Facilitating Participation in Appraisal
Stimulating Community Self Assessment
 by
Phil Bartle, PhD

Facilitators' Notes.

What do you, the community mobilizer or facilitator, do to stimulate
and encourage community participation in the assessment and
appraisal of community resources and needs?

The Importance of Community Participation:

 The participation of all community members in the systematic
 observation, recording and assessment of their own communities is a
 central element in the process of empowering communities. Your role
 in encouraging and facilitating that is therefore crucial.

 Without community members all having an objective and accurate
 understanding of their own communal needs, problems, assets and
 resources, there can be no unified choice of priority solutions and
 concerted actions in problem solving, development and poverty
 reduction. See Unity Organizing.

 Your work as a mobilizer then, is important in the development of
 the community, and your facilitation of community participation in
 its own appraisal is essential for the community to move
 forward. See the Participatory Assessment and Research document (the
 core document in this module) for further explanation of the role
 this process is within in the overall cycle of problem solving,
 mobilization or empowerment of the community.

The Skills You Need:

 Your best teacher is experience. If you can get an opportunity to
 work along with an experienced practitioner of PRA or PAR, then that
 apprenticeship will serve you well.

 If not, or to enhance that, read as much as you can, attempt
 facilitation on your own, then meet with fellow practitioners to
 share experiences and compare results. A good facilitator never
 stops learning.

 What to read in this self study? On this site are several documents
 that will help you to grasp the principles and, most importantly,
 the personal skills and techniques you can use.

 See, for example, the guest essay by Kamal Phuyal in Nepal, Sharing
 happiness, Sharing PRA, to examine some of the questions of the
 "Why" as well as the "How" of PRA. See the presentation by Ben
 Fleming, Participation, for a well thought out list of methods and
 approaches you can employ.

 See also To Be a Mobilizer, scrolling down to the list of needed
 characteristics. See also the Brainstorm module, as many of the
 methods described in it will be useful already at this assessment
 phase.

 If you have more access to the internet, you can go to the Links and
 "Misc" pages of this site to start you off in your research for
 further material. Browse through some of the many other web sites
 that have material about this topic.

 A series of papers are available through the IDS (Institute of
 Development Studies) in Sussex, UK, including those of Robert
 Chambers, recognised as the main champion of participatory
 methodologies. There are many other sources of training material
 available on the Internet, if you do not have access to university
 libraries; you need to research them.

 Essentially, however, your best approach is do, share, and do.

 That means you should just jump in to the work, and try to carry out
 the enablement described in this module, then share your experiences
 with other community workers doing similar things, then go out and
 do some more. Attending workshops and seminars with other field
 workers is something to do wherever and whenever possible.

 While you must demonstrate leadership, especially when organizing
 the community walk to make the map, and organizing a meeting to
 prepare the inventory, it is important that you encourage everyone
 to participate. Do not impose your own ideas about their needs and
 resources.

 Carefully work towards consensus and unity (see Unity Mobilizing)
 and ensure that your work is transparent and honest. Demonstrate to
 the community that the output of their work (the map and inventory)
 is a community or communal product, not merely the vested interests
 of some individuals or factions.

 In your quest for training material to help you learn how to do the
 work, or learn how to improve your techniques, do not overlook the
 Mobilizer's Handbook, an electronic copy of which is on this
 site. See the chapters on preparing yourself to be a mobilizer.

 In summary, useful training material documents available on this
 site (outside this module)
 include: the Brainstorm, Participation, Sharing PRA, Unity
 Organizing, To be a Mobilizer and the Mobilizer Handbook.

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Updated: 2003 May 14