Abstract
The Primary Prevention of Cancer Program at the British Columbia Cancer Agency Centre for the Southern Interior (BCCAβCSI), known as the Waddell Project, is now five years old and currently is in partnership with fourteen regional communities. Each of these communities has a range of communityβdeveloped programs currently in place. The driving force behind the Waddell Project comes from the belief that emancipatory change is central to community health. That is, only those communities that are capable of challenging, questioning, and creating change can make the cancerβprevention decisions that are relevant, useful, and sustainable within the context of the daily lives of their members. The resulting model for the project was influenced by Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action, from which are derived the project's guiding concepts of equality, negotiated content, collaborative process, inclusion of critique, importance of action, and mutual accountability. In this article, these concepts are revisited from the unique contexts and perspectives of the collaborating participants. Implications would suggest that the processes adopted to support empowered community engagement in cancer prevention are, in many ways, more beneficial than the implementation of the resulting initiative itself. Furthermore, it would seem that, rather than funding, it is prolonged and supportive commitment that is the most crucial factor for facilitating emancipatory change in community health. Β© 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Comm Psychol 32: 217β228, 2004.