Church-Based Community Development: Breaking the Cycle of Unemployment and Illiteracy in the New Green Community of Manchester, Jamaica

This project addresses the work of the New Green Baptist Church in alleviating illiteracy and unemployment in the community in which it is situated. The process began with the acknowledgement that God is after human flourishing which comes with establishing abundant communities. As such the good news is proclaimed, blind eyes are opened, captives are set free, the oppressed are delivered and there is clear evidence that salvation and the free favours of God abound.
The methodologies employed include asset mapping and community consultations. The information gathering process took approximately eight months the results from which appear in the appendices. A new change management construct using AI, project management and change management processes was designed and is being used in the transformative work underway in the community.
The outcomes so far include the design of a discipleship programme for the church the intention of which is to make members a community of choice to which others in the general community will seek to belong; a youth intervention programme; mediation in terms of creating employment opportunities, training in life and technical skills, literacy and numeracy training all with a view to building not only the human but also the physical capacity of the community.
Through the community consultations, external stakeholder collaboration and support has increased considerably and through the unrelenting initiatives of this project group the community has established a community club which will enable them to attract even greater external assistance going forward.