LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Instead of focusing on a community's needs, deficiencies and problems, there are community development approaches that help communities become stronger and more self-reliant by placing control of the process in the hands of its citizens. This approach identifies, maps and mobilizes local assets.
IT IS A "GLASS IS HALF FULL APPROACH TO DEVELOPMENT" ...... AND THERIN LIES THE METHODOLOGY PROPOSED FOR PURSUING DEVELOPMENT THAT IS AT THE HEART OF THIS BLOG!
Few people realize how many assets any community has:
* the skills of its citizens, from youth to disabled people, from thriving professionals to starving artists;
* the dedication of its citizens' associations -- churches, culture groups, clubs, neighborhood associations ;
* the resources of its formal institutions -- businesses, schools, libraries, community colleges, hospitals, parks, social service agencies; and,
* the natural resources and locational advantages of the communities themselves.
AND... THAT IS WHERE WE BEGIN.....
BUT BEFORE WE DO.....
PUBLIC CONSULTATIONS CONDUCTED
In the mid-nineties the provincial government embarked on an extended series of consultations with communities across the province. Their mission was to identify what support communities thought they needed to encourage local development. The message they got was clear. Provide us with local resources to help us build our own capacity to manage our own development. A reading of Hansard at the time shows that the introduction of the Regional Community Development Act was the government of the day's way of responding to these very demands from citizens in the province. http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/legc/
While the legislation was passed, its implementation was delayed for reasons that aren't all that clear at the present. In the interim, government urged communities to organize groups to access matching funding that was available for community development under federal/provincial funding arrangements. Communities responded at the suggestion of the provincial government by incorporating societies who were to be replaced by Regional Development Authorities when the Act was finally proclaimed. By the time the Act was proclaimed in April 1997, societies had sprung up across the province to absorb the available funding.
SWSDA and many others initially maintained their status as societies, each with their own reasons. Mostly these reasons had to do with restrictions that the new RDA Act placed on the composition of the Board of Directors (politicians had to be in a minority) and on ownership of land by RDAs (RDAs were not allowed to own land). Over the years, most RDAs have migrated to become incorporated under the RDA Act with a few holdouts like SWSDA remaining as I write this posting. The recent letter from the Deputy Minister of Economic Development is designed to prompt the transition from societies to the RDA Act by the end of this fiscal year if RDAs want continued funding.
In my next posting I'll talk a bit about the options open to the citizens of Shelburne County and the new RDA that might service Shelburne County communities. I'll also visit some of the issues facing our five communities whether they opt to remain a part of SWSDA or create their own organization(s). My intention is to do that in light of the real options our communities have. In doing so, I hope to de-bunk some of the mis-information that has surrounded RDAs and our options in Shelburne county for some time.
Stay tuned.
