Article: Phases of COPAR Process

nitI. Pre-entry Phase

• Is the initial phase of the organizing process where the community/organizer looks for communities to serve/help.
• It is considered the simplest phase in terms of actual outputs, activities and strategies and time spent for it.

Activities include:

1. Designing a plan for community development including all its activities and strategies for care development.
2. Designing criteria for the selection of site
3. Actually selecting the site for community care

II. Entry Phase

• Sometimes called the social preparation phase as to the activities done here includes the sensitization of the people on the critical events in their life, innovating them to share their dreams and ideas on how to manage their concerns and eventually mobilizing them to take collective action on these.
• This phase signals the actual entry of the community worker/organizer into the community.
• She must be guided by the following guidelines however.
  1. Recognizes the role of local authorities by paying them visits to inform them of their presence and activities.
  2. The appearance, speech, behavior and lifestyle should be in keeping with those of the community residents without disregard of their being role models.
  3. Avoid raising the consciousness of the community residents; adopt a low-key profile.

III. Organization Building Phase

• Entails the formation of more formal structures and the inclusion of more formal procedures of planning, implementation, and evaluating community-wide activities. It is at this phase where the organized leaders or groups are being given trainings (formal, informal, OJT) to develop their skills and in managing their own concerns/programs.

IV. Sustenance and Strengthening Phase

• Occurs when the community organization has already been established and the community members are already actively participating in community-wide undertakings. At this point, the different communities setup in the organization building phase are already expected to be functioning by way of planning, implementing and evaluating their own programs with the overall guidance from the community-wide organization.
• Strategies used may include:
  a. Education and training
  b. Networking and linkaging
  c. Conduct of mobilization on health and development concerns
  d. Implementing of livelihood projects
  e. Developing secondary leaders