Helping unengaged communities become engaged?
Hello Community Coalition Coordinators!
My name is Alejandra Padilla, I am a DBHR Fellow that just started in January. I have really enjoyed working with coalition coordinators and have been particlarly interested in the challenge of engagement in communities.
When implementing programs engagement is one challenge we may face, such as getting people interested in the program, getting them to commit and attend the program, and lastly keeping them engaged and committed throughout the program.
My question to you, is what strategies have you used to address the challenge of getting unengaged communities, engaged? What have you found works? What you have you found did not work? Or what should we be aware of when facing this challenge? Any ideas are welcome.
In the future I hope to work with the Latino Communities so look forward to hearing about all of your experiences and hopefully one day be able to implement them myself.
Thanks for sharing!
alejandra
Relationships and communication. Know where your people are in the community. Utlize their strenghts and capitalize on their talents. When people feel valued it's easier to ask for smaller tasks.
Sometimes it is as simple as a conversation like "How is your mom recovering from her surgery? ... we missed you at the coalition meeing last week we were working on the PLAN."