MCEM3208: Community Empowerment and Mobilisation

Mobilisation of Individuals And Communities:

Mobilisation Strategies and Link to health communication strategies

Arthur Kiconco (BEHS, PGC. M&E, MPH)

Email: [email protected]
Outline
• Definition of Community Mobilization
What is Community, Its dimensions
Why Mobilization
Benefits of Community Mobilization
Role of Community Mobilizers

• Degree of Community Participation

 Participation of Communities
 Degrees of Participation
Community
• What comes first in your mind when you think or hear the word “COMMUNITY” ?

• A Community is a set of people living together with common interest”

• We all live in a community.

• There are different things that bind us together.

Beliefs
Values
Language
Territory
Religion
Culture
Occupation
 What is Community Mobilization?
• Community mobilization is a capacity-building process through which
community individuals, groups, or organizations plan, carry out, and evaluate
activities on a participatory and sustained basis to improve their health,
education, food security, etc, and other needs, either on their own initiative or
stimulated by others.

• Community mobilization is not a campaign, nor is it a series of campaigns.

• It is a continual and cumulative communicational, educational and organizational

process that produces a growing autonomy and conscience.
 What is Community Mobilization is not...?
• Social mobilization

• Community participation

• Advocacy

• Interpersonal communication
• Although community mobilization may utilize the above strategies, or may be a strategy
utilized by them, these terms are not synonymous.
What is the difference between community mobilization
and social mobilization?
• Social mobilization is a process of bringing together all feasible inter-
sectoral partners and allies to determine felt-needs and raise awareness
of, and demand for, a particular development objective. (UNICEF)
 Why Community Mobilization?

As a Mean or Strategy:
• Creating demand for interventions
• Increasing access to services
• Scaling up interventions
• Increasing effectiveness and efficiency of interventions
• Contributing additional resources to the response
• Reaching the most vulnerable
• Addressing the underlying causes of Education: gender disparities, lack of awareness etc.
• Increasing community ownership and sustainability .
Why Community Mobilization?
• Decentralization and democratization require increased community
level decision-making

• Communities have different needs and problems, different cultures,

beliefs and practices--one message may not fit all

• Builds mechanisms and systems to sustain health improvements

 Why Community Mobilization?
• Brings additional resources that may not be available to health system
alone

• Communities can apply political pressure to improve services.

• Empowering CM approaches can strengthen community members’ skills

and capacity to address the underlying causes of health problems and
reduce barriers to access of information and services.
Why Community Mobilization?

• Social structures and norms may need to be changed if true access to

information and services is to be achieved by those who need them
most. CM can help to facilitate these changes.

• CM can increase community members’ awareness of their right to

decent treatment and can strengthen members’ ability to claim this
right.
Benefits of Community Mobilization in a project
• Increase community, individual, and group capacity to identify and satisfy their
needs

• Improve program design

• Improve program quality

• Improve program results

• Improve program evaluation

• Cost effective way to achieve sustainable results

• Increase community ownership of the program

 Key Task involved in Community Mobilization

• Developing an on-going dialogue between community members

• Creating or strengthening community organizations (Committees etc.)

• Creating an environment in which individuals can empower themselves to

address their own and their community’s health needs

• Promoting community members’ participation

 …continued
• Working in partnership with community members

• Identifying and supporting the creative potential of communities to develop

a variety of strategies and approaches

• Assisting in linking communities with external resources

• Committing enough time to work with communities, or with a partner who

works with them
 Involving all Stakeholders 
• Who are stakeholders?

• Why it is important to coordinate among all stakeholders?

• What can be achieved when we involve all stakeholders?

• What can assume if we don’t involve all stakeholders?

Identification of Deprived/Neglected Group
• What do you think, who are deprived and neglected
people in your community?

• Why are they neglected? How can you enhance their

participation?

