Community Mobilization
Community Mobilization
Our community mobilization activities are successful because of our flexibility and willingness to listen and work with the local communities to achieve mutually shared goals which are relevant and easily applicable towards addressing their pressing needs.
Our key focus in this programme is to increase capacity of communities to amplify their ability and strength to do things for themselves by helping them build more skills, more confidence, and more effective organization. In this programme, we strongly disagree with wrong long standing attitudes and beliefs among our communities that they can not solve their own problems without external help. To us, this is a weakness that has been made worse by teaching our local people to be lazy and dependent. We believe power lies within every community to develop itself with a view to the community taking more responsibility for its own development, starting with decisions about what they must undertake (projects / activities) by themselves with the little local resources they have.
Why we mobilize local communities?
1. To promote unity: To us, it is a common mistake to assume that any community is united. Every community has factions and disputes, what we call social division, within it. We have found most of these based on religion, clan, class, language, ethnic differences, and other factors. Through our church branch network, we are greatly involved in the promotion of peace and reconciliation while advocating for positive moral change among communities we serve. The regions we operate in have been torn by ethnic violence and conflicts for many years and now the ravages of hunger and absolute poverty. As Christians, we feel it’s our total responsibility to try to raise a community that reflects Christ actions.
2. To encourage participation and involvement: To us, this helps communities to become more responsible for the activities initiated to address their problems. When they invest their time and resources, a sense of ownership towards a project or activity is generated among them and this is vital towards success and sustainability of any project initiated.
In every village or area we operate we encourage local communities to form Self Help Groups under our Community Development Programme. These groups are formed and managed by the local communities themselves. They identify their own community needs and decide on viable projects or activities to address the needs. They begin implementing these projects using their mobilized local resources within the community and control and monitor these projects or activities by themselves. Our role as a church sponsoring the programme is to work with them as a referee or a catalyst for their development initiatives. We support, organize and grow the groups into effective community mediating organizations by equipping them with necessary skills and sourcing for external resources to boost their capacities and development.
3. To create and increase awareness on social justice issues which affect the development of communities: poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, HIV/AIDS, malaria, good health, child care and protection, water and sanitation, hygiene and nutrition, human rights issues, food security and hunger, women empowerment, youth development, environment and climatic change to mention a few. We do this through organization of training seminars and workshops, sensitization meetings, campaigns and theatre activities (music, dance and drama). We have conducted some of these activities in partnership with local governments, other NGOs and community based organizations.
4. To train and impart skills: Especially to the youth and women who are marginalized aimed at empowering them to become productive and self-reliant partners.
To donate to support our programmes, please go to our Support Us for guidelines on how to send your donation. You can also call the director at his cell phones +254 724079529, +254 755530202, or email :[email protected] or contact him the contact address below:
IPFA Mercy Ministries
P.O. Box 9120 - 00200
Nairobi - Kenya
East Africa
Office: +254 202109945
Cell: +254 773677594 Email: [email protected]
Website: www.ipfa.weebly.com
Our community mobilization activities are successful because of our flexibility and willingness to listen and work with the local communities to achieve mutually shared goals which are relevant and easily applicable towards addressing their pressing needs.
Our key focus in this programme is to increase capacity of communities to amplify their ability and strength to do things for themselves by helping them build more skills, more confidence, and more effective organization. In this programme, we strongly disagree with wrong long standing attitudes and beliefs among our communities that they can not solve their own problems without external help. To us, this is a weakness that has been made worse by teaching our local people to be lazy and dependent. We believe power lies within every community to develop itself with a view to the community taking more responsibility for its own development, starting with decisions about what they must undertake (projects / activities) by themselves with the little local resources they have.
Why we mobilize local communities?
1. To promote unity: To us, it is a common mistake to assume that any community is united. Every community has factions and disputes, what we call social division, within it. We have found most of these based on religion, clan, class, language, ethnic differences, and other factors. Through our church branch network, we are greatly involved in the promotion of peace and reconciliation while advocating for positive moral change among communities we serve. The regions we operate in have been torn by ethnic violence and conflicts for many years and now the ravages of hunger and absolute poverty. As Christians, we feel it’s our total responsibility to try to raise a community that reflects Christ actions.
2. To encourage participation and involvement: To us, this helps communities to become more responsible for the activities initiated to address their problems. When they invest their time and resources, a sense of ownership towards a project or activity is generated among them and this is vital towards success and sustainability of any project initiated.
In every village or area we operate we encourage local communities to form Self Help Groups under our Community Development Programme. These groups are formed and managed by the local communities themselves. They identify their own community needs and decide on viable projects or activities to address the needs. They begin implementing these projects using their mobilized local resources within the community and control and monitor these projects or activities by themselves. Our role as a church sponsoring the programme is to work with them as a referee or a catalyst for their development initiatives. We support, organize and grow the groups into effective community mediating organizations by equipping them with necessary skills and sourcing for external resources to boost their capacities and development.
3. To create and increase awareness on social justice issues which affect the development of communities: poverty, ignorance and illiteracy, HIV/AIDS, malaria, good health, child care and protection, water and sanitation, hygiene and nutrition, human rights issues, food security and hunger, women empowerment, youth development, environment and climatic change to mention a few. We do this through organization of training seminars and workshops, sensitization meetings, campaigns and theatre activities (music, dance and drama). We have conducted some of these activities in partnership with local governments, other NGOs and community based organizations.
4. To train and impart skills: Especially to the youth and women who are marginalized aimed at empowering them to become productive and self-reliant partners.
To donate to support our programmes, please go to our Support Us for guidelines on how to send your donation. You can also call the director at his cell phones +254 724079529, +254 755530202, or email :[email protected] or contact him the contact address below:
IPFA Mercy Ministries
P.O. Box 9120 - 00200
Nairobi - Kenya
East Africa
Office: +254 202109945
Cell: +254 773677594 Email: [email protected]
Website: www.ipfa.weebly.com