Concept of Community, Community Organization, and Education

Assignment #1
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Concept of Community and Community Organization
A community is a social unit or a group of people with common characteristics like identity, culture, norms, values, and customs. It is formed when a group of people live together and share a common life or develop a strong sense of awe feeling. Community organizations are planned processes that influence a community to use its social structures and any existing resources to achieve community goals. These processes aim at bringing people together to address challenging social situations and improving the community's social health, well-being and functioning. Community organizations also aim to transform the powerless and the voiceless poor into the participatory, dynamic, and politically responsive community. During these processes, local groups organize strategically planned interventions to promote social or health changes. Some scholars refer to them as community empowerment, partnership development, and capacity building.
For Assignment #1, I intend to focus and research on a specific community organization instead of exploring the idea of community organizations generally. By focusing on a specific community organization, I can evaluate the goals, values, vision, and mission of the community organization. Narrowing down can also help me understand the importance and functions of the selected community organization and identify how the organization can help improve social services required in the community. To choose an organization, I want to consider organizations that advocate for social justice in the community. In particular, I am interested in non-profit community organizations that help community members solve social issues like racial discrimination, environmental pollution, and poverty. I will first choose three organizations of my interest, explain them in-depth and, then provide a rationale for my selection. The three community organizations that I found interesting are Black Lives Matter Toronto, Toronto city mission, and pollution probe.
The first community organization is Black Lives Matter Toronto, which aims to dismantle all forms of anti-black racism, support black healing, liberate blackness, affirm black existence and create the freedom to love and self-determination in Toronto (Opirgtoronto.com). The vision of this community organization is to be a platform that enables communities across Toronto to dismantle all forms of anti-black racism (Opirgtoronto.com). Its mission is to forge a critical network and work together with black communities and allies to destroy all forms of state-sanctioned oppression, brutality, and violence (Mullings et al., 2016).
Studies show that Black Torontonians contribute to all areas of city life, adding their talents and abilities to make Toronto more vibrant and successful. However, anti-black racism still exists in Toronto despite strong human rights laws and systems to address discrimination. This problem affects the lives of over 200,000 black Torontonians (Toronto.ca). According to DasGupta (2020), black students stand a higher chance of being expelled from Toronto, high scho...