Barriers to Empowerment

Generally poor people have the feeling of powerlessness. These people can be helped to feel powerful to decide their own affairs using community organisation. When they learn to solve their problems they feel powerful. They can develop confidence and capacity building takes place so that they feel that they can solve their problems by themselves.

In community organisation, the people carry out decision-making. This provides them with a sense of empowerment. Empowerment deals with providing disadvantaged groups with a powerful instrument for articulating their demands and preferences by developing awareness and decision-making capacity so as to achieve their goal with freedom. Community Organisation results in empowerment of the people. But there are some hindrances like fatalism, illiteracy, superstitions, and caste divisions etc. Sometimes vested interest groups may be a hindrance or barriers for empowerment. The Community dependence, long time effect of poverty, and wrong beliefs etc., act as barriers to empowerment. When people are organised, they get the power. There are leaders in the community and if they are united, they can work together, and they can coordinate with each other. This makes them feel powerful. Thus community organisation results in empowerment of people. The empowerment helps the community to stand against exploitation, gain ability to solve problems, and to achieve the desired goals. Many of the economic problems can be easily solved by community organisation and empowerment of community.

Social Work

Source: C.M.J. Bosco