NSTP-CWTS 2

MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

LEARNING
OBJECTIVES

After studying this module, you as a learner should

be able to:

➢ Define community mobilization &

community participation;
➢ State the goal and principles of community
mobilization;
➢ List steps involved in community
mobilization;
➢ Explain the strategies that we can use to
mobilize the community;
➢ Demonstrate appreciation on the relevance
of community mobilization in community
participation; and
➢ Apply beginning skills in community
mobilization and participation.

OVERVIEW

This module helps you to learn about community

mobilization. This will serve as your guide to be
able to let you identify community priorities,
resources, needs, and solutions in such a way as to
promote representative participation, good
governance, accountability, and peaceful change.

Study Guide 1 – Module 4- Lesson 2– Community Mobilization and Participation I Page | 1

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

It is a process through which action is

stimulated by a community itself, or by others,
TOPIC that is planned, carried out, and evaluated by a
OUTLINE community's individuals, groups, and
organizations on a participatory and sustained
basis to improve the health, hygiene and
➢ Definition of Community Mobilization education levels so as to enhance the
& Community Participation; overall standard of living in the community. A
➢ Goals and Principles of community group of people have transcended their
mobilization; differences to meet on equal terms in order to
➢ Steps involved in Community facilitate a participatory decision-
Mobilization; making process.
➢ Explain the strategies that we can use to
mobilize the community; Community mobilization increases the capacity
➢ Discuss the effects of community of a community to identify and address its own
participation in mobilization; and needs while generating local solutions to
problems. For instance, because of its
participatory approach, community
mobilization ultimately strengthens and
LESSON PROPER enhances the ability of a community to work
together towards a common goal. Through its
emphasis on prompting reflection and dialogue
MODULE 1: LESSON 2 – COMMUNITY
about current barriers and facilitators, coupled
with actions individuals and communities can
MOBILIZATION
take to achieve their goals for improved health
and wellness, it also contributes to the
I. INTRODUCTION sustainability of any given action.

In our previous lesson, it tackled the

Working with localized community groups, using
comprehensive view about the dynamics of a
existing structures, is highly recommended as the
community hence, this is an important concept to
emergency efforts will build on an established
analyze how communities perceive and
network and trusted relationships and better
comprehend a problem and is necessary for
ensures sustainability of emergency preparedness
helping institutions to design adequate
efforts. In Sierra Leone, during the Ebola
interventions with maximum community
response, emergency communication teams
participation, and this is the essence of
worked with the Village Development
Community Mobilization.
Committee, Family Member Committees and
many youth groups.
Engaging with community members is crucial to
building trust and credibility. Community
“Community engagement is the one factor that
mobilization is an attempt to bring both human
underlies the success of all other control
and non-human resources together to undertake
measures.” – Abramowitz et al, 2015
developmental activities in order to
achieve sustainable development.

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION GOALS OF COMMUNITY

DEFINED MOBILIZATION

Principles of Community Mobilization

- ‘Refers to the process of building social
relationships in pursuit of common
community interests. Community
Mobilization is seen as being the
foundation of the community
development process.

- ‘Community development seeks to

empower individuals and groups of
people
people by providing
by providing these groups
these groups with the with
skills
theneed
they skills to
they needchange
affect to affect
in change
their ownin
their own communities.’
communities.

- ‘Community mobilization is a process that aims Figure 1: https://tinyurl.com/n8wn68z3

to engage all sectors of the community to prompt
individual, family and community action. It uses a
variety of community engagement approaches to
raise awareness and empower individuals and
groups toward those actions, creating an enabling
environment and effecting positive change.
Community mobilization can include activities
such as door-to-door outreach, public meetings,
health fairs, participatory theatre and other
activities. Importantly, mobilization efforts are
community driven, and community members are
active participants in defining the problem,
generating solutions and evaluating the outcomes
of those solutions.’

Read more: https://tinyurl.com/vz6jp49j

https://tinyurl.com/3wby3fpp

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

Establishing a community mobilization

STEPS IN COMMUNITY
group
MOBILIZATION
The aim is to establish a group that can
influence community mobilization activities. It
In this time of pandemic, integrating usually consists of partners that have a stake in
community mobilization is a very vital process the issue (e.g. core group, barangay council,
which begins a dialogue among members of the sectors in the community, as well as influential
community to determine who, what, and how groups and members of the community such as
issues are decided, and also to provide an
formal and informal leaders and religious and
avenue for everyone to participate in decisions
that affect their lives. To understand fully this traditional leaders.)
process, let’s begin with the necessary steps:

Defining the problem

The first step in community mobilization is to

collect the basic information about the issue
like the rising cases of COVID19 in certain
community and/or catchment area. This will
give you an idea of the extent of the problem
and what the underlying causes are. In doing so,
you will have a clear statement of the problem Figure 3: https://tinyurl.com/yreu2p2f
and identify the target population in the
community affected by it. Scientifically, the Designing strategies, setting objectives and
most at-risk groups of COVID19 include the selecting target groups
persons with comorbidities, children, elderly,
and those with low immune system. To achieve a planned change at community
level, resources need to be mobilized from the
community and other external partners. After
obtaining resources, the community
mobilization group should design strategies to
address the identified problem with objectives
] that are SMART, which means Specific,
Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-
bound. The objectives should be assessed for
their impact on the targeted groups in the
Figure 2: https://tinyurl.com/d9adj8x2 community.

