Act Together

Trouble shooting for common community mobilization program problems

This section presents some of the more common problems that may arise during a community mobilization program and some questions and approaches that your team may consider in dealing with these problems should they arise.

1. 1. An individual or group tries to block actions, usually because action threatens this individual or group’s power or interests.
   • Did you involve this individual or group in the Plan Together phase? Did he/she/they agree to the plan?
   • Do you know why they are blocking the action?
   • Can participants and the group work together to negotiate a solution?
   • Can participants think of alternative actions that might be more acceptable to the group and also acceptable to participants?

2. The community does not have sufficient capacity to carry out the action.
   • Did you create a capacity building plan with the community?
   • Is the action not feasible? Reformulate strategy/action.

3. A proposed action does not improve health status.
   • Have you allowed enough time for observable effects to occur?
   • Review the health problem and what is known about causes and potential solutions. Reformulate strategy/action.

4. Participants lose interest in the program.
   • Are they frustrated because they aren’t seeing results?
     • Make sure that your monitoring system identifies successes and celebrates them.
     • Review actions and identify why results are not positive. Reformulate plan.
     • Review community history and identify times when the community faced difficult challenges. What strengths pulled them through? What can they build on now to maintain their motivation and energy?
     • Take a break. Let people rest and reflect on their experience, then call a new meeting to see what everyone wants to do.
   • Have competing interests or needs overtaken their desire to participate in the program?
     • Is there another specific health or other issue that participants want to address? Determine what participants want to focus on and decide how they want to proceed and whether your team is in a position to assist.
     • Often agricultural calendars or other community events may decrease participation at certain times. Know the community calendar and identify times that are optimal for program work.
     • Work with a smaller group, those most committed. These smaller groups can often be quite effective.
     • Suspend activities for a determined period and then start up again.

5. External project funding is diminished or cut altogether.
   • Have you explained to the donor what possible repercussions may result from the unplanned cessation of funding (such as loss of community trust, interrupted activities, broken agreements)?
   • Are there other alternative funding and technical assistance sources available? How can communities access these resources?
   • What activities could continue without donor funded support? (Ideally, most of the planned activities would not require much external support so that communities could continue with their plans, possibly at a slower pace.) Work with the community to develop a revised plan based on this new development.

6. Communities want to engage in activities that do not directly or indirectly contribute to the health goal.
   • Encourage communities to pursue their dreams.
   • Determine what your team’s position is on providing assistance in this case. It is okay to acknowledge that the proposed activity is an important one but that you do not possess the resources or mandate to assist with that particular project.
   • Help link the community with other organizations that may be interested in the proposed activity, if any exist.
   • Point out to communities the skills that they may be learning through the health program that they may transfer to their own initiatives.

   

7. Other organizations compete for community participation by offering incentives and other “perks”.
   • Discuss concepts of sustainability, voluntary participation, and community autonomy with participants.
   • Continue to work with those who are truly interested in the issue, even if the group size diminishes.
   • Don’t respond by offering better incentives! When the incentives are gone, so will the participation of those who don’t really support the issue.

   Dealing With Conflict