(What follows is my own opinion, based on my own experience. It's not an intended as an attack on any one group, and shouldn't be construed as such. I'm making no value judgements, simply reporting what I saw and learned.)
I spent two years working freelance for a community centre in the UK. I was working for the Centre's voluntary management committee, who had use of the building through an convoluted arms-length agreement with the local Council who actually owned the building and paid for its upkeep. The Council used some of the Centre's space for offices and the like.
My objective was to expand the Association's programme of learning, creative, and health activities and increase the community's use of the Centre.
The two years I did the work were educational. I learned a lot in the time, not all of it good.
Several things really stuck with me.
There are some people who are genuinely passionate and willing to give over large amounts of time working, for free, to build something they believe in for the benefit of others. Working with these people was inspiring.
There are also at least the same number of people who are interested mostly in furthering their own agenda, their own pet projects, and will often act in a spiteful and overprotective fashion with that aim. Often, they'll actively work against something that has no effect whatsoever on their pet project, simply because it doesn't benefit their own pet project. Negotiating with these people, and working around the blocks they erect, was a huge challenge and not particularly enjoyable.
The local Council's policies and institutional biases actively work against a community centre in many respects. There's so much red-tape that quite a lot of activities which would be popular can't run -- the burden imposed by the bureaucracy smothers it, and grinds down the people working underneath it. One example is a drop-in youth group: these ran for nearly 30 years in the Centre to huge success, but were infeasible now due to Council regulations and requirements; the Association would have had to employ multiple youth-workers (at £20+ an hour) where previously carefully vetted volunteers ran these groups.
When working in a modern community centre with volunteers and professional community workers, 'community' usually means one of four things: the middle-class, ethnic minorities,* children, and people with special needs,* and with a heavy leaning towards females in all four of these group. (This feels like an appropriate time to remind reader that I'm not making any value judgements or attacks.)
There is some effort made to reach the very, very poor (usually in the form of at-risk teens), but almost none made to engage with lower-income/working-class people. Males are similarly not a priority. Questioning this is extremely difficult, and too easily dismissed as sexism/racism/inverse snobbery.
After my freelance work at the Centre finished, I spent nine months working in a supermarket in a poor part of town. It was pretty eye-opening. In that time, I got to know people from all walks of life, of all ages, and various nationalities.
Each day as I was working, I spent time interacting with, and supporting, a genuine, organic community. I experienced more genuine community there than I ever did at the community centre -- and I was a part of that community. I saw the same customers every day, and often speaking to me and the other staff would be their only social contact that day. I never experienced that at the community centre: there, I almost exclusively interacted with people who had a strong, well-developed base and social structure around them.
Council bureaucracy and the unquestioned biases existing within community work failed these people. Imposing a bureaucracy over a community impairs that community, unintentionally marginalises certain people, and causes community to develop unnaturally if it develops at all. When that happens, though, those who get left behind will do what humans naturally do, and develop a community of their own.
I'm saddened that for some people this community has to be their local supermarket, but I'm incredibly grateful for the people who work there who take on this extra community work naturally and without any expectation of extra reward or recognition.
* The correct term for these groups changes frequently. I'm using the ones which will be most widely understood and intend no offence.
I spent two years working freelance for a community centre in the UK. I was working for the Centre's voluntary management committee, who had use of the building through an convoluted arms-length agreement with the local Council who actually owned the building and paid for its upkeep. The Council used some of the Centre's space for offices and the like.
My objective was to expand the Association's programme of learning, creative, and health activities and increase the community's use of the Centre.
The two years I did the work were educational. I learned a lot in the time, not all of it good.
Several things really stuck with me.
There are some people who are genuinely passionate and willing to give over large amounts of time working, for free, to build something they believe in for the benefit of others. Working with these people was inspiring.
There are also at least the same number of people who are interested mostly in furthering their own agenda, their own pet projects, and will often act in a spiteful and overprotective fashion with that aim. Often, they'll actively work against something that has no effect whatsoever on their pet project, simply because it doesn't benefit their own pet project. Negotiating with these people, and working around the blocks they erect, was a huge challenge and not particularly enjoyable.
The local Council's policies and institutional biases actively work against a community centre in many respects. There's so much red-tape that quite a lot of activities which would be popular can't run -- the burden imposed by the bureaucracy smothers it, and grinds down the people working underneath it. One example is a drop-in youth group: these ran for nearly 30 years in the Centre to huge success, but were infeasible now due to Council regulations and requirements; the Association would have had to employ multiple youth-workers (at £20+ an hour) where previously carefully vetted volunteers ran these groups.
When working in a modern community centre with volunteers and professional community workers, 'community' usually means one of four things: the middle-class, ethnic minorities,* children, and people with special needs,* and with a heavy leaning towards females in all four of these group. (This feels like an appropriate time to remind reader that I'm not making any value judgements or attacks.)
There is some effort made to reach the very, very poor (usually in the form of at-risk teens), but almost none made to engage with lower-income/working-class people. Males are similarly not a priority. Questioning this is extremely difficult, and too easily dismissed as sexism/racism/inverse snobbery.
After my freelance work at the Centre finished, I spent nine months working in a supermarket in a poor part of town. It was pretty eye-opening. In that time, I got to know people from all walks of life, of all ages, and various nationalities.
Each day as I was working, I spent time interacting with, and supporting, a genuine, organic community. I experienced more genuine community there than I ever did at the community centre -- and I was a part of that community. I saw the same customers every day, and often speaking to me and the other staff would be their only social contact that day. I never experienced that at the community centre: there, I almost exclusively interacted with people who had a strong, well-developed base and social structure around them.
Council bureaucracy and the unquestioned biases existing within community work failed these people. Imposing a bureaucracy over a community impairs that community, unintentionally marginalises certain people, and causes community to develop unnaturally if it develops at all. When that happens, though, those who get left behind will do what humans naturally do, and develop a community of their own.
I'm saddened that for some people this community has to be their local supermarket, but I'm incredibly grateful for the people who work there who take on this extra community work naturally and without any expectation of extra reward or recognition.
* The correct term for these groups changes frequently. I'm using the ones which will be most widely understood and intend no offence.