OUR PROCESS

Outreach partner field staff [“Facilitators”] visit homes in a community to establish rapport, create an open channel of communication and build trust on an individual basis. Understanding the people in a community is vital in preparing them for change.

Facilitators conduct informal interviews and study community data (demographics, local access to water sources, household income streams, infrastructure, among other factors) to learn more about the presence and severity of issues faced by the community.

Community members gather to share and discuss the issues they face in their respective households, and collaborate to prioritize issues for further analysis and action as they work collectively toward resolution.

Facilitators prepare community members to participate in activities and raise their awareness of their agency and importance as individual components of a systematized method of issue-resolution.

The community gathers to analyze, develop, and plan solutions to address their issues. Individual, personal perceptions and aspirations consolidate into collective knowledge and formalized project goals.

Community members prepare to mobilize by simulating possible challenges in their upcoming activities/mobilizations, in a compassionate, low-pressure group setting. Scenarios are acted-out and discussed to build confidence in members’ ability to communicate, negotiate and solve problems in a new or unfamiliar setting.

With preparations complete, it’s time to act. Community members coordinate with others affected by the prioritized issue, as well as representatives from resource networks (local/regional governments, NGOs, companies, etc) in order to secure any necessary permits or equipment or even financial resources, as well as to gain experience in negotiating as equal members of society.

With the group mobilization completed, community members meet to assess the strengths and challenges of their efforts and to determine if they reached their goals. Insights from this step will be integrated into planning for future projects together.

Community partners gather to consider the difference in their lives before and after their project’s completion, and discuss lessons learned from their work together, as well as sharing in the joy of achievement through collaboration. This step bridges the end of one mobilization to the beginning of the next PHDP cycle, with members considering what they’ve learned and how they will continue to grow and change by incorporating their new experiences.