The target community

Although it sounds obvious, you need to find out exactly who is your target community. The answers are sometimes more surprising than you'd anticipate.

 

Research a profile

Profile the target community, identifying at least enough to know whether to or not to proceed. You will probably want to know most or all the following:

  1. What information is available on this group? What kind of information is it? Where is it and how can we get it?
  2. What is the name of the ethnic group that they use for themselves? What name do others call them? (It might be different.)
  3. In what country do they live? What is their exact location? Are there some core areas and some marginal areas? Are they urban, suburban, rural, mountains, desert, farmland, coastal fishing villages, etc? (Draw a map.)
  4. Are their particular cultural centers? Major population centers?
  5. How is their culture changing? In what directions?
  6. What movements or incidents have affected their openness to potential community development?
  7. What language and dialect do they speak?
  8. What is the population of the ethnic group?
  9. What is their affinity block? (An affinity block is a group of ethnic groups that have linguistic and cultural similarities. In many cases, they are descended from a common ancestral group centuries ago, but now see themselves as ethnically separate.)
  10. Do we have photos of them?
  11. What socio-economic status do they have? Upper middle class, landless peasants, traditional ruling class, small traders, factory workers, refugees, etc.
  12. Do they already have any predominant institutions of their own: Local government, churches, mosques, schools, commercial enterprises, extended families, etc.
  13. are there any particualr cultural factors, for example, religion, worldview, history, sociology, etc. You might need to describe them ethnographically and its related worldview issues. Describe your initial contact with the people, and record their stories.
  14. Will the local government be sympathetic, obstructive or disinterested?
  15. Are there particular legal or regulatory factors? There may be legal restrictions of what you can do, or you may need permits for some kinds of activities. You will also need to see if legal factors create opportunities, such as various kinds of funding.
  16. Identify key issues, for example:
    1. Are there contextualization issues?
    2. What social structures affect your strategy? Do you need to describe them?
    3. What dynamics of personal relationships come into play with local people? With team members?
    4. What communication strategies are appropriate?
    5. Are there personnel challenges in having the right people?
    6. Are there logistical challenges in locating people on site and providing adequate resources?
    7. Anything else that will determine how you plan the program.

 

Analyze needs

Analyze the target community's needs clearly enough simply to know whether to or not to proceed. You will probably want to know most or all the following:

  1. What exactly are the high priority needs?
  2. What percent of people need your potential project?
  3. Do they want to be helped?
  4. Consider the range of possible projects. How will you narrow them down to the one or perhaps two that you will actually plan to do?
  5. At what stage is their progress in community development?
  6. What other community development agencies are involved, and to what extent?
  7. What priority should we give this group of people?

Some of this information will be important just to make a "go-no go" decision. In the following stages, where you will go into further detail to identify factors that will determine the success of your program.