-: Hi everyone, and welcome back to module four,
we are on lecture two.
This is going to be a fairly quick recap
of the highlights from chapter five in our course text,
which is all about building support,
coalition building, and community organizing.
I have to say this is one of my favorite chapters
in the textbook as coalition building
and community organizing was really where I got my feet wet
in the world of public health advocacy.
It was the reason why I pursued my master of public health
and also a lot of the foundation
for why I built this course.
Quickly, before we dive in,
we have now gone over all four steps
to effective public health campaigning.
We have gone over how to define
our problem and make our plan,
we have gone over how to gather our facts.
We have learned how to build support for our campaign,
and we'll continue to do so in this lecture.
And we also have learned how to communicate a clear
and compelling story of what is wrong,
what the problem is for our campaign,
and what should be done about it.
In this chapter, we have really two key terms
that need to be defined.
The first is, what is coalition building?
Our text defines coalition building
as a group of persons or organizations
from diverse backgrounds who are all committing together
for a collective cause or to reach a certain goal.
This is a little bit different from community organizing,
where this is a collecting learning experience
from a community that is caused
because there is a situation at hand
where we have community members
gathering support in intel about a specific topic,
and altogether, they are all working to make a plan
to address a certain problem in their community.
Coalition building is a really big part
of public health advocacy.
And if you move forward from this class
and are looking to work on a certain initiative,
I am sure you may be asked
to join a coalition for a certain cause.
Coalition often is comprised of persons.
They're often respected in the community
and have a tie to your intended audience
or your community at large,
and they're likely known in your community
for a certain reason that is connected
to your campaign and the problem at hand.
When you're building a campaign,
it is so important to have a diverse background.
As you know, in public health,
this is a multidisciplinary field,
and when we are approaching a problem in public health,
there are many layers.
Going back to the socio-ecological model,
we see so many layers at different levels in our society,
and having a coalition that is diverse
and who is at the table
bringing perspective is very valuable
to creating an effective campaign for lasting effects.
It's also important to recognize
that having a diverse background allows
for you to capitalize on many different persons
or organization's strengths to better support the cause
and reach your ultimate goal
of that systemic, long-lasting change for health equity.
There are many different considerations
that our text outlines
for effective coalition functionality.
However, the end summary for all of what's listed on page 65
is that there really needs to be clear
and concise parameters for the structure
and duties of each coalition member
throughout the process of a campaign or a project.
We also must ensure that everyone has that same goal at hand
for that specific public health problem to be addressed.
We also need to consider financial considerations
surrounding our certain coalition and our end result.
We need to talk about technology barriers
and how that can play an impact on our coalition,
and we also need to provide coalition members a chance
to have an opportunity to analyze the facts at hand.
We must be cognizant of how we are presenting facts
and figures to our coalition
to ensure that everyone has a chance
to understand and provide some contributions
to our campaign for positive health outcomes.
It's also important to have a clear structure
in order to handle conflict
within the coalition appropriately
and maintain an effective communication status
to allow for everyone's voice to be heard.
Lastly, it's so important that while coalition building
is different than community organizing,
that our coalition still has the voice
of the community within the actual coalition structure
as this allows for us to build capacity on communities
for long-lasting and resilient effects.
Again, coalition building is a little bit different
than community organizing.
Our text highlights community organizing
as collective learning from a community
on the situation at hand and gathering intel and support,
all while working together to make a plan
to accomplish goals and address problems.
Because of this, a lot of people view community organizing
as a more broad, less focused version of coalition building,
and sometimes it's even equated more
to a grassroots community approach
founded by community members.
However, while community organizing
and coalition/advocacy are in different realms,
they are under the same umbrella.
And it's really important as advocates
that we capitalize on community organizing
because it allows us to view a status quo for a community
and also recognize when there may be an issue at hand.
This is a really great foundation,
community organizing that is,
for identifying problems in a community and gathering facts
to support different movements and campaigns for change.
Another great intersection of community organizing
and advocacy is a community-based participatory research.
This is action-based resource where community voices
and experiences and testimonies
are used in resource to shed light
on different community inequities on every level of society.
This week, you have two required readings
that are all about community-based participatory research
and all of the outlines for how to use
this type of research characteristics, as well as its assets
in shortcomings are in the required readings this week.
As always, please feel free
to reach out to me for any questions and concerns.
I am available to you as a resource
and for any additional questions or clarity, thank you.