community mobilization strategy - idare e taleem o aagahi project/community mobilzation... ·...

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Rationale:

One of the critical milestones of ITA is to promote quality education for personal,

economic, social and political empowerment and equity. Since 2000, ITA is in the business of

developing workable and upgraded education models as well as social policy guidelines. These

are appropriate for urban and rural situations alike across the education spectrum for public and

non-elite private schools/institutions. It believes in working through and with partners across

local communities, districts and provinces. ITA’s critical partners for action include Community

Based Organizations (CBOs), NGOs at local, national and international levels, district

governments, provincial/federal governments, private corporate sector, philanthropists, expatriate

Pakistanis and donors. Building communities for change and action is at the heart of the

enterprise of human and social transformation.

All ITA’s programs (formal and non-formal) are underpinned by the concept of

Mainstreaming initiatives in various delivery systems. Community mobilization is the starting

point or the anchor of all programs to seek out ownership at the local level through dialogues and

action when initiating new programs, and their strengthening or capacity building through various

platforms, viz. School Councils, SMCs, CCBs, Village Education Committees, Quality Education

For All Groups (QEFA groups), education or Education Vigilance Education Committees,

depending upon formal or non-formal programs .

Sustainable improvement in schools is possible only when the local community and

stakeholders step in to support local governance and decision making in the best interests of the

children. Although a community represents itself in meetings but the productivity is gained only

when some of community members (responsive & responsible) are organized on a platform with

some goals to achieve. As Community involvement is a compulsory element of the progress but

this involvement becomes positive when people show active participation rather representation.

The existing government school system in Pakistan allows the community to participate

in the management of the schools. Each government school is managed by community based

school councils. School council generally comprises a head teacher, community influential

persons, parents and retired govt. servants ensuring gender balance. School councils’ role is more

than that of a monitoring body. They are supposed to work for the improvement in the quality of

education, infrastructural development, spending of the school council funds, generation of

Whole School Improvement Program – Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi Public Trust (ITA)

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financial resources, meetings with parents etc. It is a very strong role. But unfortunately most of

the school councils are dormant bodies with head teachers running the whole show.

Social mobilization is an extremely specialized profession. Apart from an in depth

understanding of the communities, it requires a critical understanding of contemporary

development discourses and a portfolio of skills in participatory development, gender, basic tools

and techniques of participatory research, effective communication, motivation, conflict resolution

and capacity building. It also requires good marketing skills, because it involves selling new

ideas, new approaches and new technologies to an extremely segmented clientele. It involves

continued innovation and adaptation to changing environments. Thus social mobilization is an art,

which require not only basic knowledge and wisdom, but also an aptitude for continued learning

and listening. Keeping in view the seriousness of the task, ITA systematically nurtures these

critical capacities and capabilities in their social mobilization staff. Therefore, a continuous

learning and efforts are there for mobilization staff to deliver their core job on a reliable standard.

“Regenerating Schools…

Regenerating Communities” ITA’s Whole School Improvement Program (WSIP) ITA's WSIP focuses on revitalizing under-

performing public schools through Public Private

Partnerships with a vision “Regenerating Schools -

Regenerating Communities”, or connecting

communities with schools and vice versa in a

healthy relationship of mutual learning. The very

idea is to encourage specific linkages between the

public and private sectors enabling transformation of

dysfunctional government schools into viable, self

sustained and quality driven education sites. It is

also an endeavor to find willing custodians ('waris')

amongst the community for fully owning and

Quality of Teaching,Learning & Special Needs

SchoolImprovementFramework

Personal, Social,Education,

Health& Citizenship

Leadership&

Management

Community MobilizationEmpowerment

&Capacity Building

Promoting Quality Education for All


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defending the transformation for sustainability.

Community Mobilization Strategy

Community Mobilization/Empowerment

(Children, youth, women/mothers and adults without discrimination)

Hiring of teachers/social mobilizers/school coordinators from

local community

Opportunity for personal and professional development through local, national and international exposures/visits

Formation, reconstitution and strengthening of School Council

ensuring their active participation in decision making

Hopes & Fear Sessions with teachers/school management

Activity based session on “Students’ Aspirations”

Optimal Utilization of Govt. School in afternoon as Community Learning Centers for community learning and addressing life long learning needs

Influencing policy through advocacy - Advocacy Seminar/dialogues

at all levels - Dissemination of relevant

material

Union Council Nazim... UC teams training in Local

Governance

Growth through Synergies

Drop in homework study and tutorial centers/ remedial classes

Enrichment Activities for children promoting Child Rights & Summer School thru integrated project based learning/teaching

Promoting Citizenship, Diversity & Human Rights Education Celebrations of events

Initiation of continuous interaction with community

How does community participate in ITA’s Government School Improvement Programs...?

