Mobilization

In most projects, you will need to mobilize people. Some will be volunteers and some will be local workers. If you are simply paying wages for unskilled positions and giving on-site oversight, staffing might be quite simple. Otherwise, it is a little more complex.

The better you can discern their motives and commitment, the easier your task will be later on, so it is often well worth the time investment to evaluate them.

• Their motives are normally quite mixed. Although their real motives are usually well hidden, most people are driven by, "What’s in it for me?" The desire for prestige, money or power are often not far away. In some cases, this is quite legitimate; they need to have enough income to live on, enough authority to do their assigned tasks, and some assurance that the program will work. Many fewer are motivated by some kind of benefit to their wider community.
• Their interest is usually quite easy to observe, but do not mistake it for commitment. With little commitment, some will quickly falter when their enthusiasm fades and you are not close by to encourage them. Commitment is fairly easy to test. Simply ask for reasonable commitment, such as attendance at meetings, or payment for the cost of materials they use.
• Even if they have understand the purpose and method of the program, most of them will need training, even if it is quite rudimentary. It is quite common that they have made some incorrect assumptions and misunderstood some aspects of the project, and part of your role is to help them better understand it. In fact, one of the tenets of experiential learning is that they won’t really understand it anyway until they’ve actually done it.