Principles of Empowerment and Social Change
Wallerstein (1992) defines empowerment as a "social action process that promotes the participation of people, organizations, and communities toward the goals of increased individual and community control, political efficacy, improved quality of community life, and social justice." Empowerment has been demonstrated as an important promoter of health. In one study, empowerment was used as a framework for an HIV prevention program targeting women whose choices and actions may be constrained by poverty, gender roles, and cultural norms (Romero, Wallerstein, Lucero, Fredine, Keefe, & O'Connell, 2006). Through this intervention, women were taught to take control over their economic, social, and sexual lives.

When a group, such as the at-risk women mentioned above, is empowered through this process, social action can lead to affecting larger society in some way. Walden University (2007) defines social change as "improving the human and social condition by creating and applying ideas to promote the development of individuals, communities and organizations, as well as society as a whole." In fact, in the recently formed Journal of Social Change, Jim Goes (2006) discusses why social change is important. He states in his editorial that in light of the significant societal problems in the world, practical research is needed where ideas and knowledge facilitate and promote improvements in the human condition. These improvements must be made for individuals, groups, organizations, cultures, and society.

The main tenets of empowerment for social change include: increasing knowledge, identifying barriers (interpersonal, cultural, economic, social, etc.), developing strategies in response to barriers, developing needed skills, and developing a plan of action (Romero, 1999). The program targeting HIV prevention among high risk women used this specific approach to teach the women about why their behaviors are risky, identify what makes it difficult for them to change, help them to strategize ways to change, develop skills needed for this change, and finally to plan out how to change (Romero et al, 2006).

An important aspect of empowerment to consider is the way in which it is approached. As in the HIV study mentioned above (Romero et al, 2006), empowering people is about posing the problems to them rather than solving the problems. This means the empowerment education could teach the women about the risks of unprotected

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