ITA’s Whole School Improvement Program has a phase wise approach from the first

meeting of hopes and fear and activity based session on students’ aspirations to the calling of a

general body (GB) meeting. ITA’s reps move out into the communities to introduce themselves,

mobilize parents for support providing the reasons for why they are in the neighbourhood and in

the school. The GB which culminates on the formation or reconstitution of school council as

prescribed by the Government. At this point ITA’s representatives deliver the orientation on

School Council (SC) and its structure. After the brief introduction and structure of School

Council (SC) the participants are requested to offer their services voluntarily by becoming the

members of School Council (SC) for the School Improvement. Majority of the participants get

excited and they offer their services. ITA’s representatives list the names of some most active

participants as School Council (SC) members. Later, with proper guidance, motivation and

cooperation, these school councils transform into Vigilance Committees and ultimately offer

itself as the real “waris” of the schools. SIP team promotes the sense of ownership and motivates


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the local community for the indispensable need of educating their sons and daughters and above

all to own the school to take care it.

In order to build the capacity building of all stakeholders, school council training

involves the capacity building of the head teachers, teachers and school councils.

Usually in a school council training session, the introduction of participants is done in an

informal way. The participants are asked to highlight their qualities and their services for

education. The introduction proves helpful in reducing the hesitation among the participants. The

roles and responsibilities of the school council members are highlighted through brainstorming or

group work. It is for the first time that school council members get to know each other. A general

observation is that a large number of SC members do not have a very clear idea of their

responsibilities.

A role-play cum group work is conducted on how to conduct good community meeting

for the effective participation of all members. The participants are divided into four groups and

are given agendas of meetings. The facilitators explains the process of school council meetings

process and the method of writing the meeting report. Then the participants are asked to conduct

a meeting and prepare ijlas ki karrawai report. At the end of this activity, one person from each

group gives the presentation of their activity. Participants enjoys this activity very much and find

it very helpful in developing the skills needed to conduct the meetings.

In this session the facilitator explains the process of funds utilization through proper

procedure. The facilitator explains the process of spending the funds which involves acquiring

three quotations, preparing comparative statements, supply orders and receipts of all kind of

expenditures. It is also explained that all receipts must be verified by the school council chairman

and the secretary. It is explained to the participants that school council has to maintain 4 registers

namely, the stock register, paste file, cash register and karrawai register. The participants are also

given formats for quotations, comparative statement and supply order.

During the session on resource mobilization the trainer prompts the real examples of

resource generation from the participants. Mostly, the participants shares the examples of funds

collection and their efforts in education sectors like manual labor, door-to-door visits for funds

and collection of donations from factory owners. Facilitators also explains how funds can be


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generated from different sources like NGOs, Union Council Nazims, community common

territory (Shamlat, especially land in rural areas) & trees, School Council Funds, MPA & MNA

grants, philanthropists, factory owners and adopters and some international NGOs Oxfam, CIDA

etc.

A group work is conducted on how we can develop child friendly schools. All

participants show keen interest in this exercise. Participants define role and responsibilities of

teachers, parents, community, school council members and other stakeholders in developing child

friendly schools. They also emphasize the behavior of teachers toward kids and healthy ecology

of school with provision of relevant and quality education. The facilitators explain the School

Enrichment Activities carried out under the ITA’s WSIP. Activities like Reading Clubs, Health

Clubs, Summer Schools, class room environment improvement, and ICT are introduced.

Gender Disparity and Corporal Punishment is discussed in detail. The participants are

divided into four groups. The groups prepares presentations on: the reasons of corporal

punishment, the negative effects of corporal punishment on the children, alternatives of corporal

punishment and the role of school council in monitoring corporal punishment. The presentations

of the group work always culminated in heated discussions between teachers and the community

members. Majority of the teachers and the community agree that corporal punishment and gender

disparity leave very bad effects on the children.

A brainstorming session on what is quality of education is used to simplify the idea of

quality education. The facilitator helps the participants develop a simple but practical notion of

quality education. As a rule, the participants come up with clichés to express their understanding

of quality education but the facilitator helps them to agree upon some achievable and

demonstrable attributes of the quality education.

The facilitators elaborate that how school development plan can be made. All key

component of SDP like vision, objectives, norms of the school, annual targets of the school,

educational and infrastructural needs of the schools are explained. The participants are asked to

be realistic as possible while assessing the needs of their schools and allocating funds. It takes

some effort to convince the participants regarding the importance of SDPs because generally the


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community draws blank when it comes to the generation of resources for the school. After that

the participants develop the SDPs of their schools in groups.

One of the objectives of the training is to help the school councils transform into CCBs.