Watch this video: https://slideplayer.com/slide/6154783/

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

Community mobilization needs many analytical Community development planning consists of a

and supportive resources which are internal public participatory and usually interactive form
(inside the community) and external (outside of bottom-up planning and design in which diverse
the community) as well. Resources include: community members (often termed “stakeholders”)
contribute toward formulation of the goals,
o Leadership objectives, planning, fund/resource identification
o Manpower
and direction, planned project implementations and
o Organizational capacity
reevaluation of documented local planning policy.
o Communications channels
o Assessments Community Development Plan
o Problem solving Barangay __________
o Resource mobilization
o Administrative and operational General Objective:
management Target Specific Activities Person’s Resources Sources Time Output
Problem objectives Responsible Needed frame

Developing an action plan with community 11.

An action plan links the general community 2.

mobilization plan with time lines for the actual Figure 4: Format of Community Development Plan
implementation of the planned activities, and
the deadlines set for goals to be achieved. E
x
This enables the progress of activities to be c
e
monitored against the targets set during the r
planning phase. p
t

f
r
o
m

b
o
o
k: Working with Communities, page 94 & 95

Figure 3: Read this article: https://tinyurl.com/fwz8vext

Figure 5: Illustration
Source: An Excerpt from Working with Communities, Page 94 & 95

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

Building capacity Implementing the plan of activities

Capacity building involves identifying existing Based on the action plans developed with all of
capacity resources and assessing the gaps that the relevant community level partners,
exist to implement the community mobilization. implementation of the community mobilization
The gaps identified should be supplemented by activities is the main task. In the
capacity building of the community groups and implementation process, a clear role for any
other relevant stakeholders in the community partners that are involved should be put in place
involved in community mobilization. and communicated with all of them.

Monitoring and evaluation

Monitoring and evaluation is the last, but

essential, element of community mobilization.
It enables you to check whether the action plan
has been implemented effectively and the
specific objectives are met with respect to the
issue the community is mobilized to achieve.

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

Figure 6: https://tinyurl.com/482krmk2
In mobilization, community participation
matters because residents can best identify
Identifying partners
solutions for their respective communities: they
In the community there are various partners that know what knowledge and rumors are
circulating; they can provide insight into
work independently to achieve similar goals.
stigma and structural barriers; and they are well
Therefore, it is important to identify relevant placed to work with others from their
partners through a simple mapping exercise. communities to devise collective responses. It
With respect to prevention and control of is a very important component of community
COVID19, for instance, the following partners mobilization.
may be relevant: local non-governmental
What is Community Participation?
organizations (NGOs).
- A process by which a community mobilizes its
resources, initiates and takes responsibility for
its own development activities and share in
decision making for and implementation of all
other development programs for the overall
improvement of its holistic community aspects.

Figure 7: https://tinyurl.com/3m2v87p4

Figure 8: https://tinyurl.com/y8psj6ta

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

Benefits of Community Participation had failed to provide for their basic needs and
o that all they received from the government were
Increased ownership, support and unfulfilled election promises.
responsibility;
As a beginning Community Mobilizer of a
Children’s Welfare Foundation, you found life
o More likelihood of, and sustainability for,
in Barangay Tigatto truly depressing based
behavior change;
from your integration and the conduct of
community study. People live in unsanitary
o Better response to community needs and
conditions due to lack of water facilities and
concerns;
poor living habits. There was a prevalence of
sickness especially gastroenteritis as people
o It also instills a sense of greater
drew their water supply from shallow-dug open
responsibility and sustainability;
wells. Most of the victims were children. While
a few better-off families owned pump well, it
o Programming is more cost-effective
was only for their private use and shared only
because project resources are often
with their immediate neighbors. The
supplemented by community resources
environment was damp, humid, and filthy
(such as labor or in-kind resources); and
especially during rainy season due to poor
drainage. There was also lack of community
o Community members participate in
action. But a safe water facility for the
problem identification, prioritization &
community was obviously a top priority need.
decision-making, the program can respond
Yet no one individual, official or group within
better to their needs & concerns.
the barangay had initiated any move to do
Read more: https://tinyurl.com/jametadf something about this need. They were still
waiting for the government’s action despite
alleged unfulfilled election promises.
LEARNING ACTIVITY
You are graded based on the rubrics below:

Knowledge = 40%
Objectives: Attitudes = 20%
Skills = 40%
Apply beginning skills in community 100%
mobilization and participation.

Tasks: SUMMARY

A. Identify at least 3 priority problems/needs of This module discussed the

the community; comprehensive view in understanding the
community priorities, resources,
B. Prepare a simple Community Development needs/problems, and solutions in such a way
Plan for Barangay Tigatto: as to promote mobilization, participation,
good governance, accountability, and
Barangay Tigatto has a population of 900 peaceful change.
families comprising 5,200 persons. It used to be
a sitio of a progressive barangay but remained
underdeveloped as residents claim they were
identified as political oppositionists. However,
the people felt that they are were justified in
their voting for the opposition since ruling party

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MODULE 4 - Community Mobilization and Participation

REFERENCES

Readings:

▸ Women and Child Development Department, Govt.

of Orissa. pp. 197–205. Archived from the
original (PDF) on 2011-07-21. Retrieved 2010-04-08.

▸ https://tinyurl.com/vz6jp49j
▸ https://tinyurl.com/fwz8vext
▸ https://tinyurl.com/jametadf

References:

▸ Marasigan, Rosario Roldan, et.al (2002).

Working with Communities. National
Association for Social Work Education Inc.,
pp. 94 & 95.

▸ https://tinyurl.com/d9adj8x2

▸ https://tinyurl.com/yreu2p2f

▸ https://tinyurl.com/fwz8vext

▸ https://tinyurl.com/482krmk2

▸ https://tinyurl.com/3m2v87p4

▸ https://tinyurl.com/y8psj6ta

PREPARED AND COMPILED BY:

Mary Ruth P. Cinchez, Ph.D, Ed.D

Jerald A. Aragoza, RSW, MSW

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