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Empowerment (Judy Poll) |
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To
be empowered, you feel you can create action, that you have a right to
shout out loud, that you have a degree of power and control over a
situation. To be empowered means you feel you can choose how to react to
something. Empowerment is a lot easier when you have knowledge of
networks, processes and your own rights, belief in your inner strengths,
and also having good supportive people around you. Empowerment means
having a voice to challenge, protest, and to rally supporters. People who feel empowered can create action, often political in nature, by participating in meetings, rallying against funding cuts to uni’s, protesting against good ole Pauline etc. I believe empowerment doesn’t only occur individually, when that one person gets passionate about an issue and writes a nasty letter to silly people at the local newspaper press; empowerment can occur on different levels, including grass roots groups of angry neighbours or friends, self help chronic illness groups, and big scary organisations like the MUA. For us as community psychologists, we cannot arrogantly assume we "can empower others", like fairy god parents who wave a wand and suddenly turn a shy oppressed person into a superaction figure. Empowerment comes from within a person or group, so we, as community psychologists can only create an environment where people can empower themselves (ie, we can provide a forum for people to have their say, or to advise people, IF they choose to do so). |