Lori Michau, Co-Director, Raising Voices, Uganda

lori.michau@raisingvoices.org www.raisingvoices.org

Mobilizing Communities to Prevent Domestic Violence:

A Systematic Approach

Raising Voices

• Began in 1999

• Develop Program Tools

• Provide Technical Support

• Run Learning Centers

• Coordinate GBV Prevention Network (www.preventgbvafrica.org)

• Advocacy

Preventing violence against women and children

What is Community Mobilization?

• Moving beyond service delivery

• Awareness, Action, Accountability

• Activism not ‘training’

• Individuals are change agents not program recipients

• Horizontal emphasis

• Organic and iterative

• Builds social capital

• Process is essential

Conceptual Framework of Community Mobilization

Sounds good, but how ?!

Concepts into Action

• Stages of individual change scaled up to community level

• Phased-in approach structures process of change

• Helps organizations be systematic and focused

Facilitating Change: The Foundation of Community Mobilization

Concepts into Action (cont.)

Holistic: cross section of community; multi-faceted and interconnected relationships

Repeated exposure to ideas: multiple strategies

Community Ownership: NGO guided, community run

M&E Challenges• Creates fear! • Dynamic, multiple

influences• Longer-term process• Moving beyond

tracking changes in individuals to community

• Establishing meaningful quantifiable indicators

• Skills and capacity of NGOs

Program Tool Evaluation

• Program tools can help structure and guide programs

• Relevant in diverse contexts

• Replicable

• Can be scaled up

Lessons Learned

• Multi-faceted programming challenging but possible

• Understanding how people change contributes to effective programming

• Benefits-based approach more useful

• Shifts responsibility from women to community

• Doesn’t fit neatly into donor timeframes

• Reflects life – is messy!

• Prevention is ultimately more sustainable