defined as a positive consequence of human interaction.
• Social capital refers to the relationships of people within a particular society.
• These networks are vital for effective societal functioning.

Different Types of Community Levels

• Micro level: Interactions based on personal relationships
• Macro level: Interactions among large groups, national or international communities

Importance of Studying Community

• Motivates people to work together, fostering a sense of community.
• Encourages communal obligations (social, religious, or traditional) that contribute to mutual support and help.
• Creates opportunities to improve individual and community lives.
• Promotes policies that value social capital and community participation.
• Enables citizens to directly participate in local planning, governance, and community development programs.
• Understanding community life leads to appreciating daily experiences.

Community Actions

• Activities aiming to advance community understanding, engagement, and empowerment.
• These activities support community members to plan, design, and deliver local services.

Objectives in Community Action

• Building community capacity and social resilience
• Prevention of issues within the community
• The goal to create community opportunities for growth and wealth building

Recent Community Changes Sharing

• A forum to discuss recent community changes.

Lesson 2: Importance of Community Action

• Relevant examples of organizations involved in community actions during the COVID pandemic.

Pre-Test and Post-Assessment

• Assessment for the study of how communities act.
• Assessment to discover the understanding of the community and its parts through questionnaires.
• Questions about ERDA's contributions to community action.
• Questions pertaining to considering individuals as social capital.
• Assessment of how the community helps itself.

Post- Assessment Questions

• Analysis of the statements regarding community importance and policies.