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EMPOWERMENT Knowledge is Power Empower the People
Pratibha J. Mishra
“Empowerment is a continuos process that enables people tounderstand, upgrade and uses their capacity to better control and gain powerover their own lives. It provides people with choices the ability to chooseas well as to gain more control over resources the need to improve their conditions” (UNICEF, 1996)
Promoting Popular Participation and Empowerment willrequire changes in institutional practices and social relations. What changeshave been successfully promoted throughParticipation & Empowerment projects at a) the national level (for example:institutions, laws, Gov. policies and programmes, -all with the goal toof supporting equality between women and men); b) the development co-operation programme, and c) the NGO/CBO itself(its procedures and structures)
Empowering an individual is to facilitate a process, the end result of which is to help the individual gain a sense of worth, confidence, and competence. Johnson and Johnson (1997) described a basic method by which an empowerment process can be launched. The idea is to allow the individual to experience the power that comes from making a choice. The group leader could facilitate this by helping members develop a variety of alternatives and flexibility in helping the client through a decision-making process.
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