Flourishing communities: A new model to promote sustainable community leadership and transformation in semi‐rural Kenya

Abstract

Communities often face numerous challenges and opportunities—situations that may be reduced to specific domains by researchers, policy makers and interventionists. This study informs and animates a new “flourishing community” model that seeks to build collective capacity to respond to challenges and opportunities. Our work is a response to children living on the streets, whose families face myriad challenges. The Sustainable Development Goals make explicit the need for new, integrative models that acknowledge the interplay of challenges and opportunities within communities through the flow of everyday life. Flourishing communities are generative, supportive, resilient, compassionate, curious, responsive and self‐determined, and they build resources across economic, social, educational, and health domains. Integrating theoretical models—specifically, community‐led development, multi‐systemic resilience, and the “broaden and build” cycle of attachment—provides a testable framework to understand and explore hypothesised relationships between survey‐collected, cross‐sectional variables with 335 participants. Higher collective efficacy, a common byproduct of group‐based microlending activities, was correlated with higher sociopolitical control. This correlation was mediated by higher positive emotion, meaning in life, spirituality, curiosity, and compassion. Further research is required to understand replicability, cross‐sectoral impact, mechanisms of integrating health and development domains, and implementation challenges of the flourishing community model. Please refer to the Supplementary Material section to find this article's Community and Social Impact Statement.

A social innovation to empower community-led monitoring and mobilization for HIV prevention in rural Kenya: experimenting to reduce the HIV prevention policy-implementation gap

“…This report presents the preliminary findings of a community intervention in Kenya known as the "flourishing community" model. Its overarching objective is to foster sustainable well-being at the individual, family, and community levels (17), encompassing economic, social, psychological, behavioral, and physical dimensions. More detailed accounts of the intervention are available elsewhere…”

Enabling structural resilience of street-involved children and youth in Kenya: reintegration outcomes and the Flourishing Community model

“…Our strategy to reintegrate former SICY, and prevent their migration to the street, requires community engagement. Since 2017, we have been iteratively designing and testing features of the model we now call “Flourishing Communities” ( Goodman et al, 2022a ). Beginning with the home village of a child identified as living on the street, this program has grown to over 39 villages with over 10,000 weekly participating families (as of December 2022).…”

“…While the overall model, intended to be generalizable beyond its specific context, is called Flourishing Communities, the program that continues to give rise and clarity to the Flourishing Community model is called “Kuja Pamoja kwa Jamii” ( KPJ ; Swahili for “Come Together for the place where we belong”). An adaptation and expansion of group-based microlending and communal governance approaches, more has been published on the KPJ design, organization and practices ( Goodman et al, 2021a ) and proposed psychosocial mechanisms ( Goodman et al, 2022a ).…”

“…The terminology “flourishing” was selected deliberately to underscore that while the communities that participate in the program face various challenges from multiple sources, levels, and histories, it is their potential and opportunities for growth that define the program staff’s relationship with them ( Goodman et al, 2022a ). While resilience is a process in response to adversity, flourishing is a process in response to opportunity.…”

“…As fruit indicates the growth of healthy trees and carries seeds to develop other trees and their own fruit, the results of Flourishing Communities improvements across sectors and domains will result in lasting benefits and will inspire other communities. For more extensive discussion of the social psychology and facets of community development of the Flourishing Community model, (please see Goodman et al, 2022a ).…”