Malaria Consortium - Community Dialogue

The Community Dialogue approach is a form of community mobilisation and empowerment process aimed at providing communities with information, skills and confidence to gain control over decisions about their own lives. 

Malaria Consortium sees Community Dialogue as a key way of encouraging community members and groups to interact and discuss health service features, providing access to basic information on the causes, prevention and treatment of targeted diseases. It also helps communities to address the challenges and needs affecting the health of their children. 

Participatory learning and action approaches, and other ways of mobilising the community that are based on knowledge and competency, have proved to be reliable and effective ways of engaging people in various projects. They take into account a community's capacity to address its own problems, as well as a set of processes that enable dialogue, analysis, planning, sharing and evaluation.

Community Dialogue, Mwense District, Luapula Province, Zambia. Two women are using illustrated cards to chart/describe the challenges that they face in health and accessing health care. The community dialogue facilitator then uses the cards to reinforce positive health behaviours and to explain visually the best care seeking behaviours. This flashcard approach is used in communities where literacy levels are often very low (October 2012).

Country: Zambia

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