What type of participation leads to empowerment in community development?
社区发展中哪些类型的参与能导致赋权？

Participation and empowerment are two essential concepts in community development, which is a unique method in development programmes aiming to improve the living conditions of the community. This is also a strategy to involve villages and communities in building their own lives, thereby contributing to national progress. The social and economic conditions are expected to improve through the voluntary and cooperative nature of the community. In the process of community development, people’s participation is essential when making decisions that affect their lives in order to gain confidence, self-esteem, knowledge and new skills.
参与和赋权是社区发展的两个基本方法，是改善社区生活条件开展项目的独特方法。这也是一种让村庄和社区参与建设自己的生活，从而促进国家进步的战略。通过社区的自愿性和合作性，社区的社会和经济条件有望得到改善。在社区发展过程中，人们在做出影响其生活的决策时，为了获得信心、自尊、知识和新技能，参与是必不可少的。

In some community development practices, participation is seen as a mean of achieving a series of objectives or goals. In other words, the targets are predetermined and then completed by using the economic and social resources of rural people. While in different practices, participation is seen as an end, a dynamic, unquantifiable and unpredictable process that gradually builds up participants’ confidence and solidarity. It is a bottom-up influence and involvement created and activated by local needs and circumstances.
在一些社区发展实践中，参与被视为实现一系列目标或目的的手段。换句话说，目标是预先确定的，然后利用乡村人民的经济和社会资源来完成。而在不同的实践中，参与被看作是一种目的，是一个动态的、不可量化的、不可预知的过程，它能逐渐建立起参与者的信心和团结。它是一种自下而上的影响和参与，是由当地的需求和环境创造和激活的。

As for the empowerment in community development, it is considered as an essential goal to empower people and their communities. The core of the concept is powerful. Two things decide the possibility of authorization: First, the power can be changed. Otherwise, it is inherent to the position of the person and unable to empower in any meaningful way. Second, the power can be expanded. In other words, it is a process of change by which individuals or groups with little or no power gain the power and ability to make choices that affect their lives.
至于社区发展中的赋权，则被认为是赋予村民及其社区权力的基本目标。这个概念的核心是强大的。有两点决定了授权的可能性。第一，权力是可以改变的。否则，人的立场所固有的，无法以任何有意义的方式授权。第二，权力是可以扩大的。换言之，它是一个变化的过程，通过这个过程，权力很小或没有权力的个人或群体，他们能获得做出影响其生活的选择权。

Based on the possibility of empowerment – if power can be changed and expanded, the empowerment becomes workable. If participation is regarded as mean, people are passive in such process and unable to control their lives, hence cannot be empowered either. But when participation is considered as an end, people are directly involved and will be empowered and able to control while making decisions that affect their lives. Therefore, it seems that participation as an end can lead to empowerment.
基于赋权的可能性——如果权力可以改变和扩大，赋权就变得可行。如果把参与看作是一种刻薄的行为，那么人们在这一过程中是被动的，无法控制自己的生活，因此也就无法获得权力。但如果把参与看作是目的，人们就会直接参与其中，在做出影响自己生活的决定时，就会被赋予权力，能够控制自己的生活。因此，参与作为一种目的，似乎可以导致赋权。

In such a bottom-up approach, community affairs are mainly managed by the community, and the community members participate in the entire process from decision-making to evaluation. During the process of decision-making, the community acquires greater power and control to improve the quality of life. Thus, they will become more independent and empowered. Since the community is capable of meeting their needs without outer assistance, community development becomes sustainable. Some theories assert that empowerment can be achieved through a bottom-up approach. Empowerment involves grassroots actions, creating self-awareness, and social transformation, so as to achieve negotiation and sharing of power in urban management and other aspects.
在这种自下而上的方式中，社区事务主要由社区管理，社区成员可以从决策到评估全过程参与。在决策的过程中，社区获得了更大的权力和控制权，以提高生活质量。因此，他们将变得更加独立和有能力。由于社区有能力在没有外部援助的情况下满足自己的需求，社区发展就会变得可持续。一些理论认为，可以通过自下而上的方式实现赋权。赋权涉及到基层行动、创造自我意识、社会转型，从而实现城市管理等方面的协商和权力分享 。

Therefore, in the practices of community development, to achieve a higher degree of empowerment, we should attempt to make the initial planning more bottom-up in the reasonable range and regard participation as an end. Only in this way can the participation of people be effective rather than superficial and meaningless.
因此，在社区发展的实践中，为了实现更高程度的赋权，我们应该尝试在合理的范围内，使最初的规划更加自下而上，把参与作为目的。只有这样，人们的参与才是有效的，而不是表面的、无意义的。