Benefits of community participation

In the previous section, you have discussed the major concepts of community participation. Now you will see the benefit of successful community participation. As a health extension worker, you have to know the value of community participation. Health status of an individual is highly influenced by the social, cultural and economic factors in that community. By including community member in our program address, this issues accordingly. The following are some of the benefits of community mobilisation:-

• It facilitates successful program development and implementation.
• Shifts the emphasis from the individual to the community. E.g. If all members of a community are convinced of the benefits of cleanliness, they will help each other to find pure water sources and keep such sources clean. They will build and use latrines everywhere in the community and keep them clean as well.
• Helps to develop locally appropriate and acceptable strategies. As communities often have detailed knowledge about their surroundings, their participation makes programs relevant to the local situation.
• Ensures community motivation and support. If the community is involved in choosing priorities and deciding on plans, it is much more likely to become involved in program implementation and services utilisation.
• Promotes self-help and self-reliance. If community members do their development work, they learn and become more conscious of their needs and potentials for solving their problems. They also get necessary self-confidence to tackle further problem may happen in the future.
• Ensure program sustainability. If community involved in program development, they learn to be responsible for projects and their maintenance.
• Improves trust and partnership between the community and health extension workers.
• Enhances the implementation of the health extension package program.
• Helps to mobilise community resource and energy

To take these fruits community participation, it needs health extension workers ability to facilitate a process, rather than to direct it. Health extension workers need to have confidence in a community's members and their knowledge and resources. Key characteristics and skills important to have successful community participation include:

• Commitment to community-derived solutions to community-based problems.
• Political, cultural, and gender sensitivity.
• Ability to assess, support, and build capacities in the community
• Technical knowledge of the health or another issue(s) the project will address.
• Ability to communicate well, especially by actively listening.
• Ability to facilitate group meetings.