Community Involvement and Empowerment

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGEMENT
Objectives
At the end of this lesson, the learners shall be able to:
 Define community
 Define community participation
 Discuss the aims of community participation
 Discuss the differences between community participation and involvement
 Determine the community participation process
 Identify factors that influence community participation
What is a Community?
Social entity made of people or families who have the ff. Characteristics:
• Live in the same geographical area
• Share common goals or problems
• Share similar development aspirations
• Have similar interests or social network or relationship at local level
• Have common leadership and tradition
• Have common system of communication
• Share some resources (water, school, etc.)
• Are sociologically and psychologically linked
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION
A process by which a community mobilizes its resources, initiates and takes
responsibility for its own development activities and share in decision-making and
implementation of all other development programs for the over-all improvement of its
health status.
AIMS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

 Develops self-reliance
 Develops critical awareness
 Develops problem solving skills
TYPES OF PARTICIPATION
• Passive Participation – Individual and families are mere spectators
• Active Participation – They may carrying out tasks in a program but are not involved
with the final decision-making in what is to be done.
• Final decision in such cases are made by people who are not members of the
community, in that scenario, the community does not develop a sense of self-
reliance.
Community Participation and Involvement

• Community is involved in all aspects of the program
• Enables the community to participate willingly to improve its own health status
• Entails involvement of the community in planning, implementation, management
and evaluation of programs
• It contributes towards the feeling of responsibility and involvement in such
programs.
• Enables the community to make informed decisions in matters affecting their
health and development.
• It is where active partnership is established between developmental program within
the community and the community itself.
• Contributes to the attainment of community responsibility and accountability to all
developmental programs.
• Therefore, preventing a community from alienating itself from such program, the
community develops self-reliance and social control over its own infrastructure.
DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

 Involvement of all those affected in decision-making about what should be done
and how
 Mass contribution to the development effort e.g. implementation of decision
 Sharing in the benefits of the program – World Bank, 1978
COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN DIFFERENT SITUATION

 Top-down Approach
In traditional approach, health care planning and decisions are made by
senior persons in health services or the-so-called "experts“. Research may be
carried out through surveys to what the community thinks or believe to be the
problem, in the end its usually the health workers who makes the decisions on
what goes into the program based on medically-defined needs.
 Bottom-up Approach – Members of the community make decisions.
Factors Which Influence the Degree of Community Participation Positively

• Relevance and accountability
• Education status of the community
• Community infrastructure (including communication network)
• Economic factors
• Social and cultural factors
• Level of intersectoral collaboration
• Suppression of involvement and initiative by projects which create dependency
• Political stability
• Good leadership
• Motivated community
• A sense of ownership
• Locally available sources
Participatory Methods Use in Rapid Assessment of Situations

 Daily routine schedule
 Seasonal calendar
 Time trends
 Direct observation
 Transect walk
 Venn Diagram
 Key informant interviews of individuals from the community
 Focus Group Discussion (FGD)
Benefits from Community Participation

Justification for community participation comes from variety of sources, including
lesson learned from the failures of conventional top-down planning as well as the
achievement of community-based programs.
The need for a community approach

The need to shift the emphasis from the individual to the community, because
many influences the behavior at the community level and not under control of
individuals, these includes:
• Social pressure from other people through norms
• Shared culture and the local social economic situation
Drawing on Local Knowledge

Communities have detailed knowledge about their surroundings. It makes sense
to involve communities in making plans because they know local conditions and the
possibilities for change
Making programs locally relevant and acceptable

If the community is involved in choosing priorities and deciding on plans, it is
much more likely to become involved in the programme and take up services
Developing self-reliance, self-confidence, empowerment and problem-solving skills
The enthusiasm that comes from community participation can lead to a greater sense of
self-reliance for the future. e.g. communities are usually willing to participate in water
program because they see that benefits will come. The feeling of community solidarity
and self-reliance from participating in decisions over their own future through a water
project can lead to future activities.
Better relationship between health workers and community

Community participation leads to a better relationship between the community
and the health workers instead of a servant master relationship, there is trust and
partnership.
PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

The Alma-Ata declaration on PHC in 1978 extended the notion of appropriate
health care beyond that of simply providing decentralized services, it also considered
the need to tackle economic and social causes of ill-health. Health education and
community participation are essential ingredients of PHC (WHO).
TYPES OF COMMUNITY GROUP
 SELF-HELP GROUPS - Rub by people for their own benefits. E.g. co-operatives,
church saccos, etc.
 PRESSURE GROUPS - Mars is actually a very cold pA group of self-appointed
citizens taking action on what they see to be the interests of the whole
community putting on pressure to improve the school, get garbage collected, do
something about a dangerous road, etc. Lace
 TRADITIONAL ORGANIZATIONS - E.g. Njuri Njeke in Meru, these are well
established groups, usually meeting the needs of a particular section of the
community, others rotary club, mother union parent-teacher associations, and
church groups.
 WELFARE GROUP - Exist to improve the welfare of a group; merry go round,
feeding programs, etc.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Community engagement seeks to better engage the community to achieve long-
term and sustainable outcomes, processes, relationships, discourse, decision-making,
or implementation.
Participation implies a process by which people are enabled to become actively

and genuinely involved in defining the issues of concern to them, in making decisions
about factors that affects their lives, in formulating and implementing policies, in
planning, developing and delivering services and in taking action to achieve change.
Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with and

through groups of people affiliated by geographical proximity, special interest, or similar
situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people.
It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioral changes

that will improve the health of the community and its members.
PURPOSE
 Increasing democracy
 Encourages community to address their problems
 Combating exclusion
 Empowering people
 Mobilizing resources and energy
 Achieving better decisions and more effective services
 Ensuring the ownership and sustainability of programs
APPROACHES
• Reaching community is important
• Inform, get feedback, active involvement
• Generate interest and ideas
• TV, Radios, NEWSPAPERS advertisement
• Community meeting (face-to-face interaction)
• Focus group
• Survey
• Web based engagement (online public participation)
• Social mobilization
• Increase formal or informal involvement
• Insights on social-cultural and political contexts of affected communities to build
locally acceptable interventions.
Reporters:
 Agar, Diamica C.
 Avila, Jeanne P.
 Estonilo, Grace M.

Community Involvement and Empowerment

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COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGEMENT

AIMS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

Community Participation and Involvement

DIMENSIONS OF COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION

COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION IN DIFFERENT SITUATION

Factors Which Influence the Degree of Community Participation Positively

Participatory Methods Use in Rapid Assessment of Situations

Benefits from Community Participation

The need for a community approach

Drawing on Local Knowledge

Making programs locally relevant and acceptable

Better relationship between health workers and community

PRIMARY HEALTH CARE

Participation implies a process by which people are enabled to become actively

Community engagement is the process of working collaboratively with and

It is a powerful vehicle for bringing about environmental and behavioral changes

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