School of Nursing Dean Linda Thompson Adams lectures to more than 100 students at Polytechnic University in Hong Kong.

School of Nursing Dean Linda Thompson Adams spoke at Polytechnic University in Hong Kong to more than 100 nursing students on community empowerment. Her lecture, “Community partnership and empowerment,” gave examples and encouragement to the students to use community empowerment in their own villages.

Thompson Adams described empowerment to the group and told them they were already enabled through their roles as nurses and students.

“Community empowerment is when members of a community pull together and rather than criticize what is wrong within the community, they concentrate on using their collective strengths and competencies to develop plans of action,” Thompson Adams said.

Thompson Adams referenced a project in which a university worked with a surrounding community to address issues of poverty, unemployment, low birth-weight babies and substantiated child abuse. Through interviews, focus groups and a town hall meeting, university staff members were able to compile a resource directory specific to the community’s needs, including youth programs, daycare and Head-start programs. From the data collected, a community program could be implemented to help each member of the community.

“Strong partnerships develop through building community assets rather than reacting to community crises and leveraging the capacity of a community is far more effective than redressing its shortcomings,” Thompson Adams said. “The capacity-building tool includes asset development techniques including finding existing strengths such as cultural diversity and social networks; linking diverse organizations such as financial institutions and local associations.”

Thompson Adams provided the nursing students with a tool kit for helping their communities and empowering others to help as well.

Thompson Adam’s trip to Polytechnic University strengthens the relationships between OU and the university in Hong Kong. Last year, a professor from Polytechnic University traveled to OU to lecture on informatics in nursing. Thompson Adams has continued to work with professors from Polytechnic University to develop other ways for the universities to work together in the future.

For more information on Oakland’s nursing programs, visit the School of Nursing Web site.