sCommunity Organizing and Empowerment in
Health
Prepared by: Klyne Ken T. Cabag, RN
Community Engagement
•It is the process of working collaboratively with and
through groups of people affiliated by geographic
proximity, special interest, or similar situation to
address issues affecting the well being of those
people.
• SYNERGY is the key feature of this process
involving all members of society.
• A community can be viewed in this context in
TWO (2) ways:
1. One refers to the people who are immerse in the
issues
2. Others are stakeholders including businessmen,
scientists, and other sectors of society.
• Community Engagement - Is also viewed as a
STRATEGY AND CONTINUUM
Continuum of Public Participation
• 1. Outreach - Some community involvement
• 2. Consult - More community involvement
• 3. Involve - Better community involvement
• 4. Collaborate - Community involvement
• 5. Shared Leadership - Strong Bidirectional
Relationship
Principles of Community Engagement
1. Clarity of purpose
2. Knowledge Control
3. Relationships
4. Respect for Self-determination
5. Partnership
6. Diversity
7. Community Assets
8. Flexibility/ Sharing
9. Commitment
FORMS OF COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
• Community Development - is a practice-based
profession and an academic discipline that
promotes participative democracy, sustainable
development, rights, economic opportunity, equality
and social justice, through the organization,
education, and empowerment of people within their
communities, whether these be of locality, identity
of interest, in urban or rural settings.
• The bottom line of COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
can be summed up into FOUR (4)
CHARACTERISTICS namely
A. It is a process for implementing change
B. A program of specified activities
C. An outcome
D. An Ideology of action
COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
•Community Organizing - Is a form of community
engagement that seeks to rally people to work
together and act on issues owned, identified, and
solved thru and by people's own efforts.
• Community Organizing - A process that revolves
around the people's lives, experiences and
aspiration. A process that is people-centered and
geared toward the continuing capability building,
SELF-RELIANCE, and EMPOWERMENT. It is also
the process which builds mobilizes people and
other community resources towards identifying and
solving their own problems, establishing people's
self-awareness and capacities to stage their own
future.
• Community Organizing - A planned process to
activate a community to use its own social
structures and any available resources to
accomplish community goals that are decided on
primarily by community representatives and
generally consistent with local values
• As a process, Community Organizing goes
through 2(TWO) broad PHASES:
A. First is educating the people
B. Second is mobilizing all stakeholders to address
the problems
• Philosophical approach of Community
Organizing - It aims transform the voiceless and
the powerless into a dynamic, participatory, and
politically responsive community
Essence of Community Organizing
Process: F.A.C.E.S
• FOCUS of Community Organizing is to achieve
SELF-RELIANCE.
• AIM of Community Organizing is COMMUNITY
DEVELOPMENT
• CONCEPT of Community Organizing is
TEAMWORK
• ELEMENT of Community Organizing is
PARTICIPATION OF PEOPLE
• STRATEGIES of Community Organizing are
TEACHING, TRAINING, AND TRANSFER OF
TECHNOLOGY
Community Organizing Values and
Assumptions
•Community organizing is a values-based process,
tracing its foots in:
Human Rights, Social Justice &
Social Responsibility
Models/Typology of Community
Organizing
•A. Locality Development
°B. Social Action
•C. Social Planning
• Locality Development - is the classic form of
community organizing where people living in the
same area that are bound by the same issues and
problems develop their capacities in dealing with
their own concerns
Conceptual Framework of Community
Organizing
Models/Typology of Community
Organizing
• Social Action - Involves sectors of population
that are disenfranchised and clamors for social
justice. This approach is therefore not limited to
communities bound by location but more commonly
involves people of same social class, occupation,
or ideology.
•Social Planning - Expert driven and highly
technical solutions to problems of society at large
define what SOCIAL PLANNING approach to
community organizing is all about.
Phases of Community Organizing
•Social Preparation
•Social Mobilization
•Capacity Building
•Social Preparation - Refers to the initial steps
involved in establishing a partnership with the
people and identifying the needs, problems, and
issues affecting the community.
Phases of Community Organizing
SOCIAL PREPARATION
• Social Preparation:
Steps under this phase include:
A. Site Selection
B. Entry & Integration
C. Social Investigation
• Site Selection -
Activities during this step include:
A. Formulating a criteria for selection
B. Perform Ocular Visit
C. Initiating contact with the community
• Site Selection Criteria-
A. A community with a population of 100 or more
families
B. Marginalized or in need;
C. Peace and order situation in generally safe; and
D. People are receptive and willing to participate

Phases of Community Organizing

SOCIAL PREPARATION
•Entry and Integration

Techniques of Integrating with the

Community
• Performing home visits
• Informal conversations in places where people
usually gather
• Participation in livelihood activities
• Participation in social gathering

Forms of Community Integration that should be

avoided by Community Organizers
• "now you see, now you don't"
- The organizer visits the community occasionally
but fails to engage the people
• "boarder of the community?
- Renting a house in the community rather than
staying with the families prevent genuine interaction
and sharing
• "elitist"
- Staying with a person of authority in the
community creating a bastier between the people
and the organizer