Native Understanding of Participation and Empowerment in Community Development (Report‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Studies conducted by Simvised et al., (2008), Rashidpour et al., (2010), shows that community development is a structured intervention that gives communities greater control over the conditions that affect their lives. However, this does not solve all the problems faced by a local community (Novel et al., 2011; Theodoropoulou and Kaldis, 2008; Samah et al., 2011). Previous studies also clearly shows that the ineffectiveness of community development program to improve the quality of life of indigenous communities in Malaysia and Sarawak are often associated with the attitude of the planners who failed to understand the needs and the aspirations of the community from their own world view (Novel et al., 2011; Rashidpour et al., 2010; Samah et al., 2011). In addition, the implementation of the objectives of a development program typically highlights two things: Firstly, at the macro structure where the ideas and the understanding of planners or agencies are constructed by scientific world view and secondly, there is a tendency to construct Rostow theories of modernization without taking into consideration the importance of world view, social system and culture of the community itself (Novel et al., 2011; Rahman and Naoroze, 2007; Hoque and Itohara, 2009). This situation has led to lack of and neglect of understanding and knowledge about the needs of the community.