community organizers
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| Fri, 09-05-2008 - 8:58am |
from wikipedia:
"Community organizers act as area-wide coordinators of all the programs of different agencies so as best to meet community needs for health and welfare services. They also facilitate self-help programs initiated by local common-interest groups, for example, by training local leaders to analyze and solve the problems of a community. Community organizers work actively, as do other types of social workers, in community councils of social agencies and in community-action groups. At times the role of community organizers overlaps that of the social planners."
"A career as a community organizer is an option for people who want to make difference, are concerned about political issues or social inequities, and are interested in community solutions and empowering people. People come to careers in community organizing from diverse professions and backgrounds. Many people discover community organizing through participation in some sort of organizing or activist effort in their own communities, and only afterward discover that there are actually jobs and a profession in community organizing. There are graduate and undergraduate programs which focus on community organizing at several colleges and universities in the U.S., such as the University of Maryland--seeand,and the University of Vermont."
at the top of the list of Community Organizers: The Founding Fathers of the United States.
I didn't know much about Community Organizer as a job description. Palin said. "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a `community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." I'm not comparing community organizer to mayor, but I do wonder what these credentials mean.
what do you know and what do you think of the responsibilities? also, what does it say about a person when they choose this as a job?
Bea

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"He seems lazy and unmotivated to me. Why waste all that time and money on schooling and choose that line of work unless he was unqualified to do anything else. I think he took the easy way out."
you missed the part about the Founding Fathers - i'm guessing?
Bea
I think the real issue is defining "community work", because it covers such a broad spectrum.
At one end, it can mean running and coordinating homeless shelters, afterschool education programs, etc.
At the other end, it can be organizations such as ACORN, which are simply leftist political action committees.
Or, alternatively, as I mentioned in another post, rabble rousers such as Al Sharpton clothe themselves in the mantle of "Community Organizers."
The question, and I honestly admit, I don't know the answer, is where did Obama's work lie along that spectrum?
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