About SEACAP

About SEACAP

  SEACAP’s History:

              Southeast Alabama Community Action Partnership (SEACAP), formerly known as Human Resource Development Corporation (HRDC) was incorporated as a community action agency in June, 1974. Its original Mandate, which holds true to this day, was to promote self-help for people and neighborhoods.

Today, as one of the oldest human services agencies in Southeast Alabama, SEACAP continues to implement this philosophy of self-help through a process that provides innovative, practical, timely programs and services which emphasize developing problem-solving skills for people and neighborhoods.

This private, non-profit human service agency serves limited-income residents through its central office and decentralized, neighborhood-based, area-wide network of Policy Advisory Communities (PAC), Neighborhood Service Centers, and many other programs, with neighborhood residents from five counties making up the majority of Board members.

Our Mission/Our Method:

Our mission is to provide low-income persons with the information, opportunities, education, and increased self-assurance that they need to become self-sufficient: “Helping people. Changing lives.”

Our method is:

• to help vulnerable persons avoid slipping into poverty,
• to alleviate the suffering of persons caught in poverty,
• to assist persons who, with help, would be able to lift themselves out of poverty,
• and to teach affluent people about the root causes of poverty, its
• debilitating impact and what they, as responsible and caring persons, can do
• in a struggle to overcome poverty.

Our Purpose:

The basic purpose of Southeast Alabama Community Action Partnership (SEACAP) is to stimulate a better focus of all available local, state, private, and federal resources upon the goal of enabling low-income families, and low-income individuals of all ages, in rural and urban areas, to attain the skills, knowledge, and motivations, and secure the opportunities needed for them to become self-sufficient.

The key phrase in this statement is “to stimulate a better focus of all available…resources.” The mission thus gives SEACAP a primarily catalytic mission: to make the entire community more responsive to the needs and interests of the poor by mobilizing resources and bringing about greater institutional sensitivity. SEACAP’s effectiveness, therefore, is measured by not only services which it directly provides, but more importantly, the improvements and changes it achieves in the community’s attitudes and practices toward the poor and in the allocation and focus of public and private resources for anti-poverty purposes.

Our Promise:

SEACAP changes people’s lives, embodies the spirit of hope, improves communities, and makes America a better place to live. We care about the entire community, and we are dedicated to helping people help themselves and each other.

Articulating the Needs of the Poor

The mission of SEACAP involves a balance between strengthening communication and cooperation on the one hand and coming to grips with serious problems and deeply felt differences on the other. SEACAP must address critical issues and deal with unpleasant realities, but in performing its role as an advocate of the poor, SEACAP must carefully choose the issues on which it takes stands and the tactics which it employs so as to maximize the chances of success. SEACAP’s overall image in the community should be that of a positive voice for the poor. In all its activities, SEACAP shall strive constantly to reduce the isolation of the poor and to improve communications between the poor and the community at large. Its ultimate objective shall not be to speak for the poor, but to enable the poor to speak for themselves.