Deprived Why are they How can their

people deprived? participation be
enhanced?
Identify marginalized groups in your community

Examples
• Economically deprived group (Poor)
• Women
• Tribal/indigenous people
• Disable people
• Minority Groups
• Others
Role of Community Mobilizers
A mobilizer is a person who mobilizes, i.e. gets things moving. Social animator. A
Catalyst

• Bringing People Together

• Building Trust

• Encouraging Participation

• Facilitating Discussion and Decision-making

• Helping Things to Run Smoothly .

• Facilitation in community mobilization process

Skills needed for Community Mobilizer
Attitudes include:

• a willingness to examine and challenge their own assumptions, opinions and beliefs

• a genuine respect for all community members

• a non- judgmental and accepting approach

• an understanding that different people have different views and perspectives

• a belief in community capacity to take effective action.

…..continued
Skills include:
• good communication skills, especially listening

• good facilitation skills to enable communities to conduct their own analysis of their
lives and situations

• PLA and other techniques to help facilitation awareness of political, gender and
cultural issues and relationships

• an ability to challenge assumptions sensitively (e.g. about the role of women).

 …continued
Knowledge includes:

• the community mobilization process

• the principles of community mobilization

• knowledge of Education related Issues and problems, causes and effects

• understanding of the ethical issues related to community mobilization. .

 ….continued
Other skills and knowledge that may be needed at different stages in
the community mobilization process include:

• an ability to help communities form organizations

• an ability to identify capacity-building needs among communities (e.g. leadership skills,

networking and partnership-building skills)

• an ability to help communities mobilize resources

• advocacy skills

• project planning and management skills.

Some Qualities
• Good communication skills
• Good facilitation skills
• Good listener
• Committed
• Decision maker
• Active
• Negotiation skills
• Honest
• Known to culture and values of society
• Well dress
• Catalyst
• Management skills
Role of CM
Getting Prepared

• Know Your Goals "If you do not know where you are going, then any road will do."

• Know Your Target Community You must know as much as possible about its social organization, economy,
languages, layout (map), problems, politics, and ecosystem

• Know The Skills You Need

• Know The Basic Concepts What is development? Community development? Community participation?
Poverty? Community? Empowerment? Sustainability

• Outside Resources
Five Steps to Successful Community Mobilization
• Start off with a transparent community selection process and share results

• Map community priorities and identify community leaders through community

assessments
• Hold preliminary meetings with community leaders and enlist their support to mobilize
community participation
• Hold community assembly meetings to elect local representation to coordinate program
activities
• Allow communities to prioritize and select quick impact projects to solidify support and
galvanize local participation

Reference: https://www.globalcommunities.org/node/38087
Community Mobilization Strategies
1. Secure strong leadership
2. Establish a formal structure
3. Engage diverse organizations, community leaders, and residents
4. Ensure authentic participation and shared decision making
5. Ensure authentic and productive roles for the target group
6. Develop a shared vision
7. Conduct a needs assessment
8. Create a strategic plan
9. Implement mutually reinforcing strategies
10. Create a fundraising strategy
11. Establish effective channels for internal communication
12. Educate the community
13. Conduct process and outcome evaluation
14. Evaluate the community mobilization effort separately
Community Participation

26
“As an individual I could do nothing. As
a group we could find a way to solve
each other’s problems”.
Degree of Community Participation

Away from ownership & sustainability

Collective Action

Towards ownership & sustainability

Co-Learning

Cooperation

Consulting

Compliance

Co-Option
Co-option

• Token involvement of local people

• Representatives are chosen, but have no real input or power

Compliance
• Tasks are assigned, with INCENTIVES

• Outsiders decide agenda and direct the process

Consultation

• Local opinions are asked

• Outsiders analyze and decide on a course of action

Cooperation
• Local people work together with outsiders to determine
priorities

• Responsibility remains with outsiders for directing the process

Co-learning
• Local people and outsiders share their knowledge to create
new understanding

• Local people and outsiders work together to form action

plans with outsiders facilitation