COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION CED PROGRAM

My Name is Neema Wellu Nsallu a Msc.CED Student (2007-2008) I would like to share my views on the importance of community participation in community development , making reference to the View of Baba wa Taife Mwl. Nyerere in Community participation
Community participation is one means or strategy used for fighting against poverty in Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere mobilized the Tanzanian people to work in communities, instead of working as individuals. Nyerere emphasized the formation of communities during the villagilization process in 1973. He emphasized the development in union “Ujamaa” This involved a lot of community organizing, through community sensitization and mobilization “wananchi” the citizen shifted from remote, individual household, to the selected Ujamaa Villages, with good infrastructure, near to water source, schools and health facilities e.t.c. Presently using the same approach of Community participation, the community members contribute to build social services such as Primary and Secondary school ,Dispensaries, and village markets, they contribute for water supply services and other development activities. The methodologies such Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) and Participatory Learning in Action (PLA) has been very useful to mobilize people to participate in development work. The community development workers make use of community participation, building the spirit of ownership and identification of local available resources for sustainable development or on the other hand for poverty reduction.

Tanzania Poverty Current situation
The poverty situation in Tanzania is manifested in a poor quality of social and economic services, less than half of the rural population have access to safe and clean water and large of a part of countryside is inaccessible during the rainy seasons. The other attributes of poverty are exclusion, powerlessness and voiceless ness, especially of women in social and political spheres; children also suffer from limited rights of survey and development
Rural poverty in the country has been halved in the period from 1995 to 2001, at present about 36% of people living in rural areas are classified as power. The program is reflected in the United Nations Development Programmes, Human index for Tanzania which rose from 0.3 in 1990 to 0.4 in 2002. Poverty is still widespread and acute and generally a rural phenomenon. I.e. 85% pf country’s poor people live in rural areas and in agriculture as their main source of income and live hood.
According to the house survey of 2000/03 some of 20% of rural people live in extremely poverty and about 35% are considered poor within the Agriculture sector; food crop producers but both play under cyclical and structural constraints are subjected to Natural disasters such as drought and floods; also lack of market linkages inputs credit and irrigation water

Community participation as the key for poverty reduction
Since independence in 1961, the government of Tanzania has had poverty eradicate as its main goal, one of the intervention measures suggested is the introduction and implementation of socials and economic policies which address the issues of poverty both at National and individual level. The trainings, such as agriculture training, primary health training, development training are not given to individuals but in community groups. The community trainers also conduct training in groups such as farmers, fishers, women, youths, or other groups with common interest. Through the community participation the community schools were built, dispensaries, crops stores, go downs, the creation and dissemination of knowledge and other welfare services conducted in easy way through community organizing. The training methodologies are selected those which is useful in our culture context in addressing the key challenges of straitening to reduce pervasive poverty Tanzania.

Tanzania Family planning programs/ project
Based on our values and traditions a person to have many children is a sign of richness, the family planning education was very difficult idea to be accepted by many people in our local communities, There are people who believes that every child have his or her our blessings in this world, so a women should reproduce to the last egg. The mortality rate for women was about 5% due to maternal complications. According to culture and customs a women have no chance to say no for sex even to argue or to decide about number of children she is supposed to bare. The trend went along to the decision to use contraceptive or not, the decision maker in the husband in household level while are the men in family and community level. During the community sensitization and through the community members involvement of both men and women, youths and elders, leaders and other gatekeepers, the people changed their attitudes, most of urban people bears children 3-4, while in rural area 4-6 ( Indicator Survey, 2003-2004) compared to 1960 where the average number of children for a family was 8- 10. Growth of population goes hand with hand and diminishing of resources and hence blocks the strategies of poverty reduction.

Female Genital Mutilation in Dodoma
Dodoma as one among several regional which were practising the Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) about 80% is now reduced less than 4% compared to early 1970s. The laws and legislation set by the Government in 1980s was not really showed the great impact according to the assessment conducted in 2002 with AFNET. The recommendation given by the researcher to conduct training in the communities which practices FGM became very useful, the different groups were organized and trained against this culture i.e. Traditional circumcisers, key gate keepers, adult women, young women, men, teachers, health providers, religious leaders e.t.c. Through community participation the community members were able to discuss the cause and effects of FGM and set by laws against it and its very successful. Therefore community participation can enhance culture and behaviour change.


POLICY REVIEW

The decision making policy
In order to have effective participation, the community should avoid loss participation, in decision making the poor people can be involved the same as wealthy people.
Community participation has the potential to remake our system of governance in more democratic image. But we are not yet a not there yet and we must gasper any opportunity we have to realize that potential and its contribution toward poverty reduction, we should rethink about it and stop promising too much basing on unrealistic assumptions about people’s propensity to join committees in great numbers. All community members have equal chance to be selected regardless the sex. Position, education, or religious. The Tanzania Government should be congratulated for opening up our system of local governance to community involvement and for creating many more opportunities for people to have a say or over services in their area are run. The main challenge is how to make most of what we have got through community participation such as in health and education through policies and practices which will liberate more people from poverty and for among the community members to be committed to be agents of social change.

The development policy
The community development policy gives guidance on how communities will be helped to build their capacity to implement their responsibilities. The policy also states clearly the responsibilities of different concerned parties in speeding up community development in the country. The major objective of the Community Development policy is to enable Tanzanians as an individuals or in their families and /or groups or associations to contribute more to the government objectives of self reliance and therefore bring about development at all levels and finally have a remarkable national growth.
Poverty reduction Policy as explained in PRSP the government of Tanzania there are several policies related to women development and HIV prevention e.g. Health policy (1990) in Tanzania, its main objective is to improve the health and well-being of all Tanzanians, with a focus on those on most at risk and to encourage the health system to be more responsive to the need of the people.. Reduce infant maternal morbidity and increase the expectancy through the provision of education and equitable and child health services promotion and adequate nutrition, control of communicable diseases and treatment of common conditions.
Community participation is crucial strategy to implement the policies and fulfill the National vision

MY OWN DISCUSIION
The Government has made a significant investment in community participation on the back of evidence suggesting that it builds stronger networks between people who live in the same neighbourhood.The major challenges are the scarcity of resources. The development workers should make community participation effective. The effective participation requires building on existing resources to improve the quality of public services. Also to make the services as close to the community as possible such as health services, water services. The development workers with the community members should make good plan e.g community action plan, for incorporating various aspect to work for. Also the most important part is reporting feedback. The community should be informed the progress of any project including transparency in financial matters.

CONCLUSION
Community participation is an important tool in any development strategy or any poverty reduction strategy. The community members can be facilitated by stressing the tangible benefit to be gained, commitment or obligation toward improving community, the community members should be provided better knowledge for satisfactory results.
Lastly community participation can no stand on its own to enhance poverty reduction should also go with other tools such as social capital, social inclusion, community organizing e.t.c