The participants are told that they can raise funds for the school development through CCB

projects. The process of registration of CCB is explained to the participants. Then the process of

CCB project development is also explained. Some participants who are already the members of

CCBs share their experiences and problems faced in getting grants.

At the end of each workshop the participants are encourage to share/ express their

comments. They thank ITA for conducting the training which help them realize their

responsibilities regarding education.

Community Mobilization takes place throughout the life cycle of any program for various stages

and various challenges faced at the facility and local level. It is always the initial INVESTMENT

made into the local community in terms of relationship building, messages for change and

mobilization as well as roles defined for various stakeholders that is a lasting phenomenon. This

aspect cannot be short changed. The initial work is critical at the outset of any program and

project, eg. Local surveys, school profiles, meeting local influentials (good ones) and mothers in

particular as well as area mapping helps in identifying the key important persons (KIPs), general

body meeting or open community meeting in a village identifying issues and challenges for

taking action.

This is the art of CRAFTING COMMUNITIES for a common or specific cause . There are

natural geographical, historical, ethnographic, caste and group/professional communities.

However, in developmental programs communities are CRAFTED at indigenous/local level as

cause or issue based communities that builds on their original identifies and shared history/ies.

CCBs, SCs, SMCs are crafted organized representational community bodies. Communities are

not often homogeneous but heterogeneous in any area (urban more so than rural). Thus conflict

is a reality in living communities and conflict resolution skills need to be understood from the

outset for using conflict as an opportunity for constructive resolution rather than perceive conflict

as negative.


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Annexures


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Two Days Training Workshop on the Reconstitution of School Council held at Govt. Elementary School Rahim Yar Khan

organized by Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi

1. Introduction & Synopsis of Two Days’ Sessions:

A sustainable improvement in schools is possible only when the local community and

stakeholders step in to support local governance and decision making in the best interests

of the children. Somehow or the other community represents itself in meetings but the

productivity is achieved only when community members are responsive & responsible

and operate through an organized platform for achievable time bound targets. Well

functioning school councils are the only key to implement such programs. Recently,

Govt. of Punjab has finalized a school council policy 2007 for primary to elementary

schools of Punjab through Project Management Implementation Unit (PMIU). This

policy has very clear guidelines for the formation or reconstitution of school council,

responsibilities of members, record keeping, and fund utilization.

As community mobilization and capacity building of all stakeholders is one of the

key agendas of ITA’s Whole School Improvement Program so, ITA organized two days’

training sessions at Govt. Elementary School Rahim Yar Khan on December 13-14,

2007. Almost 30 to 35 participants attended the session comprising students’ parents,

community members and influentials of the area. By & large, participants were not

totally unaware of their roles & responsibilities. The issue of irregular meetings and

absenteeism of members was a common problem. A positive change was witnessed

among the trainees at the end of the session on child rights/corporal punishment. Sharing

of good practices and views in a participatory way by the participants proved very useful

to develop sessions. The concept of annual School Development Plan was appreciated.

Commitment was shown to collect funds through different resources to address the

infrastructural issues of schools. Inspired by some very good examples of active head

teachers and SCs, members of Unilever School Council members showed their


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commitment to streamline their records and regularize meetings to try funds

systematically from the potential partners and other resources.

2. Training Objectives:

• To give detailed orientation on the formation and reconstitution of School Council.

• Roles and responsibilities of School Council members

• To orientate trainees about key practices & procedures of Record keeping, resource/fund mobilization and disbursement.

• Role of SC in cultivating child friendly environment through enrichment activities

and eliminating corporal punishment.

• Preparation of School development plan as a key tool for the whole school improvement

3. Process (Training Contents and Methodology):

Sr

# Contents Methodology/

Participatory Tools Used 1 Introduction of School Council according to SC

Policy 2007 and

Brain storming , Presentation

2 Roles & Responsibilities of School Council Presentation

3 Process of Conducting Meeting (Agenda and

Karwai)

Handouts, Brainstorming, Role

play

4 Record Keeping and Resource mobilization Brain storming , Presentation

5 Funds utilization Presentation Formats

6 Child friendly school Brain storming, Presentation

7 Child Rights (Survival, Development, Protection

and Participation)

Corporal punishment

Brainstorming, Presentation

8 Preparation of School Development Plan (SDP) Presentation ,Group activity


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Report on “One Day Training Workshop on

Social Mobilization “ 7th June, 2005

Purpose:

The ITA and ILO arranged a One Day Training workshop of CDL project staff

on Social Mobilization and for clarity in their respective TORs.

Venue:

The training was held at ITA office, Islamabad.

Facilitator:

• Mr. Sohail Manzoor (SM)

Assistant Director NRSP

Introduction of the Project:

After formal introduction, SM asked questions from all participants about the

project and the duties of the each person by asking different questions to the

participants. Like:

• Since when did project start

• What are the areas covered by the Project

• Number of centers and strength of students

Etc.

