ToP Facilitation

 

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ToP in Communities

What do they have in common?

  • A village in Zambia rebuilds a washed out road to get produce to market.
  • Egyptian villagers band together to drill a well and get clean water into the community.
  • An inner city community in the US renovates rental housing for the influx of new residents.
  • A Canadian municipality gathers citizen input and creates new, environmentally friendly pesticide control legislation.
  • A group of agencies serving a low income neighborhood develops strategies for collaborative service delivery.
  • A Kenyan village develops a community based HIV/AIDS testing, care and prevention program.
  • An inner city Toronto community health centre launches a program designed that helps students succeed in school.

 

 

Making a point
Community Participation in Ghana
Each strategy was developed in a ToP facilitated events and implemented successfully by community residents.

Brainstorming in Nepal
Brainstorming

 

India Facilitator
Community Planning Workshop in India

 

A rural community was faced with a real crisis when the largest community employer, a sawmill, was closed. They knew they could not simply replace that company.

A member of the community economic development task force had been in an ToP workshop with her service agency and recommended the ToP approach to broad based community involvement. Working with the task force, ICA ToP facilitators developed a plan for community meetings and trained local facilitators to ask the community for ideas.

Small meetings were held for neighbourhoods, faith groups, business sectors, service groups, community agencies as well as several open public forums. They looked at their vision for the future of the community, the barriers to their desired future and posed strategies for revitalizing the local economy.

The steering committed drew the ideas together and held an action planning day that involved over 100 residents in action groups focused on sepecific projects. Many of these projects were successful and led to a genuine renewal of the community.

ToP facilitators are engaging community residents in participatory local development projects around the world. ToP methods are used in projects designed to meet basic needs such as water, sanitation, and shelter. These methods are enabling the development of community based programs to address the HIV-AIDS pandemic as well as women’s empowerment, youth engagement, educational and vocational training programs and sustainable income-generation initiatives. ICA has a long history in facilitating community development; in some cases working with a community for an extended period of time and in situations conducting facilitated events to launch new initiatives.

ToP facilitation gives people in local communities ways to work together to meet their own needs. Developing leadership capacities in communities through training in ToP methods builds confidence and self reliance in communities. ToP facilitation enables individuals and groups strengthen civil society. Passivity is transformed into positive action toward a better future.

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