Insufficient means for community initiative

Although people in many small communities may express their wishes and hopes, they may not have the means to implement them. Channels of community decision-making tend to be obscure, there is little leadership training, and communities do not realize that people are their most valuable resource. The community remains fragmentary and individualistic, unable to gather either the momentum or the consensus which would allow it to move ahead. An attitude that outside official structures are responsible for most dimensions of economic and social development further reduces their willingness to assume local responsibility. The inevitable result of living in this situation is a sense of powerlessness.

Technical planning skills and community organization are required to allow all residents to participate in important community issues on land use, schooling, community relations with government, and industrial and commercial development requiring complex decisions and strategic action. However, when residents try to expand the present educational facilities, their plans are generally untargeted.