Introduction of the Training:

♦ Expectations of the Participants:

Mr. SM distributed cards to all participants to write down their expectations

from this training. He took all the cards and placed them on the white board so

every one could read them. Mostly participants expressed the hope that after


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the end of this workshop they will be able to communicate in an effective

manner with the community and the vigilance committee and that they can find

solutions to the hurdles faced by them in mobilizing disparate communities in

urban settings.

♦ Workshop Objectives:

Mr. SM started with his presentation (Annex-II) with the brief orientation on the

objectives of the workshop.

He specified four main objectives of the workshop:

1. Team Building

2. Conflict Resolution

3. Roles and Responsibilities

4. Situation Analysis / Field Survey

GROUP BEHAVIOUR & TEAM BUILDING Definition of a Team A team is a group of people who:

Whole

Share a commitment to achieving some important goal. Understand that no one person can reach the goal unless the team works together.

School Improvement Program – Idara-e-Taleem-o-Aagahi Public Trust (ITA) 16

When members of group do not have a common goal, they has very little power

When member of group do have a common goal, a team has enormous

power

Mr. SM explained each category briefly and then he started an activity to better

understand Team Building Concepts.

Activity:

The participants were divided into three Peer Learning Groups (PLG) and each

group was equipped with 22 straws and 1meter tape. Each team had the time of

15 minutes to build a tower with straws and the team to win would be one which

was able to build the highest tower. The tower had to be so strong that if it was

going to put under a fan it would still remain intact for a minute.

All participants started working with great interest. After 15 minutes two teams

were able to build a tower, but the towers were not able to withstand the fan.

Mr. SM explained that this demonstrated that in Team building you must follow

some rules so that you may achieve your goals.


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Understanding between team members

Choosing the right leader

Setting objectives

Planning to achieve objectives

Better Communication

Mr. SM explains that in each team there must be understanding between the

members so they can help out each other. There must be a team leader that can

help to make decisions in collaboration of all members. The team must have to

set the objectives to planning to achieve the objectives.

Stages of Team Development

These are the stages for developing Team:

Forming

o Reserved Forming

o Formal interpersonal relationships

o Cautions

o High expectations

o In-ward looking

Storming

o Resistance to Team leader Storming o Disagreements among members

o Expectations differ

o Feel comfertablein disagreeing

o Lot of confusion in role understanding


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Norming Norming o Making commitment to work out difference

o More expression of feelings

o Apply rules of giving and receiving feedback

o Agree to common goal

Performing

o Team works efficiently and effectively

o Collaborative relationship Performing

o Members trust each other

o Committees to process and goals

A successful team has following qualities:

A shared goal that everyone knows, agrees on and is committed to

accomplish it.

A climate of trust, openness and honest communication.

A sense of belonging

Diversity valued as an asst

Creativity and innovative

Ability to reach consensus and resolve conflict

Members who are interdependent

Consensus decision – making

Problem- solving for continuous improvement

Participative leadership


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♦ Social Mobilization

“Social Mobilization is the process through which people are mobilized to

undertake development activities by themselves.”

♦ Basic Things in Social Mobilization:

Identification of contact person

Program outline

Situation Analysis

Identification of ACTIVISTS

Identification of Project clients

Identification of employers

Formation of Vigilance Committee

Formation of Students Group

♦ Important Things in Social Mobilization:

Work plans of Project Coordinator, Cluster Coordinators and Social

Mobilizers / Teachers.

Clear objectives / Targets

Strong Linkages with all stake holders

Field Dairy / Recording / NFRs

♦ Program Introduction:

The dialogue is the starting of any social mobilization. The mobilizer must be

clear about the program , objectives of the dialogue and goals. A mobilizer must

be fully aware of these important factors:

Importance of Firs Dialogue (first brick of the wall)

Purity and quality of the message


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Personal Conduct / behavior

Language and Dialogue

Calling people by Name

Avoiding Peoples in the first row

Time allocation for the Dialogue

Dialogue Vs monologue

Giving examples of things which related to their everybody life

Language of the dialogue

Humoring the People (relaxed behavior)

NOT to raise people’s expectations

How to gather peoples for the first dialogue

Explain conceptual package

Handling with problematic participants

Handle with care

Common Mistakes in Situation Analysis: Situation analysis is the basic key to any Social Mobilizer. Given are the most common mistake done by the mobilizers.

o Not listening carefully o Asking unclear questions o Providing help in answers o Imposing opinions on explanation o Not writing complete answers o Conclusion from few information o Preference to educated, rich, elders


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community mobilization strategy - idare e taleem o aagahi project/community mobilzation... ·...

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