Spiritual_Wellness_Holistic_Health_and_the_Practic

184 Philosophical Foundations of Health Education
FIGURE 18.1
Model of Empowerment
Community
Organization
Group
Development
Coalition
Advocacy
Personal
Care
Political
Action
expressed in a challenge to professionals made by Lily Walker, an Australian aboriginal
woman: “ If you are here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you
come because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us begin ” (Valvarde, 1991,
p. 4).
THE EMPOWERMENT HOLOSPHERE
To illustrate this beginning, I will use a simple model of empowerment as a professional
practice, developed during the workshops (Figure 18.1 ). The model identifies
the range of strategies that health professionals and health agencies need to employ if
they are to reduce or ameliorate inequitable social conditions. These strategies are
not the responsibility of any one health worker or discipline but, rather, are an organizational
and interorganizational mandate. The individual professional ’ s responsibility
is to see that the whole process is engaged, and to find a place in its engagement.
Each of the model ’s “ spheres ” represents a different level of social organization and
relationship — interpersonal (personal empowerment), intragroup (small group development),
intergroup (community organization), interorganizational (coalition building
and advocacy, political action). Heuristically, the model links in practice the individual,
organizational, and community levels of empowerment discussed by Israel,
Checkoway, Schulz, and Zimmerman, 1994, and so overcomes some of the historic
limitations of professional actions. The model is discussed in detail elsewhere
(Labonte, 1992, 1993b; Labonte & Little, 1992); what follows is a summary of central
practice concerns in each sphere. Although I have defined empowerment as a
relationship, and therefore professionals and the people or groups with whom they
work are both significant actors, the discussion that follows focuses on the professional
half of the relationship.