Assessment Of The Extent Of Utilization Of Effecetive Strategies For Mobilizing Rural Women For Community Development
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Assessment Of The Extent Of Utilization Of Effecetive Strategies For Mobilizing Rural Women For Community Development
ABSTRACT
The purpose of the study was to determine the extent to which successful tactics for mobilising rural women for community development are being used in Abia State’s Abia Central Senatorial Zone.
The study’s specific goals were to determine the extent to which communication strategies are used in mobilising rural women for community development, the extent to which women’s associations are used in mobilising rural women for community development, and the extent to which functional literacy education is used in mobilising rural women for community development.
The study was directed by three research questions and three null hypotheses; the design was descriptive survey research; and the population was 7,802 members of the 19 registered women associations in the six local government areas of Abia State’s Central Senatorial Zone. A stratified random approach was applied, and 708 members were selected. A 19-item questionnaire was prepared and distributed to the respondents.
The instrument was verified by three specialists and had an overall reliability rate of 0.77. The obtained data was analysed using a basic percentage for the respondent’s bio-data, a weighted mean for the three research questions, and a t-test to evaluate the three null hypotheses developed for the study.
The data analysis revealed that communication played a significant role in mobilising rural women for community development through early morning jingles on the radio, motion pictures on community development displayed on billboards, drama on radio/TV, multi-media strategy, and early morning town criers/messengers, which helped the women understand their civic rights, personal hygiene, and participate actively in community development.
The analysis also revealed that various women associations, such as Umuada and Christian women associations, have been heavily involved in mobilising rural women for community development by organising conferences, seminars, workshops, and self-help projects for women, providing them with basic literacy education, and sensitising them on HIV/AIDS, malaria prevention, and the importance of immunisation.
By serving as a medium for the dissemination of information to rural women on health issues, gathering them for self-help environmental refuse clean up, lending money to their members through collective contribution, creating awareness, and raising funds for the construction of markets, maternity homes, and so on.
The data analysis demonstrated that education improves their living standards, provides them with functional reading skills, boosts their awareness of family planning, and prepares them to be self-sufficient.
They also highlighted that it aids in developing their awareness of environmental issues, providing them with important civic education, and equipping them with necessary employable skills.
Chapter One: Introduction
Background of the Study
Community development is a broad word that refers to civic activities in which residents and professionals collaborate to construct healthier and more resilient local communities.
Community development is an effort aimed at finding solutions to community problems, boosting people’s standards, welfare, justice, community cohesiveness, and human resources to their maximum potential (Ezeh, 1999).
According to Indabawa and Mpotu (2006), community development entails the qualitative and quantitative modification of people, their surroundings, values, and social processes. This indicates that for any significant progress to occur, both men and women must actively participate in order to achieve the aims and objectives.
Thus, one of the underlying assumptions of community development is that everyone has something to contribute to a community’s well-being. From this notion, it follows that women, who account for a sizable share of Nigeria’s population, must work and actively contribute to raising their community’s living standards.
Women have contributed significantly to the social, economic, political, and cultural development of their communities. As a result, they are valuable in all aspects of life, not only childbearing and household administration. Their home activities virtually benefit the economy and community development (Olatokun & Ayanbode, 2008).
Women are an essential component of human resources for growth. Without their contributions, the economy cannot be sustained at its current level, let alone grow towards development (UNESCO, 2002). All emerging countries rely heavily on women to drive agricultural and rural economic growth.
Their typical activities include growing agricultural crops, tending animals, processing and preparing food, working for pay in agricultural crops or other rural enterprises, collecting fuel and water, engaging in trade and marketing, caring for family members, and maintaining their homes (Doss, 2011). Because of their crucial roles, women must be consistently mobilised for long-term community development.
Mobilisation is the process by which people are psychologically, cognitively, and emotionally prepared for change (Abiona, 2006). He went on to say that mobilisation is a movement that aims to inspire people to take action for development.
Mobilisation is critical in engaging people in development efforts. In this study, mobilisation will be defined as a process that sensitises and/or strengthens rural women to take an active role in the development of their community.
In this sense, those who are mobilising (rural women) must be convinced of the goals for which they are being mobilised to participate in community development activities.
Thus, mobilising rural women is critical in community development because it allows them to band together as a driving force towards the fulfilment of any declared development goal.
In the past, the mobilisation pattern used in traditional Abia communities that before modern ones was influenced by several elements, including community structure and ethnolinguistic factors.
The term “community structure” refers to a community’s internal social organisations as well as the organised relationships among its members. It also included a forge-head, which represented traditional leaders, helpers, an age-grade system, and an elder’s council.
According to Omoruyi (2001), ethnolinguistic factors are interactions between religion and ethnicity that aid in the management of ethnic conflict and are a significant predictor of success in mobilising people to support community development.
This mobilisation method appears inadequate because it fails to acknowledge the significance of women’s participation and/or contributions in community development initiatives.
The researcher’s observations indicate that rural women in Abia Central have not been adequately and effectively mobilised for community development initiatives.
This is because women have always been viewed as wives and mothers. Their responsibilities have been to serve and care for the man, which has impacted their engagement in community development.
According to Pant (2004), women account for more than two-thirds of the world’s 1.2 billion impoverished. He also mentioned that women are impoverished and lack access to proper food, clean water, sanitation, and healthcare. They lack access to land and inheritance. Ifenkwe and Kalu (2012) also discovered that more than 60% of rural women in Abia State villages are poor.
From the foregoing, it is clear that women in Abia State’s central senatorial zone cannot be excluded from the unpleasant situation of being relegated to the background in terms of decision making, planning, implementation, and evaluation of community development projects, which could be demoralising for women.
As a result, mobilising rural women is critical to achieving community development goals. Uwaka (1995) remarked that if any group in Nigeria needs to be mobilised, rural women stand out as the most important group because they account for a sizable proportion of the workforce.
They have been subjugated by male-manipulated and male-dominated culture, and they are burdened with numerous tasks such as childbearing and caring, as well as other domestic duties (Yahya, 2008).
Thus, it has been seen that community development programs fail the majority of the time because women are not effectively mobilised. The challenge of insufficient mobilisation of women for community development stems from the fact that providers (government/non-governmental organisations) claim to know what women want and how to offer it to them without first examining their perceived requirements (Ogonu, 2010).
This is why Ibe (2008) stated that one of the fundamental principles of community development is that the agency, with the assistance of the people, must identify their perceived needs through the deployment of appropriate mobilisation techniques.
Ojike (2003) defines strategies as the art or science of creating and exploiting a country’s economic, political, psychological, and other pioneers to achieve certain goals. In this study, strategies relate to plans meant to encourage women’s active engagement in community development programs.
In Nigeria, it appears that many projects/programmes aimed at women’s development failed mostly owing to insufficient women’s mobilisation. Most of the time, they are abandoned because women do not participate sufficiently. Examples of such programmes are the Better Life Programme for Rural Women (BLP), the Family Support Programme (FSP), and Women in Nigeria (WIN).
Failure/abandonment of these laudable developmental programs demonstrated that the techniques used to mobilise rural women were ineffective.
According to Chukwuezi (2000), the Better Life Programme and Family Support Programme used an elitist strategy in which major developmental concerns, policies, and decisions were made by a small group of elite women despite the fact that these developmental programmes were intended for rural women.
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