Community Mobilisation and Social Awareness
What mobilisation means
Community mobilisation is enabling people to act together on a shared concern; it is a process, not an event. Sequence: identify and prioritise the issue with the community, map stakeholders, plan jointly, act through existing forums, and review.
Stakeholders and forums
Gram Panchayat and ward members, self-help groups, Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Committee, mothers' groups, Kishori groups, youth clubs, school management committees, local religious and opinion leaders. Existing forums such as the monthly Village Health Sanitation and Nutrition Day and the Gram Sabha save effort and add legitimacy.
Methods and behaviour change communication
Home visits, mothers' meetings, street plays, wall writing, local radio, and events such as Poshan Maah, Annaprashan and Godh Bharai. Participatory tools - community mapping, transect walk, seasonal calendar, pair-wise ranking - let people analyse their own situation. BCC works through dialogue: few messages, practical, locally worded, reinforced over time.
Worked example
Attendance at an AWC falls from 60 to 25 children. Reasoning: verify records, conduct home visits in two hamlets, hold a mothers' meeting, and find that the centre opens at 10 a.m. while mothers leave for farm work at 9 a.m. Action: shift timings, ask the SHG to escort younger children, review after two weeks. The barrier was logistical, not attitudinal.
Traps
Blaming families; counting a single rally as mobilisation; ignoring gatekeepers such as mothers-in-law and husbands; making promises the AWC cannot keep; no follow-up after the event.