Community Action for Development

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Community Action for Development
Dr. C. Krishna Mohan Rao, Ph.D Centre Head,
Research Training AMR-APARD
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Community Action for Development

• What is community
• What is development
• What is community action

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Community

• What comes first in your mind when you think or
  hear the word COMMUNITY ?

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What is a 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. Let us
  try to identify them.
• Territory
• Sharing resources
• Administrative unit
• Language
• Religion
• Culture
• Occupation

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What is Development

• Development means on overall positive change in
  the physical quality of life. This change for
  better encompasses both economic and social
  aspects.

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Dimensions of Development

• Development has two dimensions
• Economic
• Social
• It implies an improvement in quality of life
  through better health, education, housing and
  overall material and social welfare.

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Development Projects

• An analysis of development projects that have
  failed in the past shows that failure occurs
  because
• the people concerned were not involved in the
  planning, implementation and monitoring of
  programmes which affected their lives
• there was an insufficient level of participation
  of the beneficiaries.

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Community Action

• Community action refers to the process of
  building social relationships in pursuit of
  common community interests.
• Community action is seen as being the foundation
  of the community development process.
• Community development seeks to empower
  individuals and groups of people by providing
  these groups with the skills they need to affect
  change in their own communities.

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Community Action
Explore the common issue Set priorities
Plan together
Organize the community For action
Prepare to mobilize
Evaluate together
Act together
Prepare to scale up
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Steps in Community Action

• Step 1 Identify the problem/issue.
• Step 2 select a strategy to solve the problem
• Step 3 Community Mobilization
• Step 4 Implementation through peoples
  participation
• Step 5 Assess the results and improve

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Selecting Core Areas

• Identify core areas of community development
• Poverty
• Health Maternal and child mortality, HIV/AIDs,
  Malaria
• Education Pre-primary, primary, secondary
• Women empowerment
• Water and Sanitation
• Prohibition of Alcohol
• Agriculture and allied sector
• Skill Improvement

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Prepare to mobilize

• Identify a common issue that the whole community
  can get involved
• Gather information about the issue and the
  community
• Identify resources and constraints

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Select a strategy

• Depending on problem, plan for community dialogue
  and select a strategy.
• Some problems
• require sensitization on the issue.
• call for mobilization of community
• need interaction with individual family members.

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Community mobilization

• A process whereby a group of people become aware
  of a shared concern or common need and decide to
  take action in order to create shared benefits.
• A continual and cumulative process that involves
  communication, education, and organization, which
  together lead to community action and
  development.

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Community mobilization
linkages
Community
Outside Group
Capacity building
resources
Empowerment
Mobilization
Participation
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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
  communitys needs
• Promoting community members participation

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Implementation

• Implementation and constant monitoring
• Assess the results
• Revise the strategy wherever necessary
• Scale up

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• Community mobilization model film

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Who are you?

• You are working for people, with people as a
  Bharat Nirman Volunteer, and so
• What is your role?
• How can you help the people in the community?

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Facilitator

• A pearl is beautiful but alone it doesn't make a
  necklace. It is the thread which makes the
  necklace

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A facilitator
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Role of BNV

• BNV is community mobilizer. 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

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Skills needed for BNV

• 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.

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..continued

• Skills include
• good communication skills, especially listening
• good facilitation skills to enable communities to
  conduct their own analysis of their lives and
  situations
• 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).

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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. .

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Conflict management

• Conflict is an inevitable result of social
  interaction and is not necessarily negative. A
  distinction must be made between positive and
  negative aspects of conflict. When constructively
  managed, conflict may lead to clearer ideas,
  innovative solutions and increased effectiveness
  and commitment.

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Factors contributing to conflict

1. Diverse groups
2. Strategic disagreement
3. Competition between groups
4. Unreasonable expectations
5. Lack of common understanding
6. Goal conflict
7. Poor communication skills
8. Unclear/unfair expectations
9. Power-plays and manipulation

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Conclusion

• Community action needs continuous efforts
• Using its available resources for the community
  effectively
• Obtaining support from the community,
• Explore cooperation with other agencies.

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Thank you