Creating Sustainable Community Among Marginalized Social Groups

Creating Sustainable Community among Marginalized Social Groups
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Creating Sustainable Community among Marginalized Social Groups
The many societal issues experienced by communities call for social solutions. Community development has gained popularity as an approach to social issues because it provides social solutions to these problems (Matarrita-Cascante & Brennan, 2012). It empowers social groups to take collective action in identifying and addressing social issues. As Shaw (2008) reveals, community development is founded on the concepts of agency and structure and is influenced by power relations within the community. Power relations exclude and marginalize non-dominant groups in the community, and community development must address this marginalization by eliminating constraints and enhancing opportunities within a community. This paper’s aim is to explore community development in marginalized social groups. Specifically, this paper explores how community development can be used to create sustainable communities among marginalized social groups, with a particular focus on how health and well-being can be integrated into the community to create sustainable development.
Understanding Marginalized Social Groups
Marginalized social groups are those groups that have been left voiceless on matters of development. According to Pratt (2019), groups have been marginalized based on gender, socio-economic status, disability, ethnicity/race, and education status. Others have been marginalized based on their sexual orientation and age. These groups are rarely listened to, if at all, leaving their needs, opinions, and ideas unattended. They continue to face barriers to community participation and engagement. Okech et al. (2020) posit that a marginalization is a form of oppression that denies marginalized social groups access to resources and opportunities. Dominant social groups push marginalized groups out of thriving social, economic, and political spaces. They are disconnected from the available production and consumption means because they operate on the edges of society. At the edges of society is where homelessness, poor health and well-being, inadequate education, poverty, and hunger are found.
However, community development allows communities to become decision-makers, actors, and producers of information, taking charge of their individual and group stories. It provides a way for communities to be in charge of their issues, providing solutions that are unique to the needs of each marginalized social group. As Howard and Wheeler (2015) reveal, community development recognizes that marginalized social groups have autonomy and agency, which gives them the capacity to identify not only the issues affecting them but also the potential solutions to these issues. Some social issues are common across marginalized social groups. For instance, due to limited access to resources and opportunities, marginalized social groups may experience poverty. However, some issues are unique to specific marginalized social groups, contributing to different needs for the marginalized social group. For instance, those with a different sexual...