What is Community Development?
Community Development is a process where community members come together to identify problems, craft solutions, and take collective action. The process requires engagement from, and cooperation, coordination, and collaboration among, all community stakeholders (Individuals, Organizations, Companies). It produces a clear vision with an achievable, reactive roadmap. It requires us to be community-minded and embrace an UBUNTU mindset, even as we pursue individual aspirations. We engage with each other to address impediments, build cohesion and determine our collective goals and priorities thereby enabling the same message to be communicated to governments and civil society through many messengers. Through our engagement, we will fully understand our strengths, needs, opportunities, and potential.
Community development must start with analysis and be continuously performed to make needed adjustments. Having accurate understanding about the whys is essential before we can develop effective solutions and strategies that will be collectively implemented.
The Iterative Nature of Development
Community development follows the ordered steps below.
Guided Organization
Cooperative Economics
Build Community Wealth
Development occurs in three (3) iterative and concurrent steps across all areas and stages. These steps are most effective when a community shares:
- A close geographical location
- A single nationality
- A unique language and religion
- A cohesive culture
- Known and accepted community leaders
- A foundation of trust among its members
The Unique Challenges of Black Canada
Unlike single-nation communities, Black Canada is incredibly diverse:
- Over 180 nations represented
- 250 mother tongues spoken
- 371 cultural and ethnic groups
- Varied spiritual beliefs
- Limited trust, cohesion, and collaboration among national communities
- No concentrated enclaves
This diversity brings different perspectives, values, and priorities, sometimes leading to conflicting interests. As a result, our pace of development and advancement has been impeded.
Lessons from the Jewish Community
The Jewish community also originates from multiple nations, but they benefit from:
- A single religion
- A common language
- Shared historical experiences as a unifying force
However, it is their organization that has driven their success.
In contrast, racism, discrimination, oppression, and colonialism have not unified or coalesced Black Canadians in the same way. We need a greater purpose that transcends nationality and ethnicity.
The Path Forward: Collective Action
To accelerate progress, we must embrace a new perspective:
✅ Purpose – We will achieve more, faster, by working together.
✅ Unity in Diversity – Beyond nationality and ethnic heritage, we must craft our future as a collective.
✅ Dignity and Respect – Earned through working together to help ourselves.
Preparing for Future Challenges
The world is changing rapidly, and we must be ready for what’s ahead:
- AI & Robotics – Shaping economies and job markets
- Climate Change – Impacting communities disproportionately
- Adversarial Politics – Threatening progress and inclusion
The Urgency to Organize
The power to rapidly advance our community is within our control. But to do so, we must first overcome internal barriers and unite in purpose and action.
Impediments to Accelerated Community Development
COMMUNITY SEGMENTATION
Working together poses a challenge given our demographics and characteristics, and yet we must. We need to move beyond our differences to recognize our common best interests and take conscious, unwavering decisions to compromisingly work together for the betterment of all our communities. We must intentionally engage with each other to create better and more opportunities for ourselves, and our children.
ORGANIZATIONAL
SILO-ISM
Black Organizations are doing great work representing our interests to Government, and providing needed services to individuals and families. Unfortunately, most operate in silos, unaware of other Organizations in the same city, or across the country, with the same mandate. Consequentially, they duplicate services, complete for the same funding, miss learning best practices from each other, and don’t gain the benefits of coordination, cooperation, and collaboration. Additionally, most work without broad-based financial support from individuals. Organizations need easy visibility to each other and Individuals.
LACK OF A REAL-TIME, TWO-WAY COMMUNICATION CHANNEL
We can’t efficiently communicate with each other or engage in planning, en masse. We need the ability to discuss, debate, and vote to reach consensus about important topics. We need an online platform to connect all of us so we can organize in real-time.
INSUFFICIENT FOCUS ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Our community development activities must include more than just economic growth, as critical as it is. We must also learn the deep, impactful meaning of the African Social Development philosophy UBUNTU, embrace it, and live it because its practice is the foundation for increasing economic development. We must intentionally engage each other in deep, thought-provoking conversations that changes mindsets about who we are and how we behave towards each other, and as a community. The mindset change acknowledges the value of nationality and ethnicity, and takes us beyond these identities to embrace the reality that we are seen as a monolith and must therefore earn respect as a collective.
MKUTANO is the real-time, two-way communications channel that enables Black Canadians to organize nationally and address the other impediments for accelerated community development
We are stronger and will achieve more faster if we work together.
This is how DIGNITY is shown, how RESPECT is earned.