Page 18 - Caring_for_your_community

How to engage the community Levels of community engagement within the case studies:

Community engagement is the process of working • Providing information (the project offered predetermined
collaboratively with and through groups of people to address information to the community either in the form of one-off
issues affecting wellbeing (Fawcett et al., 1995). Addressing short workshops or training).
social issues requires working with community groups and,
most importantly, moving away from didactic approaches. • Consultation (the project offered options to the community
Communities can be involved in a project in different ways and received feedback).
and on different levels. Wilcox (1994) suggests a framework
based on Arnstein’s (1969) ladder of participation, which we • Deciding together (the project offered opportunities for
have adopted as a lens to look at the community projects the community to express their ideas and to make joint
that shaped this manual (see Figure 3). Wilcox (1994) explains decisions with the garden).
that the framework consists of various levels of community
engagement and that particular levels are appropriate for • Acting together (the community and the gardens took their
different situations. Participation takes time and it is important joint decisions forward in partnership).
to be transparent – i.e. clear to your partners about the part
they are to play in the process, your role and what level of • Supporting independent community interests (the community
participation is offered to partners (ibid). There is also a risk or partner organizations approached the garden for support
of participation/engagement becoming tokenistic. According and the project development was based on their interest
to Lynch (2011) problems arise when there is false consensus and agenda. The project resulted in building capacity of the
and people feel that they are being used to ‘rubber-stamp’ community to address the issues by themselves).
organisational plans; when policies and practices are based on
helping out and doing-for, and community partners are treated As Figure 3 illustrates, some of our case studies adopted
as beneficiaries rather than active agents, there is absence a supporting level of engagement right from the start and
of strong, committed leadership and a strategic plan for throughout the project, e.g. Giardino SottoVico (see page 19),
engagement. In many if not all cases, the projects analysed in
this manual do demonstrate a strategic plan for engagement.

Sottovico BG / Cranbourne BG
Culiacán BG/Brooklyn BG/Medellin BG/Oxford BG/ITD-HST/Denver BG/KEW MSB/Hørsholm Arboretum

Ljubjana BG El Charco BG/Missouri BG/Morris Arboretum/Auroville BG
KEW

Balkan BG, Wuhan BG

Information Consultation Deciding Acting together Supporting
together

LEVEL OF ENGAGEMENT

Figure 3: Framework of community engagement

16 CARING FOR YOUR COMMUNITY | A MANUAL FOR BOTANIC GARDENS