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CO School :

What is CO ?
1) What is CO - Old Answer
2) 10 Steps to CO Organization

10 Steps to CO Organization

Basic Orientation on Community Organization:
Philosophy, Principles and TEN CO STEPS

1. Processes Integration
2. Social investigation
3. Tentative program
4. Ground work
5. Meeting
6. Role play
7. Mobilization
8. Evaluation
9. Reflection
10. Organization

1. INTEGRATION
This refers to the process wherein the community organizer tries to establish rapport and communication with the members of the community by learning and participating in their everyday life. Thus, living in the community is a basic requirement for organizers,particularly at the start of the training ,to ensure that he or she imbibes the culture, expressions, nuances of community life.

2. SOCIAL INVESTIGATION
Social investigation is the process of systematically learning and analyzing the various structures and forces in the community-economic, political and socio-cultural. It results in a community portrait which is a scientific collation and synthesis of data gathered. It provides a clear picture of the community.

3. TENTATIVE PLANNING and STRATEGIZING
Planning is the process of identifying goals and translating them into specific activities to meet community needs or solve community problems. The final plans and decisions have to be done by the people in the community, but the organizer can begin the process.

4. GROUNDWORK
This process provides the rigor to organizing,as a transformative and dialogical process . This refers to the one on one or at times in small groups dialogue where the organizer engages the people in evoking their views, analysis, attitudes, beliefs around the issues . This process is aimed at securing the people's participation from the analysis, planning of solutions and actions.

5. MEETING
Getting to know the culture, history, economy, leaders, history and lifestyle of people in the community Establishing rapport with the people to imbibe community life by living with them Participation in the social and economic, formal and informal activities of the community

THE COMMUNITY MEETING
The community meeting is the step in organizing where as many people as possible in the community are gathered to formally discuss the issues raised during the groundwork to plan their actions to address the issues.

6. ROLE PLAY
This refers to the process wherein the people act out the forthcoming dialogue, negotiation (or confrontation, as the case maybe) that will take place between the leaders of the people and the authority (target) mandated to act on the community problem. Various scenarios are played out to develop strategies /tactics to manage the possible ways in which the event will unfold. Thus, the formulation of Plans A,B, C,etc.

7. MOBILIZATION
Mobilization refers to the community action undertaken to address and resolve the identified community issues and concerns. For the issue based organizers , this can be in the form of negotiation or dialogue coupled with pressure tactics. For the socio-economic based organizers, this refers to the mobilization of people to start and run a socio-economic project.

8. EVALUATION
Based on the 1985 "Tagisan" reflection of community organizers, evaluation is the process of discovering what the people accomplished, what was not achieved, the strengths and weaknesses of the action,its causes, and how these weaknesses can be prevented or minimized,while looking into how gains can be maximized.

9. REFLECTION
Based on the dialogical character of the community organizing process, aimed at consciousness raising and transformative action, the reflection process evokes from the participants of the community action the following: what they felt, thought, learned as individuals or as a groups from the process. In this dialogue, the Socratic question and answer method is still applied to establish the insight, analysis of each participant , based on his/her own naming of the experience.

10. ESTABLISHING THE PEOPLE'S ORGANIZATION
The aim of community organization is to develop independent people's organization who will serve as representatives to the outside community in securing solutions towards improving the quality of life in the community. After some victories in issues addressed by the community members, formal election of leaders, approval of by laws and constitutions, formation of committees constitute the consolidation of the initial organizing process