“I learned as a community organiser in Chicago, real change comes from the bottom up, the grass roots, starting with the dreams and passions of individuals serving their communities.” – Barack Obama – Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship 2010
We know this as community development practitioners.
Our funders know it too.
So why do we still so often corrupt the community development process in order to impose the strategic objectives of our planners and policy makers on the grass roots? Just to pay the mortgage?
In the second city of the Empire
Mother Glasgow watches all her weans
Trying hard to feed her little starlings
Unconsciously she clips their little wings
Are we still clipping wings….?