Community initiatives

34. Faced with misery and poverty, more people and groups are increasingly choosing to take part in community action everywhere. These initiatives must be strongly encouraged. At the present time, more countries are increasingly supporting people's participation. But, in some places attempts are still being made to thwart these initiatives, where they are a source of irritation—sometimes with very dire consequences—even though they are the indispensable foundations of genuine development.

The Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) set up locally to undertake development work have encouraged the constitution of a new people-based civil society in many developing countries. These NGOshave devised a wide range of different ways to work together and provide support. Thanks to the impetus given by the people who have paved the way, many of the very poorest people are now able to break free of poverty and improve their plight in terms of hunger and malnutrition.

Over the last few years, Catholic International Associations and New Ecclesial Communities have embarked on initiatives in the socio-economic field. In combating hunger and poverty those groups have been basing their work on the medieval guilds, and above all, the cooperative unions in the 19th century when advocates of the common good created institutions according to the spirit of the Gospel or based on social solidarity. The first person to emphasise the need to create organisations for social advancement was the Quaker P. C. Plockboy (1695). Other pioneers of notoriety are: Félicité Robert de Lamennais (1782-1854), Adolf Kolping (1856), Robert Owen (1771-1858) and Baron Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler (1811-1877). Today, associations are coming into being to advance the common good of society, and to stave off selfishness, pride and greed which are often the laws that govern community life. These experiences throughout history and the achievements of these new initiatives bode well for the future(⁵¹).