Key role in development is organisation, mobilisation and motivation of the community to take part in the development activity. Social Mobilisation is the foundation of all activities. IET believes that success and sustainability of the Programme depends entirely on quality of social mobilisation. Social mobilisation consists of
- Community Identification
- Community Organisation
- Inclusion (Women and Disabaled)
- Community Training
- Community Development plan
- Community Linkages
- Sustainability
This enables creating a proactive community sensitised to its problems and capable of addressing them. To meet such objective, community organisations (CO) are formed.
Community Organisation
CO is a group of 15-25 members and is an important forum for capitalizing the people’s potential to take an active role in the management of development activities. COs ordinarily carry out activities such as household level development planning, training, savings, microcredit and micro-investment. CO members meet on a fortnightly or monthly basis to discuss their plans and problems, thereby enhancing existing social capital and becoming more development oriented. A mobilized community is one that is able to identify its needs and find the resources necessary to meet those needs. Those resources may be their own savings or labor, or funds or information from a line Department.
Social Mobilization is a long and demanding process requiring guidance, supervision and monitoring of Social Mobilizers. IET is sensitive and aware of such vulnerabilities. Therefore IET has decentralized the strategy and introduced three tier social mobilization concept:
Village Organisation
The concept of second – generation social mobilization culminating in a formation of Village Organization (VO) has been introduced in the social mobilization approach and strategy. This is an umbrella organization having more than one COs in its fold. Its objective is:
- Ensure capacity building of activists and member COs.
- Ensure participation of villagers in the decision making about use of local resources.
- Boost membership of at least 80 % village households in the COs and
- Strengthen coordination with NGOs and Government Agencies.
Local Support Organisation
VOs are further federated at union council level to form Local Support Organization -LSO. The LSOs in particular, with their union council level structure, not only aggregate the collective requirements of its member villages but also form linkages with those external organizations and government line departments which best serve the developmental requirements of its communities.
Federating COs into VOs and LSOs provides communities with the opportunity to mobilize their villages as well as entire union council. The power of social mobilization therefore provides poor communities with a unified vision and voice for availing resources and services which were previously inaccessible to them.
IET has established 550 COs, 25 VOs and 3 LSOs, in partnership with the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF).