In A Basic Guide to ABCD Community, John McKnight discusses how communities can be formed and the power of associations. A community has its own culture, which is the way community members learn how to survive and prosper in a place. In essence, McKnight has made a brief guide on how a community finds “Our Way”. Our Way is a culture that emphasizes community and relationships built on trust. Interestingly, McKnight uses European pioneers as an ideal model for how to build community but excludes the challenges and conflicts that occurred by interacting with existing communities such as Native Americans, Africans, or Latin Americans during their respective colonial periods. It is important to note that, in McKnight’s guide to asset-based community development, communities are assumed to be starting from scratch, because “What did they have? There was some land, their tools and themselves” and, apparently, no other people or native inhabitants to interfere with their creation of a hometown that was “…an expression of themselves—their vision, their knowledge, their skills and their limitations. The result was a community in which they had pride, because it was fashioned their way” (1). I, also, observed this mentality within my brigade, because we were there first brigade in the community of Sagrejá, Cocle, Panama. We were creating a new community that involved us, outsiders beyond existing community borders, and the people that lived in the area. The creation of our community was within an existing community, similar to what the European pioneers encountered. I think that we tried very hard at the beginning of our trip to make Our Way as similar to the American Way as possible, and I would agree that we were prideful in fashioning this community. We were prideful, because we had trouble, at first, separating from our old ways and creating a new Our Way. Unlike McKnight’s model, there were some cultural challenges involved when creating a new community within a community. For example, during our very first reflection in Panama, most students were extremely negative. We thought the day at the clinic went terribly, mostly because we felt that the care we were delivering was not equal to the care we would receive in the United States. Also, we were anxious that the patients had to wait so long to receive care, because that is not in our American Way to have people wait hours to see the doctor. However, as the days moved on, I think that we accepted that Our Way was not going to be exactly the American Way, and this made us prideful in a different way by creating something new. In Our Way, waiting for hours for medical care was not stressful like it would be in the American Way, and offering to hold a mother’s baby so that she could visit the dentist did not cause skepticism or suspicion about safety. These are just a few examples of the way that Our Way became a mixture of our own cultural norms and the norms of Panamanians.

            The basis for community building lies on emphasizing individual’s gifts and not their limitations. These gifts create new opportunities for member of the community to connect and create a culture of community. I also saw this within our brigade, because another school, University of Maryland, was with us. This group was all pre-dentistry students and had experience in dentistry. Naturally in structuring our new community, we wanted to utilize their gifts and keep them in dentistry as much as possible, but we decided this was not to be done at the expense of other’s limitations. The pioneers built a culture of community “…by recognizing every capacity of everyone and using them to make a new way. They also set their needs, problems and deficiencies aside” (3).  In our brigade, those without experience in dentistry were still given the opportunity to participate in the dental rotation and learn from those who had gifts and knowledge related to dentistry, and those who were only comfortable with dentistry set aside their needs and deficiencies in the medical rotations to go where they were needed as well so that everyone could utilize their gifts and capacities.

            McKnight also discusses the power of gifts: working together begins to extend families and create a bigger support system, new connections and relationships form, we understand the limits of money, build trust, and feel powerful. It is interesting that McKnight claims, “We see that you can’t buy more safety, health, wisdom or wealth. But together we can create them” when there are clear health and social disparities within our own country and in the community of Sagrejá. It is a sociological trend that life expectancy increases with increasing income, wealth, social class, and education. I agree that a community creates safety, health, wisdom and wealth. But, to whom these benefits are given differs, and money is usually a good indicator of who has these benefits. I think that in McKnight’s guide the reader is supposed to assume that all gifts are valued equally and that all members of a community will enjoy the benefits equally. I think these concepts are a part of Global Brigades philosophy by trying to bring more equality in the world through community building, but the assumption that we are creating a community where everyone is starting on equal ground leaves us blind to the power that the Global Brigades association actually possesses. This is not to say that global brigaders are in any way superior as human being to anyone else, but who has power is not evenly distributed on a brigade. This is why when Global Brigades uses the power of associations of the ABCD model, it needs to recognize the tremendous good it can accomplish but also the negative impacts associations can make. Global Brigades uses a method of rotating brigades (medical, dental, public health, water, business, human rights, environmental, microfinance, and architecture), which I consider to be different associations with different interests coming together to accomplish a single goal of helping develop an underdeveloped community.

            In America, we have our own community, where “We could say, ‘We know how to to join in educating our children. We learned how. We found Our Way, and we would love to share it with your neighborhood because we also can learn from your way” (6).  But we have to be careful with this attitude, because the fact is that not everyone wants our gifts. McKnight has a very paternalist view that if we have something that we enjoy then it is our duty to share it with others, but following this logic is almost embarrassing. Imagine if the parenting you received from your mom or dad, which may be good for you, was imposed on your friends? Often times, we need to recognize that sharing our gifts is not our place. This is why it is important to recognize that in Global Brigades global community building there is disproportionate power. We need to be careful that in our excitement to share our gifts and learn from others gifts that we are not overstepping. McKnight does not address if our gifts are not wanted, and neither does Global Brigades at least on the student level. The upper level coordinators may have spoke with community member to find out if they wanted to be connected with students in Global Brigades, but the awareness of this on the student level is very minimal. In our own brigade, an American physician, Dr. Hussain, and ourselves had no idea that parasites were such a common issue for locals to the extent that everyone was prescribed Albendazole regardless of the reason for visiting the clinic. Also, I do not think we had enough medication to meet the prevalence of high blood pressure in the community. To me, these are indicators that students are often unaware of what gifts will be most appreciated. In the ABCD model, connectors such as Global Brigades are important, but I also think it is dangerous when it is the one part of a global community deciding who has what gifts and who those gifts should be given. In this case, students are often unaware of the long-term impacts that their actions make outside of the model that Global Brigades says will happen over time (more groups will come in after us and the community will eventually become more developed).

            Besides the skills and assets Global Brigades doctors, pharmacists, and dentists brought on our brigade and the assistance we brought as brigaders, I recognized the assets the community had already cultivated before we built our new global community. The reason we were able to see over 400 patients on our brigade was become the community had a large enough support system that everyone was watching each others children, and I saw farmers coming in and out at different times so that they were able to see the doctor without neglecting their work which the community depended on. In short, we were not the only ones addressing the community’s needs. The community was also addressing its own needs, such as childcare, to move towards a single goal of having better health.

            Although I think that McKnight’s guide to ABCD community organizing has many holes and Global Brigades utilizes many of its concepts, I think the intentions behind this guide is very human. This guide wants to translate the best human qualities, such as selfishness, into efficacious actions. However, like in our previous reading To Hell with Good Intentions by Ivan Illich, I think that good intentions are not always enough, but I think they are a good starting point for deeper digging that could lead to clear improvement in the lives of people who ask for our gifts.