Community Development and Policy In Ireland Essay

Community Development and Policy In Ireland - Essay Example Currently, as from 1990 the community development process has shifted; it is now emphasizing poverty reduction, closer relationships within the state and a central social life. This period also has seen the community development sector being formalized and turned to being run professional.2 Community development in Ireland has brought a lot of positive impacts in the community there are numerous indictors and quantitative evidence to support this. Development has enabled development of infrastructures and also has enhanced considerable amounts of community activities and projects. There are various concepts defining community development, others reflect community development as political. Community development is a process by which those marginalized are given an opportunity to have confidence and join others by participating in their problem solving. This is according to Combat Poverty group. Another scholar Lee argues that, this concept is based on perceptive of citizenship3. To him, community development is a way by which the community can attain they rights. These concepts in general refer to community participation. Another important concept is the Budapest declaration of 2004, which sees community development as means of empowering civil societies by giving priority to the community actions. This involves social and also economic aspects. The concept sees the community as more than being just located in an area. Though the concepts vary community development represents a structure in which the communities may express their view on the local level. To Ed gar another scholar says, that community development is a result of collective mobilization as a response to growing feelings of disconnections by the societies Community development history in Ireland Community development is Ireland can be traced back to 1930s as cooperative development movement that was based of theory of self help. Between 60s and 90s the community development in Ireland gained significant growth's during this period community development put emphasizes on unemployment and self help and direct action. These initiatives were taken because of the perceived failure by the traditional approaches in talking poverty. Lee observes that, the movement of women formed in the 70 was an important aspect in advancing direct action.4 During this period associations concerned with poverty were formed. The authorities also got involved in tackling poverty by promoting organizations involved in community development. This lead to formation of a poverty reduction project through the European Union termed as "EU Poverty 2 programme," that lead to establishing of community development fund. The impact of varying community bodies such as sports and arts have increased the community responsiveness to community issues for example, racism, drugs, bulling and alcoholism, in an entertaining way, that is accessible to many people. As it has been observed in Ireland, the most active group that participate in these community activities are the youths, and the sports and arts programme has integrated them. Policy framework for community development The purpose of developing a frame work is to have a base or a foundation of working with a community. The frame work is not limited on local issues, but also