Advancement of Civic Engagement by Community Foundations in Low Income African American Communities

In recent years the revitalization of the community, in particular the role of citizens in the low income African-American community, has become more recognized. Local communities, nonprofit organizations, and government leaders regard citizen participation as an important element of an effective solution to address crime, unemployment, low graduation rate, and many other neighboring issues I will. Several successful initiatives produced results and provided strong evidence for the benefit of citizen participation.

In constitutional democracy, productive citizen participation requires the understanding of our American democratic history, principles and foundation, as well as the ability to participate in civic and democratic processes. People show civic participation when people solve public problems, individually and collectively maintain them, and strengthen and improve the community and society. Therefore, citizens are studying to some extent how to participate in governance of society, but that is that the government is a means to solve common problems and public issues. Citizens need knowledge elsewhere, and students need knowledge, state and local governments, markets, courts and legal institutions, civil society, institutions and practices of other countries, international institutions, and civic technologies to protect and change society You also need to understand.

The concept of citizen participation is becoming increasingly important as a way to reverse the vulnerability of personal interests and the rapid collapse of local life. Citizen participation has been applied in various environments from business to community development. The basic premise is that participation with behavioralists and intellectuals creates social and political connections to local communities. Through participatory processes, individuals regard themselves as an integral part of the community and citizen's judgment is strengthened. It is a means to achieve democratic equality and responsiveness in policy planning. It is also believed that "social capital", an increase in resources that individuals or groups draw from mutual understanding, awareness and cooperation

Citizen participation is to develop a combination of knowledge, skill, value and motivation to achieve this by trying to change the civic life of our community Responsibility and higher education, edited by Thomas Ehrlich, Published by Oryx Press, 2000, Preface, page 6. Local communities are good for society