COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION.

Community mobilization is an attempt to bring both human and non-human resources together
to undertake developmental activities in order to achieve sustainable development.
It is a capacity building process, through which community, individuals, group or an
organization plan, carryout and evaluate activities on a participatory or sustainable basis to
improve and meet their needs either on own initiative or on others stimulation.
Mobilization strengthens and enhances the ability of communities to work together to achieve
goals that are important for that community. Community mobilization is not something that is
done over night, but it is a process that requires time and commitment from all parties involved.
The key to successful mobilization efforts is making sure that communities are in the driver’s
seat during the process. Mobilization is not something that happens to the community; it is
something that the community does. One of the primary goals of mobilization is to make sure
mobilization efforts are community driven. This allows a community to solve its problems
through its own efforts which is the key to having sustained outcomes within a community.
Why Take a Community Mobilization Approach?

A community mobilization approach is valuable because it fulfills people’s rights to participate

and to determine their own future. It enables groups to create local solutions to local problems.
These local solutions will be more sustainable than external solutions that do not fit well with the
local situation, culture and practices. When communities define the problem, set common goals
and work together on their own programs, to achieve the goals, the communities change in ways
that will last after the project ends.

GOALS OF COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION.

Increase capacity to identify needs.
Increase the community level decision making
Increase community ownership programmes
Bring additional resources to community
Build on social networking to spread support.
THE co mobilization CYCLE :
Knowing the community
Analysis –identification of resources/ problem identification.
Selection of leaders by community
Identification of stake holders
Planning- aims and objectives.
Project implementation to community
Monitoring and follow up
Evaluation
Implementation of 5W1H.

Key Tasks Involved in Mobilizing Communities (ex. Health)

 Developing an ongoing dialogue with community members regarding health issues

 Creating or strengthening community organizations aimed at improving health

 Assisting in creating an environment in which individuals can empower themselves to

address their own and their community’s health needs

 Promoting community members’ participation in ways that recognize diversity and

equity, particularly of those who are most affected by the health issue

 Working in partnership with community members in all phases of a project to create

locally appropriate responses to health needs

 Identifying and supporting the creative potential of communities to develop a variety of

strategies and approaches to improve health status

 Assisting in linking communities with external resources to aid them in their efforts to
improve health

 Committing enough time to work with communities or with a partner who works with
them
Mobilization

Community mobilization is a process through which action is stimulated by a community itself,

or by others, that is planned, carried out, and evaluated by a community’s individuals, groups,
and organizations on a participatory and sustained basis to improve the health, hygiene and
education levels so as to enhance the overall standard of living in the community. A group of
people have transcended their differences to meet on equal terms in order to facilitate a
participatory decision-making process. In other words it can be viewed as a process which begins
a dialogue among members of the community to determine who, what, and how issues are
decided, and also to provide an avenue for everyone to participate in decisions that affect their
lives. Community mobilization needs many analytical and supportive resources which are
internal (inside community) and external (outside Community) as well. Several of the resources
are as following:

Leadership

Organizational capacity

Communications channels
 Assessments

Problem solving

Resource mobilization

Administrative and operational management

Community mobilization is a frequently used term in developmental sector. Recently,

community mobilization has been proved to be a valuable and effective concept which has
various implications in dealing with basic problems like health and hygiene, population,
pollution and gender bias.

THEORIES OF COMMUNITY ORGANISATION.

Understanding the dynamics that shape community practices, social habits and cultures is
important for business owners who wish to understand how to better interact with
community members from all walks of life. Several different theories attempt to explain
community organization. These theories help to explain why communities behave in the way
they do and they suggest how these behavior patterns might influence business practices.

Systems and Ecological Theory

The systems theory of community organization is focused on community maintenance. In

this sense, maintenance refers to the establishment and reiteration of deeply held values
and social norms. For example, a close-knit community might share a common belief in the
importance of the family unit or of the need for safe schools. Business owners who are able
to pickup on these systems or "ways of being" within the community will be better informed
on marketing their products and services. Systems theory is closely related to ecological
theory, which states that the organization most fit to meet the wants and needs of the
community is the one most likely to survive and become profitable.

Conflict Theory and Power Dependency

While the idea of systems theory works to a greater or lesser extent in small or tightly bound
communities, today's complex and multicultural communities are often more aligned with
what's called conflict theory. This community organization theory states that there is an
innate competition in society between the haves and the have-nots. Businesses are thus
similarly divided into camps, some catering to the needs and wants of more affluent
customers -- think luxury brands and higher price tags -- whereas other companies are
geared toward providing essential services and products to people who are on a budget or
who prefer to spend less on their everyday needs. This sometimes blurry divide between
"classes" of community members and businesses creates a power dependency. Power
dependency is a sociological term which means that some people, and hence some
businesses, will acquire more influence as a result of their economic means or earning
potential.

Resource Mobilization

While the arguably bleak picture painted by conflict theory certainly exists in many
communities -- particularly those in urban locations -- another community organization
theory called "resource mobilization" says that members of a community are able to join
together to acquire power. This approach suggests an idea in line with Marxist theory, which
states that alliances of working-class people can form to petition for better rights and
working conditions. Businesses too, particularly smaller ones, are potentially able to
mobilize their resources. Working with another business to share customers, for example, is
one way of aligning to increase competition against an industry's bigger or more well-known
players.

