YSBC@CUHK, the CUHK Alumni Charity Foundation, and the Chinese University Social Enterprise Fund (CUSE Fund) will jointly cooperate in the ABCD project, which aims to:

• Establish an asset map for the community

• Build a community vision and plan

• Mobilize and link up assets for economic and community development 

 

Asset-based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach that recognizes strengths and assets rather than focuses on needs and problems for a positive action of changes in a community. It is also a community-driven development rather than development driven by external agencies. It provides a perspective to recognize the contribution of the capacities and associations of local people towards a powerful community. In other words, rather than a need-based approach, it is an asset-based approach of community development. This process provides a new lens for the community to look at its own strengths as its assets for new possibilities. These assets include not only skills but also relationships among people and associations in different forms of social networks, which acts as vehicles for the community’s assets to be identified and connected.

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Strategies of the project:

1. Appreciative inquiry

2. Recognition of social capital as an important community asset

3. Community economic development

4. Efforts of building active citizenship engagement and a stronger civil society

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Different stakeholders including individuals and families of different age groups and social classes, government agencies, NGOs, and private organizations in the community will be involved during the process, which provides an opportunity for these parties to know more about their own community. In order to achieve the goals, the Project proposes to establish a community hub in the area. While local school is an important community asset in terms of its physical space and social network, it is an ideal place for the community hub. The Project intends to turn the school campus into a community hub for a series of specially designed community events and programmes under the approach of ABCD.