Agenda 31 (Winter 2007).
Effective Community Leadership
Lorraine Dongo, Community Involvement Co-ordinator, London Civic Forum
Why do we continue to explore community leadership and representation? Simply put, it is because this is an area that continues to pose practice challenges to meaningful community involvement. London Civic Forum (LCF) is one organisation among many that continues to have a tremendous opportunity to assist in answering this question as we have a specific programme that we are running linked to this issue. LCF seeks to enable a wider range of Londoners to participate in London’s democracy, building a community of people committed to inclusive engagement and supporting our members in influencing policy issues of different concerns.
Defining community leadership and representation
Strong, yet different views are held within communities about the meaning of community leadership and representation and there is contention even in deciding whether these are the preferred terms to use or not. Whatever terminology we choose to use the bottom line is the roles that come along with these labels are necessary to have any influence and we need to engage with them. Where these labels derive their legitimacy from is another issue which is not the focus here however it is important to begin to understand some of the main routes into community leadership and representation. The following six routes (which I am sure we can at least identify with one of) were identified through Community Development Foundation’ s Practice Links project report (2007) self-selection; activism; professional experience; hand-picked by outside agencies; externally accredited, and media-made.
Looking into the practice challenges
Effective community leadership and representation help create a shared vision of what needs to happen, why it should happen and who should...
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