Starting Up Child Centered Spaces in Emergencies: A Field Manual

• Be inclusive. If community mobilization is meant to activate people,respect everyone’s rights and meet the interests of all, it must be an inclusiveprocess.• Start small and work up. Community mobilization efforts often fail becausethe planners attempt to accomplish too much at once. To stay motivated,local people need to make discernible progress, accomplishing smallergoals before taking on the larger goals. In practice, it is valuable to take aphased approach in which groups first achieve smaller, attainable goals,increasing their motivation to take on larger goals. Otherwise, people tendto become frustrated and give up.• Promote intrinsic motivation. A key to community mobilization is to stimulatepeople’s volunteer spirit of doing things because they help the entirecommunity, building on intrinsic motivation rather than external rewards.When external rewards such as payments are introduced, some peopleparticipate because they want the reward. When the rewards are nolonger provided, their activity ends, with the result that the projectbecomes unsustainable. To be sustainable, people have to believe in theinherent value of the project, own it and take it on as their own, and workbecause it gives them satisfaction and meaning.86