Democratic Governance And Social Development

Community development involves changing the relationships between ordinary people and people in positions of power, so that everyone can take part in the issues that affect their lives. It starts from the principle that within any community there is a wealth of knowledge and experience which, if used in creative ways, can be channeled into collective action to achieve the communities' desired goals.

Though American Indians are enjoying an independent public health system with above $3 billion funds provided by Congress annually for delivering healthcare services to them, still figure and facts on health status of American Indians reveal that they are facing many difficulties and have to suffer from diverse type of illness and disease at a misappropriate level. Since long it was identified by medical communities that there are wide spread diseases diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, unintentional injuries, and other health conditions among American Indian and they are dying of these diseases at shocking rates (American Heart Association [AHA], 2010). Through this essay I want to discuss the healthcare status of American Indians in the perspective of their culture as how it impacted and lead to develop mistrust between amongst the medical community and American Indians.

An adequate survey must be conducted. An adequate survey requires impartially worded questions, and a high participation percentage.

Adding to the conversation, academic scholar Daniel Carlock notes, “health disparities between Native Americans and the general population of the United States are a major health concern” (Carlock, Danielle). Hence, an inherent culturally based issue arises where natives are disregarding modern medicine and Western medical practices and instead turning to a traditional holistic approach. Alternative to standard science being the leading factor towards understanding illness and medicine, a cultural barrier divides indigenous peoples perception of the effectiveness of Western science in regards to traditional beliefs. This creates much difficulty for the U.S. government agency the Indian Health Service providing health care and assistance to federally recognized tribes and indigenous peoples. Commenting on Native American health discrepancies, professor James E. Cheek finds “the infectious disease rate in Native Americans populations was significantly higher than that of Whites”(Cheek, James E). This connects Native American cultural beliefs to an increase in medical disparities in relationship to following standard Western medical practices. With tradition ingrained in Native American culture, indigenous medical practices fail to focus on pathology and curing the disease, instead restoring balance between one's mind, body, and spirit is the focus of natives. Consequently, this is leading to standard Western medical practices and medicine being disregarded because Western culture in terms of medicine has been seen to impede important native spirituality beliefs. “The rates for the top ten underlying causes of death were significantly higher for Native American persons than those for whites” (Cheek, James E). This study accounts for the disparities in regards to

I believe that increasing the autonomy that individual Indigenous communities have over their health care system needs to happen to incorporate all the diverse Indigenous cultures. We have seen in this class that when it comes to Indigenous peoples health issues’ need to be addressed by whole cultural communities rather than dealing with one individual wounds (Chandler & Dunlop, 2015). This is largely due to the shared cultural wounds communities have from colonization, residential schooling, and dispossession of knowledge (Wexler, 2016). For example, diabetes prevalence rates amongst Indigenous peoples across Canada have increased by 70% over the past 15 years (Martin, 2016). However, prior to the 1980s there was no reported incidences of diabetes for Inuit peoples and none for First Nations prior to the 1950s (Martin, 2016). Similarly, in Northwest Alaska, where suicide is a big issue amongst the Indigenous communities, there were no recorded youth suicides until the 1960s (Wexler, 2016). Therefore, allowing communities to make their own decisions would also prevent a potential mistake of painting all Indigenous communities in Canada with the same brush to arrive at a one-size-fits-all approach (Chandler & Dunlop, 2015).

I will be researching and writing about American Indian health issues. When I was searching for a topic, I came across a fact sheet about the mental health and population of American Indians. And I found out that there are about 1.5% American Indians in the United States.2 I did not know that there were so many issues in their society. I would like to focus on why they are having so many health issues, what are the major issues occurring, and who is helping them get rid of these issues.

The healthcare workers providing assistance to the American Indian population today are most likely non-Natives (Warne, 2007). The cultural knowledge of these providers for the American Indian is not vast and results in less quality care. More

Why is it important for us to organize ourselves with a Smart plan when conducting research for the Civic Engagement project? And how would this improve the quality of our work?

In a wider concept it would mean engaging individuals or groups within the community to take advantage of available resources to change and improve their life and make the place they live in better and more hospitable.

The mobilizing community is a pillar of development policies and interventions seeking to promote health in low-income settings (Rifkin, 1996, 2009). Community mobilization usually involves collaboration among health workers and communities in activities seeking to ‘empower’ them or ‘build their capacity’ to exercise greater agency over their

For me, I do not have enough knowledge about this project and there are so many topics that I do not have an enough in depth knowledge.And I am serious about the part of doing a questionnaire survey.

Community development around the world is being practised by various entities, addressing various socio-economic issues that are unique to different communities worldwide. According to Bhattacharyya (2004), community development initiatives are dominant in democratic countries. There are various initiatives that have led to significant shifts in the wellbeing of communities using different development tools to develop communities around the world. South African, which is a democratic country has one of the highest income gabs in the world. The country’s income difference is evident in many townships/rural areas around the country’s underdeveloped communities. The positive impact of community development may be seen in the fields of public health, micro-macro development, food and violence (Bhattacharyya, 2004).

True community development exemplifies the relationship between the local actor and the interconnectedness that needs to exist to accomplish change.

Community development (CD) has been playing an important role within the society as it is a critical practice that identifies and attempts to address unequal relations of power (Forde & Lynch, 2015). In CD, social capital is an important term as it refers to the networks and norms that enable collective action. In general, social capital is the level of trust between members within the community. Social workers need to understand and empower the social capital to strengthen the community through collective action based on the existing resources.

In survey method research, participants answer questions administered through interviews or questionnaires. After participants answer the questions, researchers describe the responses given. In order for the survey to be both reliable and valid it is important that the questions are constructed properly. Questions should be written so they are clear and easy to comprehend.