Community Organizing Participatory Action Research (COPAR)

COPAR is a core public health nursing approach. It works to turn an apathetic, individualistic, and voiceless poor population into a dynamic, participatory, and politically responsive community.

Definition

COPAR stands for Community Organizing Participatory Action Research, a social development approach aimed at the transformation above. Standard definitions describe it as:

• A collective, participatory, transformative, liberative, sustained, and systematic process of building people's organizations by mobilizing and enhancing the people's capabilities and resources to resolve their own issues and change oppressive, exploitative conditions (1994 National Rural Conference).
• A process by which a community identifies its needs and objectives, develops the confidence to act on them, and in doing so extends cooperative and collaborative practices in the community (Ross, 1967).
• A continuous, sustained process of building people's critical awareness of their condition, working with them on immediate and longterm problems, and mobilizing them to take action toward solving those problems (CO: A Manual of Experience, PCPD).

Process. The sequence by which community members come together to assess community conditions and work to improve them.

Structure. A particular group of community members working toward common health and health-related goals.

Emphasis

1. The community works to solve its own problems.
2. Direction is established both internally and externally.
3. Building the community's capacity to run a project matters more than the specific project itself.
4. Consciousness raising means seeing health and medical care within the total structure of society.

Importance

1. COPAR is a key tool for community development and empowerment, generating community participation in development work.
2. It prepares people to eventually take over managing a development program themselves.
3. It maximizes participation and mobilizes community resources for community services.

Principles

1. Even the most oppressed, exploited, and deprived sectors are open to change, capable of change, and able to bring it about.
2. COPAR is grounded in the interest of the poorest sector of the community.
3. COPAR leads to a self-reliant community and society.

Critical Steps

1. Integration
2. Social investigation
3. Tentative program planning
4. Groundwork
5. Meeting
6. Role play
7. Mobilization or action
8. Evaluation
9. Reflection
10. Organization

Phases of COPAR

COPAR runs in four phases: pre-entry, entry, organization-building, and sustenance and strengthening.

1. Pre-Entry Phase

The initial phase, where the organizer looks for communities to serve. Activities include:

Preparation of the institution

• Train faculty and students in COPAR.
• Formulate plans for institutionalizing COPAR.
• Revise and enrich the curriculum and immersion program.
• Coordinate participants from other departments.

Site selection

• Network with local government.
• Conduct preliminary special investigation.
• Build a long and short list of potential communities.
• Run an ocular survey of the listed communities.

Criteria for initial site selection

• Population of 100-200 families.
• Economically depressed.
• No strong resistance from the community.
• No serious peace and order problem.
• No similar group or organization already running the same program.

Identifying potential municipalities

• Build a long and short list of potential municipalities.

Identifying potential community

• Use the same process as selecting a municipality.
• Consult key informants and residents.
• Coordinate with local government and NGOs for future activities.

Choosing the final community

• Conduct informal interviews with residents and key informants.
• Determine the need for the program in the community.
• Note political developments.
• Develop community profiles from secondary data.
• Develop survey tools.
• Pay a courtesy call to community leaders.
• Choose foster families against the guidelines.

Identifying the host family

• House is strategically located in the community.
• Family does not belong to the rich segment.
• Family is respected by both formal and informal leaders.
• Neighbors are not hesitant to enter the house.
• No member of the host family is moving out of the community.

2. Entry Phase

Also called the social preparation phase. This is where you determine which organizing strategies suit the community. Success depends on how well the organizer has integrated with the community.

Guidelines for entry

• Recognize local authorities by paying visits to inform them of your presence and activities.
• Keep your appearance, speech, behavior, and lifestyle in line with the residents while staying a role model.
• Keep a low-key profile rather than raising consciousness prematurely.

Activities in the entry phase

• Integration. Build rapport and work to imbibe community life: live with the community, seek out people where they gather, lend a hand with household chores, and avoid gambling and drinking.
• Deepening social investigation and community study. Verify and enrich the data from the initial survey; conduct a baseline survey through students and relay results through a community assembly.

Core group formation

• Spot leaders through a sociogram:
  • Key persons: approached by most people.
  • Opinion leaders: approached by key persons.
  • Isolates: never or hardly consulted.

3. Organization-Building Phase

Forms more formal structure and procedure for planning, implementing, and evaluating community-wide activities. Organized leaders or groups receive training (formal, informal, on-the-job) to manage their own concerns and programs.

Key activities

• Community Health Organization (CHO): prepare legal requirements, set guidelines for organizing the CHO through the core group, and elect officers.
• Research team committee.
• Planning committee.
• Health committee organization.
• Others.
• Formation of bylaws by the CHO.

4. Sustenance and Strengthening Phase

Begins once the community organization is established and members are actively participating in community-wide work. The committees set up in the organization-building phase are now expected to plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs under the guidance of the community-wide organization.

Key activities

• Train the CHO to monitor and implement the community health program.
• Identify secondary leaders.
• Build linkages and networks.
• Mobilize on health and development concerns.
• Implement livelihood projects.