Consumers' choice.

This study aimed to evaluate the success of a project in achieving community participation in efforts to improve perinatal health. A 10-step structured process was used to work with a community in Istanbul, Turkey. To evaluate the success of the project in achieving community participation, five key indicators were selected: (i) participation of the community group in decision making; (ii) gains in knowledge and skills of the community group; (iii) continuity of the community group; (iv) continuation of the health program by the community group; and (v) initiation of new support and advocacy activities. From the beginning, community members participated in all decisions regarding the group activities. In the early months, project staff had more of a guiding role, but, over time, the community members became active decision-makers. Over the course of the project they learned how to identify community health problems, and to design, implement and evaluate interventions to address those problems. Four years later, meetings and activities of the group are continuing. The antenatal education course developed by the group continues to be offered at a local community centre. Community members are now completely responsible for promoting the course, communication with participants, planning the courses, making preparations for the sessions, as well as teaching non-technical topics. Course participants have developed ongoing support networks and have begun to advocate for better perinatal health services in the community. Working with a community is an intensive, time-consuming process. The results of this project indicate that the benefits, both in terms of health outcomes and in terms of increases in community capacity, can be well worth the effort.

Community Participation↗

PubMed2003

Empowering social action through narratives of identity and culture.

Concern at widening health and wealth inequities between communities accompanying processes of globalization in recent years are reflected in contemporary definitions of health promotion, premised on the stratagem of individuals and communities increasing control over factors that determine health, thereby improving their health status. Such community empowerment practice is commonly accepted within the health promotion literature as encompassing intrapersonal, interpersonal and socio-political elements. Less articulated and understood, however, are the processes whereby the identities and cultures of marginalized communities intersect with and reverberate through these levels of action. The potential of identity and culture as important individual and community resources within social action takes on further significance within global-ized contexts, which simultaneously expose marginalized communities to dominant cultural power relations while affording members new avenues for cultural expression. In this paper we highlight culture and identity as important aspects of the empowerment process, drawing on the experiences of migrant Tongan and Samoan women throughout a social action process in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In particular, narratives of identity and culture within storytelling as an empowerment practice are explicated, as is the articulation of identity and culture within more structurally orientated power relations throughout subsequent activities related to policy advocacy.

Community Participation↗