CHARLES KONG SOO

Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly says the Busi­ness’ Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cate in Sus­tain­able Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment launched yes­ter­day at the Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness (ALJGSB) will use tech­nol­o­gy to em­pow­er par­tic­i­pants to solve chal­lenges in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Speak­ing at the launch of the pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Gads­by-Dol­ly said: “It is a cer­tifi­cate that trains per­sons who are in con­tact with com­mu­ni­ties, whether it’s from CBOs, NGOs or com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment of­fi­cers.

“It re­al­ly is an ap­proach to pro­fes­sion­al­iz­ing the whole con­cept of com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and ap­ply­ing a more sci­en­tif­ic ap­proach to solv­ing com­mu­ni­ty prob­lems, she said.

The min­is­ter said peo­ple in their re­spec­tive com­mu­ni­ties must be able to un­der­stand their prob­lems, de­sign so­lu­tions and im­ple­ment them to­geth­er as a col­lec­tive. They must mon­i­tor their progress, suc­cess and make changes in their meth­ods where nec­es­sary.

She said the 43 par­tic­i­pants in the first co­hort will be get­ting skills to make an im­pact in their com­mu­ni­ties.

Lec­tur­er Mirza Ali-Mo­hammed said the pro­gramme is de­signed for com­mu­ni­ty of­fi­cers, vol­un­teers and peo­ple who are in­ter­est­ed in get­ting in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty projects.

He said by the end of the pro­gramme on Ju­ly 20, par­tic­i­pants must be in­volved in de­vel­op­ing projects that are sus­tain­able and im­ple­mentable from which com­mu­ni­ties can ben­e­fit.