Introduction
During the colonial period, the first social assistance practices in Cuba were developed by isolated people or religious institutions, who from paternalistic positions carried out charitable actions to help or succor those who needed it, without requiring special preparation for this. This seems to indicate that Cuba, during the colonial period, was no exception. With the emergence of the Republic, an attempt was made to organize these charitable practices primarily at the initiative of religious communities or associations.
During the period of the ruler Fulgencio Batista, some institutions were created in charge of developing social assistance such as: the National Organization for the Rehabilitation of Invalids, the National Organization of Children's Dispensaries (ONDI), the National Organization of Popular and School Canteens, the National Public Assistance Corporation, the Directorate of Attention to Minors and the System of Scholarships for children.
However, during his term of office, social differences worsened, sharply deepening poverty and the ills of the people, to which was added the neglect by the State of the institutions in charge of developing this work, which translates into an important backlog of Social Service.
A period of change in this sense occurred in 1959, after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, when a group of structural transformations were adopted that favored social welfare by effectively combating poverty and the other ills that afflicted the population., benefiting the most vulnerable groups, who became the center of attention, while the incorporation of the people to important tasks was achieved, with the active participation of social organizations.
Summary
Social work in Cuba has gone through different stages that, since the imposition of different socioeconomic regimes, have fulfilled various functions. All this coupled with the constant influences of foreign currents of the discipline.
This has also been seen as community work, but in its essence each one has its particularities that identify it in the work of its professionals and in the regulatory relations of the parties. These elements that we propose below.
Development
Historical evolution of social and community work
There are various criteria that in the first form of social organization, the Primitive Community, there were forms or pre-forms of social work. This and its professional practice since its emergence at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, has been the subject of speeches and various controversies. Taking a tour of the international scientific bibliography, we find different criteria in relation to the discussions in this field, there are even those who consider it as an art, or a technology, a science or scientific discipline. Social work was born and developed linked to the idea of philanthropy, of help, of acts of charity, from this practice it evolved over time, certain theorists assume; instead, there is another approach that in my personal opinion,it is more acceptable insofar as it is intended to see social work from its own emergence, as an instrument of the bourgeois social order, since it responded to the interests of the economically ruling class.
Starting from these questions, there are essential approaches to the sciences and the professions that define two elements of vital importance; the first, the oppressive approach, and the second the emancipatory approach. Obviously the latter is more accepted in the process of recognizing the contradictory nature of our reality. It starts from the recognition that contradictions are the basis of development, so it is necessary to transform and overcome those contradictions.
Social work was a spawn of capitalism, one of its many hegemonic hoaxes to maintain the power of the economically dominant class and make the social care process a socio-political instrument, hence my disagreement with those who conceive the emergence of social work as process of aid, charity, etc., but is validated by a political and ideological character that is identified with the bourgeoisie.
This has gone through various stages throughout its history, which have allowed it to develop over time, say assistance, social services and reconceptualization. In the first, the social system seeks support, help from philanthropists; thus, social assistance adopts more systematic and consciously organized forms. In 1869 it reached its peak with the founding of the London Charity Organization Society (COS). Help for the effects of life risks, Social assistance is characterized by:
• Interest in maintaining bourgeois order.
• Control of the social issue.
• Socialization of the capitalist way of thinking.
Social services as another part or stage through which social work has passed is an operational strategy of social assistance that adapts to the organizational structure of bourgeois society, constituted as an important social control. The absence of the identity construction movement weakened, fragmented the social consciousness of professional agents, preventing them from collectively assuming the historical meaning of the profession, which ended up expressing and reproducing the face of capitalism. From there the following question arises: What is the origin of social services?
1. It has the mark of capitalism and its underlying variables.
2. Born of social work articulated to a bourgeois hegemonic project.
3. arises with an identity attributed by capitalism.
It can be recognized that most of the professional activity of social workers will be promoted within the social services as a space and place of presence for the majority of those of us who practice this profession.
The third stage, and not the last one owes less importance to it, is that of reconceptualization. This emerged in the mid-1960s, in the southern cone of Latin America, recognizing the origin of social inequalities, questioning the proposals for adaptation to the environment, denouncing the social reality and the roles assigned to those who practiced social work., the commitment of the political projects of the social sectors; Thus incorporating the concept of awareness, quantitative and qualitative changes are produced in the study programs, denying in addition to the techniques, which generated problems of academic training and professional practice. This stage had all this development, from my modest criteria, which in this sense coincides with other researchers,in the wave of immigration from the European continent to this area of the American continent. Based on all the above, I consider, like the scholar of the subject Dr. Ramón Rivero Pino, social work is a scientific discipline and a professional activity developed from institutional settings, which aims to achieve an improvement in the quality of life and levels of social welfare of the population.
