What is COCD?

Community Organization
Community Organization is a process by which people, health services and agencies of the community are brought together to:
• Learn about common problems.
• Identify these problems as their own.
• Plan the kind of action needed to solve these problems.
• Act on this basis.
Community Organization contributes to the establishment of an environment with different community resources – natural, institutional, technical, financial and human resources – and can function with maximum effectiveness. It also stimulates the various groups to examine their programs to determine how well they are meeting their problems.
People are given a chance to study their problems, offer solutions and give a chance to plan an action. As a result of this working together, a strong unity and coherence is developed among various organizations and leaders of the community represented so that they developed a feeling of responsibility for making the program successful.
Community organization sets up action pattern to solve problems.
Murray G. Ross (1967) defines community organization as a “process by which a community identifies its needs or objectives, gives priority to them, develops confidence and will to work at them, finds resources (internal and external) to deal with them, and in doing so, extends and develops cooperative and collaborative attitudes and practices in the community”.

Community Development
Community development is a way of strengthening civil society by prioritizing the actions of communities, and their perspectives in the development of social, economic and environmental policy. It seeks the empowerment of local communities, taken to mean both geographical communities, communities of interest or identity and communities organizing around specific themes or policy initiatives. It strengthens the capacity of people as active citizens through their community groups, organizations and networks; and the capacity of institutions and agencies (public, private and non-governmental) to work in dialogue with citizens to shape and determine change in their communities. It plays a crucial role in supporting active democratic life by promoting the autonomous voice of disadvantaged and vulnerable communities. It has a set of core values/social principles covering human rights, social inclusion, equality and respect for diversity; and a specific skills and knowledge base.
Community development is a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems. Community wellbeing (economic, social, environmental and cultural) often evolves from this type of collective action being taken at a grassroots level. Community development ranges from small initiatives within a small group to large initiatives that involve the broader community.
Community development seeks to improve quality of life. Effective community development results in mutual benefit and shared responsibility among community members. Community development helps to build community capacity in order to address issues and take advantage of opportunities, find common ground and balance competing interests.

Sources: http://www.scribd.com/doc/22569755/Community-Organization-Definition-a-Process-by-Which-People-Health http://www.ignou.ac.in/upload/bswe-03-block1-unit-1-small-size.pdf http://www.peernetbc.com/what-is-community-development http://www.scdc.org.uk/who/what-is-community-development/