E-Books (Sociology and Social Anthropology)

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People first : a practical guide to community development
(Community Leadership Project, University of Stellenbosch, 1996) Cloete, Pieter; Groenewald, Cornie; Van Wyk, Maureen
Anyone who wants to get involved in community development must have an understanding of what is meant by development. Development is a difficult term to define. What is accepted for one person as development, might be interpreted by another person as no development or even as a decline. Development obviously entails a value judgement. Some development is judged as good and other as bad. The term is often seen in conjunction with other terms such as, change, growth, progress, reformation,• transformation or even revolution. These terms bring the problem of value judgements to the fore. We cannot talk about development without putting across certain viewpoints and objectives. A further problem is that development cannot be looked at in general. It must be seen in relation to a specific aspect of our existence. Development can occur, inter alia, in the physical, economic, social and political sectors. Human development thus entails the acquisition of skills and abilities and the improvement of the quality of life in all these sectors.