Prepare To Mobilize
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STEP 2: Put together a community mobilization team.
"You have to first change yourself, to be able to change the community."The Koran
Preparing to mobilize should not be the work of one person. Before you get very far into this initial preparation stage, you will need to put together the team of people who will be working with you to support the community on this project. You may want to do this before you set about defining the health issue. This team may be made up exclusively of people from your own organization, or it may include members from partner or other organizations. Throughout this field guide, we refer to this team as the “community mobilization program team” or “program team “ for short.
How do you decide who should be on the program team? In the end, it may all come down to practical considerations, such as who has the time or interest, or to considerations beyond your control, such as the preferences of donors or other outside organizations. If you have the opportunity to choose some or all of your own team members, you should consider the following criteria:
- Expertise in the health issue.
- Understanding of the political, socio-cultural and economic context (knowledge of the community and macro environment).
- Basic community mobilization skills: communication and facilitation skills, program design and management skills, organizational behavior/group dynamics skills, capacity-building skills, planning and evaluation skills, knowledge of participatory methods.
- Personal attributes, such as openness, flexibility, patience, good listening skills, diplomacy, and most importantly, belief in people’s potential.
As you get further into this preparation stage, you may see the need for other team members and want to add to your original team. Moreover, team composition may change as you move through the various stages of community mobilization, with different skills needed at different times. But even from the beginning, the wider the variety of perspectives represented on your team, the less likely you will overlook important issues. We discuss developing your program team in more detail in Step 6.
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Are You Ready to Mobilize?
If you and your team answer yes to the following questions, then you are ready to mobilize the community. As Community Mobilizers, are you really prepared to: Advocate for project flexibility needed in a community mobilization strategy in front of donors and partners (with regard to: time, specific objectives and indicators, methods, etc.)? |
       
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