Social work as a professional discipline has been conditioned by the circumstances of historical evolution and definition of the type of social intervention promoted.
Taking into account all these aspects, it is suggested that social work is the genesis of community work, this arises a little later from World War I, at which time most of the participating peoples were totally devastated, with high rates of marginality, vulnerability, socioeconomic helplessness, increase in diseases as a result of unsanitary conditions and environmental contamination. Starting in the 1930s, community work was directed in two fundamental aspects:
1. Organization of the communities.
2. Community development.
In the first, it is seen as a theoretical and practical conception, given by the experiences in the devastated communities as a result of the wars, an assistance action begins to provide a series of resources for their recovery. The second, on the other hand, refers to elements that in the epistemological order were being constituted by social work professionals to accompany those community organization practices, at that time it was in charge of social work professionals, thus beginning a whole process debate within the community of social workers regarding the theoretical and methodological paradigms that should accompany the practices of community organization.
Taking a tour of the existing bibliography in the center, community work is defined by the actions carried out by different individual and collective subjects to diagnose problems and act to transform those problems in certain contexts. In this traditional approach, community work is conceived as an external action.
According to the Community Research Center of the Central University of Las Villas, with more than 15 years of experience, the community is a quality, a quality of human development, where its perspective has to do with the nature of the links that develop between human beings and that are mediated by 4 epithems:
1. Critical awareness.
2. Real Participation: contains, diverse or heterogeneous information, collective reselection and decision.
3. Cooperation: includes, coordination and integration.
4. Projects.
After a study, we reached the following conclusions: between social work and community work there are differences in terms of form, execution and objectives to be developed, as well as a close two-way relationship as one feeds on the other and vice versa, - al I least consider it that way-, community work in essence, are the actions carried out by individual and collective subjects to identify their contradictions, build alternatives for changes based on their emancipation (all this entails the mediated use of the 4 epithems). Individual and collective subjects are not always aware of their needs, of the causes of their problems and when this happens, the intervention of a social work professional is required, this would be the one who exercises the professional activity through which they are oriented,organizes the endogenous community force from within itself, hence social work is a facilitator of community development, civil society and political society.
Current situation of social and community work
In order to define, characterize, analyze, assess and argue about the state of Cuban social work today, it is pertinent to travel a bit to the past, that is, to know the historical evolution of social work in Cuba.
1. In 1943 the first school of Social Service was inaugurated at the University of Havana and it closed in 1959 as a product of the revolutionary effervescence of university students.
2. Between 1960 and 1961 the Ministry of Social Welfare was founded, currently named as the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
3. In 1972 the Federation of Cuban Women organized the Frank País Schools of Social Work. Two years later, the first social work specialties in the health field were carried out.
4. In the year 998, the University of Havana began to study the Career of Sociology with exit to social work, just a time later the Cojimar School of Training for Social Workers was created. In this, two emergent graduations are made with young people from Havana City and then in 2001, it extends to the emergent training of social workers from all over the country, based in the provinces of Havana City, Villa Clara, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba. From there, a whole process of studies began, approaching families, preventive work, etc. In order to spend time due to the characteristics of the Social Workers Program, it is entrusted with the responsibility of attending to the tasks of the Energy Revolution in national and even scopes,the extension of experiences to other countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.
Taking into account all of the above, today the program for social workers or Cuban social work is in a phase of integration to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security as an alternative to strengthen the practice of this exercise in our country, since there is no practice professional.
Current social work has the need to address inequalities generated by historical and cultural factors, despite the existence of opportunities for all citizens, promote community transformation through social intervention projects, professional training oriented to work with individuals, groups and communities, with mastery of methods and techniques for social research, considered essential for professional performance. It constitutes a constant network of solidarity and social support for the attention to social needs and problems, with the purpose of not giving anyone for lost, that not a single citizen is left abandoned to his fate in society. In addition to all this, Cuban social work in the present tense,carries out a social study of 100% of the families in each of the communities that enables a close exchange with individual and collective subjects, in the same way with the management group, promoting a practice with a multisectoral nature.
Community work today, the State, during the process of building a socialist society, has to fulfill the important task of fostering the increasingly broad participation of workers and, progressively, of the entire society in the tasks that are assigned to it. inherent. Due to its new essence, it is a main link of participation in the complex process of conducting socialist social development.
In the conditions of Cuba, this acquires peculiar nuances, as it is a process of construction of socialism based on the conditions of the underdeveloped country and in the midst of the tightest economic blockade, all of which means specificities beyond the economic sphere.
