Community Work Approach in Addressing Social Problems: Three Community Case Studies from Sri Lanka

Abstract

Human development is at the center of social work to intervene in diverse problems affecting humanity. Community work is a direct method of community development that attempts to serve many people at a macro level. A community case study documents a local experience about delivering services to meet an identified need. This paper aims to illustrate three examples of community case studies that were developed while working with three diverse communities in Sri Lanka. The first community case study describes efforts to efforts to promote social harmony through child engagement in a rural community with ethnoreligious diversity in the Polonnaruwa District. The second community case study documents prioritizing several problems faced by an urban, underserved community located close to the Kolonnawa Garbage dump in the Colombo District. The third case study is on women's engagement in community development and harmony in a peri-urban community in the Gampaha District. The paper provides evidence for the effectiveness of community work in addressing diverse social issues in communities.