A community project aims to solve problems in a community.
A project is a set of ideas, plans and actions that are developed in a coordinated manner with the aim of achieving the fulfillment of an objective. Community , for its part, is that which is associated with a community (the group of human beings or countries that maintain common interests).
The notion of community project refers to the activities that are carried out to solve a problem or alleviate a deficit suffered by the members of a certain social group. Typically, this type of project is promoted by the people themselves who have to resolve the issue.
Community projects are part of social projects , which have the purpose of improving people's lives by satisfying their basic needs . The specificity of community projects lies in the fact that they are usually designed, developed and carried out by neighbors.
Examples of community projects
Suppose that the children who are part of the children's soccer team of a neighborhood club must always train outdoors , since the institution does not have an indoor gym. This reality means that they must endure low temperatures in the winter or that they cannot practice when it rains. Among the club members, they devise a community project: build an indoor facility for training. In this way, they ask for donations of materials and build the gym.
Another example of a community project is one carried out by a development society to raise awareness among young people about the risks of drug use. Through open talks, visits to schools and posters on public roads , the entity develops a community campaign so that children and adolescents take care of their health and stay away from vices.
Process stages
The development of a community project begins with the diagnosis stage, which consists of a deep analysis of the situation of the community and the problems that prevent its correct development. To resolve the conflicts found during this phase, you can choose any of the following paths, or both at the same time: determine the tools and resources that will be necessary for the work, obtain them and get to work; teach techniques and activities to the community itself so that they actively participate in the project.
The development of a community project requires volunteer work.
As expected, the list of problems and obstacles that emerge from the community diagnosis must be ordered hierarchically , so that it is possible to address them one by one, as the necessary resources become available. When the people in charge of the community project ignore this procedure and embark on the utopian task of overcoming all the obstacles at once, the probability of failure increases considerably, wasting the efforts and tools they have obtained.
Importance of diagnosis when developing a community project
Community diagnosis is essential, since it not only provides information about those issues that must be resolved, but also allows for in-depth exploration of the fundamental aspects of a society . Some of the features that every group should know before beginning to develop the community project are the following:
* history : how can we help a society overcome its problems if we do not know its past, if we do not remind it that it has been able to move forward in previous times?
* infrastructure : not all communities have the services that we usually consider basic. The lack of drinking water, bridges or sanitation systems is reason enough to plan a community project;
* economy : just like history, the economic aspect of a territory can also provide us with tools to solve problems by taking advantage of its strengths.