“We’re Who We’ve Been Waiting For”: Intergenerational Community Organizing for a Healthy Community

Abstract

This study, guided by principles of community-based participatory research (CBPR), presents the processes, challenges, and effects of intergenerational community organizing practice of a local grassroots organization to promote community health in multiracial and historically marginalized communities. Three major lessons emerged: (1) the central role of experiential communal learning and critical analysis in collective knowledge creation, (2) development of collective efficacy through a genuine sense of connection and mutual affirmation, and 3) the importance of a co-learner stance in fostering intergenerational leadership. The interconnection between process and product is emphasized as the central tenet in both community organizing and CBPR processes.

KEYWORDS:

• community organizing
• community capacity building
• community-based participatory research
• intergenerational organizing

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I express gratitude to the organizing committee members of the Julius Ford/Harriet Tubman Healthy Living Community and acknowledge their full participation in this research.

Notes

¹ Because there was no separation between researchers and research participants, the first-person plural pronoun, we, is used when referring to both researchers and researcher participants in this article.