Constructivist Theory

Constructivist theory is the use of informal knowledge to build a business's brand reputation
and influence within the community. As a small-business owner, this building entails getting
involved directly in the inner workings of the community in which your business operates.
Sponsor a local sports team, donate some of your profits to a local charity or become the
patron for a school event to market your business within the community while at the same
time gaining some valuable information on how community members think, feel and
respond to the products and services you offer.

SAUL DAVID ALINSKY

Saul David Alinsky (1909-1972) was both a committed organizer and activist and an influential
writer.
His books Reveille for Radicals (1946) and Rules for Radicals (1972) were, and remain
important statements of community organizing.
Alinsky’s ideas bear careful exploration and have a continuing relevance for informal
educators and all those whose role involves trying to effect change in communities. They are
particularly useful for those who have to engage with local or national power structures and
workers who wish to engage alienated or disparate communities and seek common cause
between them.

His thoughts on the nature of work with communities are challenging, and yet relevant. The three
areas he focused are:
 the place of principles and morality in community work;

 what it is to be a liberal or a radical; and

 rules for how to engage with power structures effectively.

In 1939 Saul Alinsky established the Industrial Areas Foundation in Chicago to bring his
method of reform to other declining urban neighborhoods. He left the Institute to work for the
Foundation.

Basically there are 4 tenants of Alensky’s model of community organization. They can be
classified as Alinsky’s understanding of:

1. Human nature and conflict:

Organizing people requires appealing to their self-interest. People become involved
because they think there is something in it for themselves.

2. Power and politics

For the Alinsky model, power and politics both occur in the public sphere. He watched
how obsessed elites were with power. Thus the method for a poor community to gain
power was through public sphere action.

3. Leadership development
The Alensky model maintains and explicit between public sphere leaders called
organizers and private sphere community leaders who occupy decision making positions
in formal community organizations. For Alinsky, the organizer is a professional
consultant from outside the community.

4. The organizing process

The Alinsky model emphasizes large formal public organizations to manage large visible
public events. Within the Alensky model the organizing process centers on identifying
and confronting public issues to be addressed in the public sphere.
PAULO FREIRE

Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (September 19, 1921 – May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator
and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. He is best known for his
influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed considered one of the foundational texts of the
critical pedagogy movement.

Pedagogy of the Oppressed written by educator Paulo Freire proposes a pedagogy with a new
relationship between teacher, student, and society. It was first published in Portuguese in 1968,
and was translated by Myra Ramos into English and published in 1970.

Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, has elaborated an educational theory within the framework of a
theory of radical social change.

The central concept is "conscientization," and development of critical consciousness through a

process of reflection and action.

Although American adult educators acknowledge the need for social change, their chief focus is
on individual self-fulfillment. Predominantly a middle-class enterprise, adult education neither
shares the perspectives nor serves the interests of "marginal" groups. Although its most obvious
application may be with "oppressed" people, conscientization should have applicability to any
education which includes as goals both democratization and radical social change.

Critical consciousness, (conscientization), is a popular education and social concept developed

by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in post-Marxist critical
theory.

Critical consciousness focuses on achieving an in-depth understanding of the world, allowing

for the perception and exposure of social and political contradictions. Critical consciousness also
includes taking action against the oppressive elements in one's life that are illuminated by that
understanding.

Freire was teaching the poor and illiterate members of Brazilian society to read at a time when
literacy was a requirement for suffrage and dictators ruled many South American countries. The
term originally derives from Frantz Fanon’s coinage of a French term, conscienciser, in his 1952
book, Black Skins, White Masks.

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), Freire, reprising the oppressors-oppressed distinction,

differentiates between the positions in an unjust society: the oppressor and the oppressed.

Freire champions that education should allow the oppressed to regain their sense of humanity,
in turn overcoming their condition. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that for this to occur, the
oppressed individual must play a role in their liberation. As he states:

No pedagogy which is truly liberating can remain distant from the oppressed by treating them as
unfortunates and by presenting for their emulation models from among the oppressors.

Likewise, the oppressors must be willing to rethink their way of life and to examine their own
role in the oppression if true liberation is to occur: "those who authentically commit themselves
to the people must re-examine themselves constantly.

Freire believed education to be a political act that could not be divorced from pedagogy.
Freire defined this as a main tenet of critical pedagogy. Teachers and students must be made
aware of the "politics" that surround education. The way students are taught and what they are
taught serves a political agenda. Teachers, themselves, have political notions they bring into the
classroom .

Freire believed that "education makes sense because women and men learn that through learning
they can make and remake themselves, because women and men are able to take responsibility
for themselves as beings capable of knowing—of knowing that they know and knowing that they
don't" .

Banking model of education

In terms of pedagogy, Freire is best known for his attack on what he called the "banking"
concept of education, in which the student was viewed as an empty account to be filled by the
teacher. He notes that "it transforms students into receiving objects. It attempts to control
thinking and action, leads men and women to adjust to the world, and inhibits their creative
power".

Culture of silence
According to Freire, the system of dominant social relations creates a 'culture of silence' that
instills a negative, silenced and suppressed self-image into the oppressed. The learner must
develop a critical consciousness in order to recognize that this culture of silence is created to
oppress.. A culture of silence can also cause the "dominated individuals lose the means by which
to critically respond to the culture that is forced on them by a dominant culture."