Basic concept of community mobilization

Community refers to an area or a village with families who are dependent on one another in their day-to-day, thereby creating mutual advantages. To mobilize means to organize or assemble power, force, wealthy and other resources to increase a full stage of development.
Community mobilization is an attempt to bring both human and non-human resources together to undertake developmental activities in order to achieve sustainable development. 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, and groups. It is an organization 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.

• What roles can the community play?

As you know, our most valuable resource in the community is our own people. They can make decisions about the development and health care service of the surrounding. Cooperation among community people is important to develop the community self-sufficiency and self-reliance. The community has an important role to identify and use available resources in the kebele, and to plan and act accordingly. Where there is a mechanism of local self-government, important decisions are usually made at the local level by the local people themselves.

Development and health goals cannot be achieved without effective participation of the community. So community mobilization is concerned about organizing the community and all the resources available in the community to move them towards achieving this health goal.

It is an initial and ongoing process central to any community and social change effort that seeks to build support and participation of individuals, groups, and institutions to work towards a common goal or vision.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 opportunity for everyone to participate in decisions that affect their lives. It is a means to achieve reliable and sustainable healthy lifestyles and behavioral changes.

In our community there is quite a strong network in terms of interdependence or cooperation amongst friends, families, and neighbors. The community should be mobilized and supported to identify their felt health needs and develop certain solution in order to solve the problem. Through this means it is suggested that the living conditions, facilities and services of the community will improve, along with the empowerment of the community. Unfortunately there is little formal organization and strategizing around community organizations which could potentially serve as a means to address their needs. This sense of immobility arises from a number of factors:

• The misperception that politicians and bureaucrats will alleviate their problems for them,
• A lack of expertise amongst the community to facilitate such organization,
• The unwillingness of the community as a whole to give up individual interests to form a broader cooperative, and
• An extreme shortage of available resources to facilitate the mobilization process.

As a health extension practitioner you should overtake these factors and work with the community to achieve sustainable health program. Community mobilization allows you to:

• Identify needs and promote community interests.
• Promote good leadership and democratic decision making.
• Identify specific groups for undertaking specific problems.
• Identify all the available resources in the community.
• Plan the best use of the available resources.
• Enable the community to better govern itself

There are important things that you need to bear in mind while mobilizing your community. At the beginning you should know you community as possible as you can.

Knowing is not the ultimate goal you should encourage them to participate from initial phase of problem identification to finding solution for the problem. Community has different resource to deal with the problem. After this identify what you and your community can do; then your role will be to facilitate and encourage them towards it.

Your answers will be individual to you and your community. The point of this question is that the more you know about the community the more likely you will be to design health-related projects that fit the individual needs of that community. Following the implementation phase of the project, you should allow they community to evaluate the progress of the project.

When we summarize steps in community mobilization:-

• Create awareness of the health issue
• Motivate the community through community preparation, organizational development, capacity developments and bringing allies together
• Share information and communication
• Support them, provide incentives and generate resources