Community Mobilization Lecture 8th March 2010

Community mobilization
ASC 308: Community Organization

and Development.
Social Mobilization
• Social mobilization in UNICEF is defined as a process that
engages and motivates a wide range of partners and allies at
national and local levels to raise awareness of and demand for a
particular development objective through face-to-face dialogue.
• Social mobilization: a process of bringing together all feasible
inter-sectoral partners and allies to determine felt-needs and
raise awareness of, and demand for, a particular development
objective. (Howard-Grabman and Snetro, no date)
• Members of institutions, community networks, civic and
religious groups and others work in a coordinated way to reach
specific groups of people for dialogue with planned messages.
• In other words, social mobilization seeks to facilitate change
through a range of players engaged in interrelated and
complementary efforts.
Definition: Community Mobilization
• Community mobilization engages all sectors of the population in a
community-wide effort to address a health, social, or environmental
issue.
• A community mobilisation program ideally consists of a locally
organised and planned, community intervention, where the
individual stakeholders and other development workers such as
health workers, NGO coalitions, Religious leaders, police, the media
and local businesses collaborate on a range of complementary
interventions.
• It brings together policy makers and opinion leaders, local, state,
and federal governments, professional groups, religious groups,
businesses, and individual community members.
• Community mobilization empowers individuals and groups to take
some kind of action to facilitate change.
Who can initiate Community Mobilization
Initiatives
• Part of the process includes mobilizing necessary resources,
disseminating information, generating support, and fostering
cooperation across public and private sectors in the
community.
• Anyone can initiate a community mobilization effort — the
staff of local or state health departments, CBOs, or concerned
physicians and other health professionals. All it takes is a
person or a group to start the process and bring others into it.
Benefits of Community Mobilization
• It can Infuse new energy into an issue through

community buy-in and support.
• Expand the base of community support for an
issue or organization.
• Help a community overcome denial of a
health issue.
Benefits of Community Organization
• Promote local ownership and decision-making

about a health issue.
• Encourage collaboration between individuals
and organizations.
• Limit competition and redundancy of services
and outreach efforts.
• Provide a focus for prevention planning and
implementation efforts.
Benefits of community mobilization
• Create public presence and pressure to change laws,
polices, and practices — progress that could not be
made by just one individual or organization.
• Bring new community volunteers together (because of
increased visibility).
• Increase cross-sector collaboration and shared
resources.
• Increase access to funding opportunities for
organizations and promote long-term, organizational
commitment to socal and health-reated issues.
People to be involved in Community
Mobilization
• For community mobilization efforts addressing any
common problem, it will be most effective to
gather the support of those who have the most
interaction and influence with the populations
most affected by the problem.
– They could include: Heath care providers, and
– Local and state policy makers and opinion leaders
(support from policy makers and opinion leaders can be
achieved through efforts of
– CBOs and FBOs.
Phases of Community Mobilization
• Phase I: Planning for Community Mobilization

• Phase II: Raising Awareness
• Phase III: Building a Coalition
• Phase IV: Taking Action
• Phase V: Monitoring and Evaluating
Planning for Community Mobilization
• Before you begin CM activity, you must undergo a planning phase to
help determine the many factors that can influence your effort.
• Begin this phase by:
• Conducting a Community Assessment.
– You will need to conduct a Community Assessment to learn where your
community currently stands in regard to syphilis elimination. (Who is currently
involved, what has been accomplished, and what has not happened,
opportunities, barriers, gaps, etc.)
• Involving the right people.
– Do not try to conduct a community-wide syphilis elimination effort just through
your health department. You will want to form a community coalition of health
professionals, CBOs and FBOs (and their leaders), community activists and
others who have an interest in local syphilis elimination activities. Make sure
that you encourage open communication.
1. Selecting a strong leader.
– Appropriate leadership is key to the success of your community
mobilization effort. Whether it is a person in the health
department or a member of your community coalition, this
leader needs to be creative and have the ability to bring
together people who have different perspectives and vested
interests to support the coalition’s vision.
– This leader needs to become an agent of change who is
passionate about the issue and able to organize members of
your coalition and its target audiences into change agents.
• Defining goals and strategies.
– Your goals help to define what must be accomplished to achieve your
vision.
– Strategies identify the actions you will take to meet your goals. How will
you tackle the strategies needed to eliminate syphilis?
– Set goals that you think can be achieved and choose strategies that you
think can be implemented with the resources (funding, manpower,
equipment) you have or believe you can obtain.
• Developing ways to regularly measure progress.
– Creating change takes time. Tracking your achievements will help you
maintain the momentum necessary for success. Early in your mobilization
planning process, identify your short- and long-term goals, as well as how
and when you will measure when you have achieved those goals.
• Identifying funding and other resources.
– All community mobilization initiatives require
ongoing financial and resource support. Identify
financial and other resources you will need and
possible sources to meet these needs.
– If you need additional resources, how will you make
the case for them? Who are the people with whom
you need to speak? Who, in your coalition, would be
the best person(s) to do this? Are they willing to take
on this role? How quickly does this need to be done?
Community Mobilization Model

Community Mobilization Lecture 8th March 2010

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Community mobilization

ASC 308: Community Organization

• It can Infuse new energy into an issue through

• Promote local ownership and decision-making

• Phase I: Planning for Community Mobilization

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