Community Organisation and Social Work
This domain tests how a supervisor mobilises a village around nutrition and child care: principles of community organisation, participatory tools, group behaviour, leadership and convergence with other departments.
Principles of community organisation
Start where the community is; involve people in identifying their own needs; use existing leadership and institutions; work through democratic participation; and ensure the community owns the outcome rather than receiving a delivered service.
Participatory Rural Appraisal tools
- Social map: households drawn by location, caste and category.
- Resource map: wells, roads, anganwadi, school, health sub-centre.
- Seasonal calendar: months of scarcity, illness, harvest, migration.
- Venn or chapati diagram: institutions and how close or influential they are.
- Transect walk, matrix ranking, focus group discussion, and daily activity clock.
Groups and leadership
Groups pass through forming, storming, norming and performing stages. Leadership may be autocratic, democratic or laissez-faire; democratic leadership sustains participation best. Self-help groups, mothers' groups and the Village Child Protection Committee are the key village institutions.
Worked example
A supervisor wants to know which village institution mothers trust most for nutrition advice. Reasoning: a social map shows households, a resource map shows facilities, but influence and trust are relational, so a Venn (chapati) diagram is the correct tool because it places institutions by closeness to the community.
Traps that cost marks
Treating PRA as a one-way survey; confusing a social map with a resource map; and calling convergence the same as delegation - convergence means joint planning with health, education and panchayat functionaries.