Empowering Communities to Drive Sustainable Development …
533
Fig. 1 Community asset mapping programme (Nicolau 2013)
community as a whole possess. The workshop also helps the community to identify
their hopes and fears and assist in building trust between participants. The intention of the workshop is to enable communities to switch their thinking from ‘this is
what we lack’ to ‘we are richer than we realised’. The final processes of the workshop are twofold, namely, identifying a number of entrepreneurial opportunities that
the participants could consider and for the development of their own indicators of
success. After the workshop, the NPO assists participants with financial grants and
support to develop and register their entrepreneurial projects, while Unisa provides
the required skills training specifically related to the skills required for the identified
project. Direct interaction between community, NPO and Unisa takes place through
sharing of expertise, skills and knowledge after the workshop and this could last up
to 2 years. This is followed by a 2-year period, when the external partners (NPO
and HEI) interact with the community to assist them to monitor their own progress
towards driving their own sustainable development. During the monitoring period,
additional skills training as identified by the community is sometimes provided, but
this is done in such a way that the community does not become dependent on external
support in their drive towards sustainable development.
533
Fig. 1 Community asset mapping programme (Nicolau 2013)
community as a whole possess. The workshop also helps the community to identify
their hopes and fears and assist in building trust between participants. The intention of the workshop is to enable communities to switch their thinking from ‘this is
what we lack’ to ‘we are richer than we realised’. The final processes of the workshop are twofold, namely, identifying a number of entrepreneurial opportunities that
the participants could consider and for the development of their own indicators of
success. After the workshop, the NPO assists participants with financial grants and
support to develop and register their entrepreneurial projects, while Unisa provides
the required skills training specifically related to the skills required for the identified
project. Direct interaction between community, NPO and Unisa takes place through
sharing of expertise, skills and knowledge after the workshop and this could last up
to 2 years. This is followed by a 2-year period, when the external partners (NPO
and HEI) interact with the community to assist them to monitor their own progress
towards driving their own sustainable development. During the monitoring period,
additional skills training as identified by the community is sometimes provided, but
this is done in such a way that the community does not become dependent on external
support in their drive towards sustainable development.