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MY OUTLOOK ON EMPOWERMENT

05/07/2017 00:59:00 BY PRUDENCE HLATSHWAYO

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Most of us concur that the concept of ‘Empowerment’ can be workably defined around the central area of control (power) over decision-making about one’s life and destiny.

Agarwal, 2001 stipulates that the concept is commonly used when dealing with development intervention programmes. It simply explains how the poor and marginalised are being involved in decision-making especially in the economic and political arenas of their lives.

The empowerment perspective in social work is when the intervention applied to help a client is one that is believed to be able to provide them with certain skills and or resources that will enable them to be independent or stand on their own.

Words such as autonomy and self-determination are often used to define empowerment. Let me pause a bit and ask this question: What does empowerment mean to you as a human being or a professional? In the early 1990s, when the term empowerment was being researched and integrated into our vocabulary, I was working in the mental health field. I remember thinking to myself that at the core of this model is the social work value of self-determination, a historically lacking value in the mental health system (at that actual period).

As social workers, we deal with isolated, discriminated, marginalised, vulnerable, poverty stricken clients and so on. So, if you have never been discriminated yourself, do you think you can be able to empower this client with the right tool? In harmony with this article empowerment is a very tricky notion and one needs to tread carefully. What makes the practitioner able to determine what it is an individual needs to feel empowered is controversial, thus rendering it subjective.

As we further analyse this concept it arises in my mind how as a practitioner do you inculcate empowerment on your client when you, yourself are not empowered? I conclude that the most fundamental base of my own professional empowerment is being knowledgeable about the laws and policies under which we operate.

This would compel us to read the actual texts of policies and laws that govern our work with people we aim to assist professionally. Additionally, when I teach policy advocacy to my undergraduate social work students, I talk about helping them to find their ‘voice’ in the political process for social change. Even if they don’t end up liking it, they know they can and should absolutely participate.

I also teach a very strong message that I share with my co-workers, and that is: “Know what you are talking about and who you are talking to.” In other words, do your homework; knowledge truly is power. Read the actual policies concerned and know them inside and out. My argument is: There is a funny urban legend that happens with policies. People tell others what the law or policy says, and by the time it gets to you, there are many interpretations to it.

Who determines empowerment? At the core of the concept of empowerment is the idea of power.
The possibility of empowerment depends on two things. First, empowerment requires that power can change. If power cannot change, if it is inherent in positions or people, then empowerment is not possible, nor is empowerment conceivable in any meaningful way. In other words, if power can change, then empowerment is possible. Second, the concept of empowerment depends upon the idea that power can expand.

This second point reflects our common experiences of power rather than how we think about power. In basic and general terms, the empowerment approach suggests that a welfare beneficiary for instance, is being helped in some ways to develop their autonomy and independence. As an individual one can be empowered to make decisions and taking action affecting one’s life.

Think about this: if women are to be empowered to play a full role in determining their own development needs, then it is clear that there is a need to move away from expert and reprivatisation discourses and adopt a politicised view that aligns development research and programmes for women with women’s own need interpretations. Conclusively, empowerment as a process of change, then, becomes a meaningful concept.