How would you answer that concluding sentence: "given the true complex nature of 'community,' is this 'engagement' possible?"
Instead of finding a group that is representative of the "community," every person from the actual village should attend the meetings and share their personal thoughts and opinions. Especially since this village was pretty small, one member from every family could have shared their true desires. Community need not be homogeneous. A community is more like a group of people who have to interact on a daily basis. People for parity helps the community it surrounds, which is mostly Delhi University and IIT Delhi students. Thus, the community is the college campuses and the markets right outside of the colleges. Once you have identified the community's interactions and divides, a group of volunteers can choose to deal with specific types of people and ideas present in the community. This way there is a representative for each type of person and not a representative for a non-existing "homogeneous" group. Each volunteer works with their part of the community. Together, everyone is working on the community to make it a better place in whatever way. Yes, the nature is definitely complex. Volunteers and members of the community must make a full effort to engage. Only then is engagement possible. It's a two-way relationship. You must know enough to empathize with them and listen to their ideas. They must know you enough to trust letting you represent their ideas. A government exists due to factions. A community exists because of its divides. Our job is not necessarily to extinguish the divides, but it is definitely to notice the non-homogeneous society and to give or find fair representation.
Instead of finding a group that is representative of the "community," every person from the actual village should attend the meetings and share their personal thoughts and opinions. Especially since this village was pretty small, one member from every family could have shared their true desires. Community need not be homogeneous. A community is more like a group of people who have to interact on a daily basis. People for parity helps the community it surrounds, which is mostly Delhi University and IIT Delhi students. Thus, the community is the college campuses and the markets right outside of the colleges. Once you have identified the community's interactions and divides, a group of volunteers can choose to deal with specific types of people and ideas present in the community. This way there is a representative for each type of person and not a representative for a non-existing "homogeneous" group. Each volunteer works with their part of the community. Together, everyone is working on the community to make it a better place in whatever way. Yes, the nature is definitely complex. Volunteers and members of the community must make a full effort to engage. Only then is engagement possible. It's a two-way relationship. You must know enough to empathize with them and listen to their ideas. They must know you enough to trust letting you represent their ideas. A government exists due to factions. A community exists because of its divides. Our job is not necessarily to extinguish the divides, but it is definitely to notice the non-homogeneous society and to give or find fair representation.
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