Citizen Advocacy Organisations - Key Ideas

Key Ideas

At the heart of the work of a Citizen Advocacy organisation is the belief that how well an individual or group is valued by society (as a whole) affects how society treats them.

If an individual or group is seen as having value then society (as a whole) will treat them well. The result that they will have the full benefit of being part of that society.

If an individual or group is identified by society as 'different', and is seen as having less value (than everyone else) then society will treat them poorly. For instance they will be disempowered and excluded, made into scapegoats, segregated, and put with others seen to be like them.

This idea is seen as particularly powerful in the context of certain groups of people whom society identifies (incorrectly) as being somehow fundamentally negatively different from, and of lower value than, ordinary people (for instance 'the mentally ill' or 'people with special needs' or 'autistic people' or 'asylum seekers').

Citizen Advocacy organisations seek to cause benefit by connecting individual people who have been excluded and devalued with someone generally seen by society as being valued. There are some clear immediate effects on the person's exclusion and sense of self-worth. But also very important are the anticipated effects brought about when the ordinary community sees that a 'valued' person has an ordinary relationship with this person (e.g. a friendship), and that this 'valued' person sees them as an equal (i.e. also a 'valued' person). However, the anticipated effects are even wider than this, in that it is assumed that society (in general) will extend their conclusions to cover the group of people whom the individual has been seen to belong to.