Our Approach

Empowering Communities - Community Advocacy

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
Martin Luther King

What is Community Advocacy?

Power

All communities – both rich and poor - want to have control over their own lives and represent themselves. And likewise, all communities are concerned about local issues and struggles; whether it is crime levels and rubbish collection in the UK or access to natural resources, farmers’ prices, not having jobs, access to education or suffering from domestic violence in Africa.
The UK Government is currently investigating claims that UK consumers, small farmers and retailers are all suffering at the mercy of the growing dominance of supermarkets. Meanwhile in Ghana, small farmers and businessmen are seeing their lives destroyed because a tomato processing factory closed as a consequence of unjust trade rules. However, in both these cases, despite having global causes, the impacts are felt by local people at the local level.

Relationships

Community based advocacy is about democratising relations between the powerful and powerless and deepening participation in political, social/cultural and economic processes.

Knowledge

If local communities are to be able to transform their own lives, rather than relying on others to do it for them, they must be empowered to understand the global forces causing the problems and to hold their Government - and the international community – to account.

Whilst lobbying the UK Government to make trade rules fair for developing countries is vital; even more important is ensuring that the communities themselves understand the global forces that are affecting their lives; and that they have the skills, knowledge and confidence to do something about it.

What’s the role of NGOs?

There are increasingly critical voices in Africa of Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) - especially northern NGOs, acting on behalf of communities, becoming gatekeepers between the powerful and powerless and dominating any democratic space. Instead, NGOs must empower communities to transform their own lives by holding the powers that be to account.

The role of NGOs must be to support the oppressed to demand their freedom, not to demand it on their behalf.