The community has been an important stage throughout the historical development of our nation. Until the very last stage of our wars of national liberation. The organization assumed by Cuban society since 1959 and the way in which this process of social transformation has unfolded since its inception, have come to reinforce what historically existed. It is enough to point out the role of the CDR, FMC and the other organs and agencies of our state apparatus.
Due to all the above, attention to community work is essential, especially as an action of strategic scope. At present we can say that the cardinal problem of community work could be defined, according to some researchers at the University of Havana: how to coherently articulate the different existing factors, in order to stimulate the potentialities of the community, aimed at progressive achievement of his self-government.
The practical answer to this problem focuses on:
1. The existence of a centralist, vertical culture.
2. The presence of multiple institutional programs that act simultaneously.
3. The lack of preparation in terms of community work of those in charge of executing the programs at the base.
4. Insufficient attention at this level to the economic, environmental and housing dimensions.
5. The low level of use of the legal framework to promote community work and the presence of a theoretical production without practice and practice without theoretical foundation.
Faced with these situations that negatively affect the development of community work, we have a growing political will, which can interact with the popular will to advance in that sense, reinforced above all by the behavior and objective conditions generated by the current Special Period and by the changes that are taking place in our institutions and organizations.
But everything is not negative, because despite the fact that community projects are negligible, progress is observed in this sense, and based on this is that the Master's Degrees in Community Development are promoted from different educational institutions and institutions as one of the variants to be implemented with the aim of deepening and rescuing this beautiful way of self-improvement, emancipation and development.
Future projections of social and community work in Cuba
In the not too distant future, we aspire to a social work committed to human emancipation and social justice, which promotes revolutionary social action, transforming reality, which puts all trust in the human being and his ability to face the problems of their reality and overcome them in a cooperative and dignifying manner, considering that according to other authors, social work is a discipline and a profession in charge of preventing and transforming the social problems of individuals, groups and communities in each context, on the basis of social participation and the implementation of social policies and services, through actions of orientation, organization, mobilization of resources, awareness and social education to achieve the well-being of the entire population.
In accordance with the above defined, the social worker is expected to fulfill the following professional functions in order to achieve community development:
a) Research and intervene in the problem situations identified in each context.
b) Mobilize human and institutional resources to satisfy needs and increase the well-being of the population;
c) Carry out social education work with individuals and groups as subjects of self-transformation;
d) Contribute to the implementation and development of social policies and services;
e) Contribute to local and community development.
In terms of community development, the social worker “should be” a community manager and here is a future relationship for the projections of both:
• Use the “community” method as an organizational culture of social work. Critical reflection, horizontal relationships and creative participation of social workers in the construction of social work demanded by social reality must be promoted from within.
• Must see the community as an essential element of the method of social work to promote self-development through self-transformation.
• Must carry out a scientific practice.
• Conduct studies of social problems from the cause-effect relationship. Analysis of mediations.
• Relate subject-subject between the professional and the people involved in social problems.
• Become an awareness-transforming social work.
• Develop contextualized social actions.
For these future aspirations, Cuban social work has potential and resources such as:
• Methodology of Social Work.
• Code of ethics.
• Professional functions.
• Organizational structure.
• Training System.
• Performance evaluation.
• Development of scientific activity.
• Professional leadership.
Regarding the community, it is about giving a new dimension, a new space, content and way of materializing the participation of social actors in said process. An essential aspect is the possibility of community self-management, ensuring that action and mobilization have a sense of the neighborhood based on identification and respect for community values, through mass organizations, institutions and agencies for the search of concrete solutions. This conception of integral community work supposes that the state structure achieves that the central organisms as a whole and each one in particular, define and facilitate, also with an integral character. In its structure and functions, the fulfillment of the roles assigned to its intermediate levels, without losing coherence,in relation to decision making, execution and control. Finally, the reality of this conception of community social work on our island, as a mass movement, can show our human emancipation and our democracy in the face of current forms of community movement in Latin America.
Community self-development approach in the professional activity of family and gender orientation. A reflection from the link with social and community work.
