Community Mobilization

Community mobilization is recognized as the foundation of community development projects. Community mobilization is a process of building relationships among community members in order organize and take actions to pursuit common interests of the community. Community mobilizations target sustainable development. Figure 1 shows the process of a community mobilization program.

Figure 1. Action cycle of a community mobilization program.

The community mobilization involves four important stages. Those are building partnerships, developing a community plan, implementing community action plans, and evaluating their effectiveness. These stages are further explained in figure 2 given below

Figure 2. The community mobilization model

There are both strengths and weaknesses in following community mobilization as a foundation of community development projects.  Strengths include the direct involvement of the participants in decision making and implication processes.  The participants are also free to participate they are not bounded by the program. The participants being the means and the ends of the program decide their requirements and work towards a better state of living.   Community mobilization allows both the change agents and the participants to evolve with the process; they can evaluate themselves and the effectiveness of the program and plan for further actions together as a community. As participants involve in all the stages of the action plan, it promotes community ownership.

During the mobilization process, the participants learn leadership skills and social skills. It also provides long term commitments for social change. Community mobilization requires change in the way of thinking and behaving for a social cause.  It also incorporate marginalized groups. It provides chances to women to participate in the community programs. For example, USAID’s Access program aims to improve maternal and newborn health through community mobilization (Save the children, 2009).  

Community Mobilization also has its weaknesses. Most of the times, the participants are not aware of the reasons for the changes.  The time frame of the programs do not give enough time to identify their true needs and interests. They are at a disadvantage of being carried away with the masses. Moreover, these projects misjudge the readiness of the communities while they perform the situation analysis giving a sudden shock to the participants as they have to suddenly adapt to new ways of doing things.