MASINDE MULIRO UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS 2015/2016 ACADEMIC YEAR FIRST

YEAR FIRST SEMESTER DSC 064: COMMUNITY MOBILIZATION
AND SOCIAL ACTION QUESTIONS AND MARKING SCHEME

EXAMS DECEMBER 2016 MUMIAS CAMPUS-12/10/2016

Answer question one and any other question from the choices given
1 a) What is Community Mobilization?

Community mobilization is the act of encouraging and engaging the community to participate in
the creation of safe cities and communities for women and girls. This process must involve the
whole community, not just the specific actors who are directly involved in a safe cities for
women programme. A community could be considered “mobilized” when all members feel as
though the issue of women’s and girls’ safety is important to them and worthy of action and
support. Community mobilization has been defined as a capacity building process through which
community individuals, groups, or organizations plan, carry out and evaluate activities on a
participatory and sustained basis to improve health and other needs on their own initiative or
stimulated by others. Mobilization increases the participatory decision-making processes by
bringing diverse stakeholders to the table.

1b) What are the Dos and Don’t for Community Mobilization

Don’t Do
Do it all for the community Do it with the community help
See professionals as the experts Use community expertise
Deny ethnic and cultural differences of Understand ethnic and cultural
a community differences of communities and build
Plan mobilization efforts alone on ethnic and cultural diversities
Focus solely on individual efforts Include others in the planning process
Develop community partnerships
2 a) Briefly describe the goals of Community Mobilization

• Increase community, individual, and group capacity to identify and satisfy

needs
• Increase community level decision-making
• Increase community ownership of programs
• Bring additional resources to the community
• Build on social networks to spread support, commitment and changes in social
norms and behavior.

2 b) . Illustrate the Health Mobilization Cycle as used in community Health development

3. Vividly explain the qualities of a successful fundraiser as:

1. Impeccable integrity
2. Good listener
3. Ability to motivate
4. Hard worker
5. Concern for people
6. High expectations
7. Love the work
8. High energy
9. Perseverance
10. Presence

4. What Key Characteristics and Skills Facilitate a Community Participation Approach?

Above all, those promoting community participation need to be able to facilitate a process, rather
than to direct it. Facilitators need to have genuine confidence in a community's members and in
their knowledge and resources. A facilitator should be willing to seek out local expertise and
build on it while bolstering knowledge and skills as needed. Key characteristics and skills
important to facilitating community participation include:

• Commitment to community-derived solutions to community-based problems

• Political, cultural, and gender sensitivity
• Ability to apply learning and behavior change principles and theories
• Ability to assess, support, and build capacities in the community
• Confidence in the community's expertise
• Technical knowledge of the health or other issue(s) the project will address
• Ability to communicate well, especially by actively listening
• Ability to facilitate group meetings
• Programmatic and managerial strengths
• Organizational development expertise

Ability to advocate for and defend community-based solutions and approaches

5 a) with the knowledge of experiential learning explain how social action works

Social action is based on the idea that learning is about change in the ‘real’ world and as such
‘real’ experiences must be the foundations of learning. Therefore people’s lives are critical in
this therefore tutors and learners must take up their respective roles:
 • Tutors – must model the behaviour of using experiential learning by using their own lives
as tools for initiating discussions based on learner’s lives and thoughts.
• Learners – must be encouraged to reflect on their own lived experience and be
encouraged to try things out, whether this is doing or saying something in class or trying
out new ways of acting in their own lives.

• Together tutors and learners – need to work together to blur the line between the
classroom and life outside by constantly referring from one to the other. Tutors and
learners must share learning with each other with the learning being from life and from
the classroom.

5 b) How does one Prepare f or community development and social change in your
community?

This last aspect of social action is where the focus moves from the classroom into the wider
community and indeed society. During this stage, there is a merging of the class/group and the
community education organisation. The different stages of this are:

• Learners and organisations move from the possible solutions to actions for resolving local
issues
• There is a real change as the focus is on the collective rather than the individual. Issues
are to be addressed for the community and not for individuals
• The focus also begins to move from learning and personal progression to working on
broader ideas of justice and equality in society
• Organisations need to focus on long-term impact and change at societal levels rather than
short-term outcomes
• The largest part of this stage is about people getting involved – and this may mean getting
involved at different levels and in different aspects of the action.

1 a) What is Community Mobilization? (5 marks)

1b) What are the Dos and Don’t for Community Mobilization (10 marks)

1c) Write brief notes on community participation?(10 marks)

2 a) Briefly describe the goals of Community Mobilization (10 marks)

2 b) . Illustrate the Health Mobilization Cycle as used in community Health development

(10 marks)

3. Vividly explain the qualities of a successful fundraiser (20 marks)

4. What Key Characteristics and Skills Facilitate a Community Participation Approach
( 20 marks)

5 a) with the knowledge of experiential learning explain how social action works ( 10
marks)

5 b) How does one Prepare f or community development and social change in your
community? (10 marks)

Misiko Francis Okumu