Starting from the definition of self-development or when talking about self-development, it is to speak of development dialectically, therefore the: has its key, as a process, in the system of social contradictions. It is a contradictory and concrete historical process of loss and recovery, of realization of the human essence. It exists as a dialectic of conservation and change. Neither any change is progressive, nor should any conservation be understood as reactionary. It implies the presence of the conscious and the spontaneous. Many times the action escapes our intentions. The action implies complexity, that is to say, random elements, chance, initiative, decision, awareness of the distance from the end and the transformations. It is mediated by subjectivity. Its moments are critical reflection and the project.Analyzing how this influences family and gender orientation, we must focus on an androcentric society where there is a differentiated participation of men or women in aspects of a social, political, ideological, economic nature, as part of local community development, which does not it only involves the productive and reproductive processes. It is known that in the community in general it is where the same work is performed by both sexes, women obtain a lower rank in power relations than men; the one that shows gender inequalities that directly affect gender roles within the family for community development.We must focus on an androcentric society where there is a differentiated participation of men or women in aspects of a social, political, ideological, economic nature, as part of local community development, which not only involves the productive and reproductive processes. It is known that in the community in general it is where the same work is performed by both sexes, women obtain a lower rank in power relations than men; the one that shows gender inequalities that directly affect gender roles within the family for community development.We must focus on an androcentric society where there is a differentiated participation of men or women in aspects of a social, political, ideological, economic and other nature, as part of local community development, which not only involves productive and reproductive processes. It is known that in the community in general it is where the same work is performed by both sexes, women obtain a lower rank in power relations than men; the one that shows gender inequalities that directly affect gender roles within the family for community development.It is known that in the community in general it is where the same work is performed by both sexes, women obtain a lower rank in power relations than men; the one that shows gender inequalities that directly affect gender roles within the family for community development.It is known that in the community in general it is where the same work is performed by both sexes, women obtain a lower rank in power relations than men; the one that shows gender inequalities that directly affect gender roles within the family for community development.
According to recent research by the Center for Community Studies of the Central University of La Villas, it is understood by gender:
“… Process of social and historical construction, through which the relationships between men and women, between men and between women are configured and in relation to an entire social system with its contradictions that serves as its basis, defining patterns, symbols, representations, values and their corresponding practices, which enclose what is legitimized as masculine and feminine in a given culture, in a specific time, context and space, since it is not a static construction. "
Cultural construction from a relational perspective not only taking into account the hegemonic models of masculinity and femininity, but with all the variety of nuances that being a man and a woman has implied in every historical moment
This configures a way of thinking, feeling and acting which we appropriate through the links that we maintain in the different groups or spaces of socialization. They express relationships of symmetry or social asymmetry. (Collective of authors, 2009)
On the other hand, the family as a social institution is a matter of debate around various postulates and object of study of various sciences, but it is clear to all scientists that it exerts a powerful influence on the lives of individuals, which endorses the importance of this first group of belonging and reference of people. It is the first institution that provides social services since it responds to the social needs of its members. The family is a kinship system, conjugal, residential and domestic, whose structure is unevenly distributed in its sexual roles, in the exercise of power and in all those actions that determine its dynamics. The dynamics of its changes originate in close connection with society and constitutes an important socializing agent.
In general, local self-development contributes to an efficient orientation towards family and gender. Well, it contributes to the solution of contradictions that produce certain social situations that threaten family well-being, regardless of whether it is a man or a woman. In this sense, it is necessary to work with community levels on the importance of eliminating differentiations and producing knowledge about equity between men and women that allows a good human emancipation.
Of course, to achieve this we have to promote self-development with critical awareness of reality, with real participation in the problems to be solved, with a real and effective involvement of the people in the search for solutions and that those solutions are found through effective projects. that contribute to local development.
In short, families are made up of men and women, and it is in this family integration that we essentially have to ensure that women and men, in coping with and overcoming the contradictions of social structures, develop community ties, evidencing the existence of a single gender.: the human race
Conclusions
1. Social work has gone through a series of stages up to the present, encompassing at this time essentially two ideological approaches: care and awareness.
2. Within the range of authors who deal with the subject there are several definitions, however there is an almost generalized criterion that the community is the ideal setting for the materialization of social work.
3. Social Work in Cuba has gone through two fundamental stages, one before the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the second after it. In the first, its limitations were conditioned by the corrupt nature of the governments in power, which caused cuts in the social sphere, in the second, subjective errors prevailed until the end of the 90s of the last century (when social work was revitalized). that subordinated social development to the mechanisms and laws of socialist construction, considering that by themselves they would guarantee social development.
Bibliography
1. Ander-Egg: (2006): “History of Social Work”. Editorial Félix Varela, Havana. Cuba
2. Collective of authors: (2003). "Introduction to Sociology". Editorial Félix Varela. Havana. Cuba.
3. Collective of authors: (2003). "Sociology and applied social work." Editorial Félix Varela. Havana. Cuba.
4. Collective of authors: (2009). “Community Self-development. Criticism of the recurrent social mediations for human emancipation ”. Editorial Félix Varela. Havana. Cuba.
5. HartmmanA, J. (1995) “The family centered social work practice”. The free press. New York.
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