Social mobilization acts as a catalyst for organizing the members of a community to take group action by sharing their problems and seeking their own solutions by pooling their own resources, obtaining external help and participating actively in the decision-making processes that shape their lives as individuals and as members of households and the local polity. The process helps people move from the passive status of welfare recipients to that of citizens who possess vital knowledge of their communities and localities and therefore know best how to effect—and direct—change at the local level. Social mobilization thus enhances individual and group capabilities, widening people’s choices and enlarging the range of things they can do. Social mobilization processes place the values, priorities and agency of citizens at the grassroots level at the center of development efforts.
Published in Chapter:
Intangible Benefits of Self-Help Micro-Credit in Conflict Mitigation and Peace Building: Qualitative Evidence and Lessons From Conflict Zone of Doda District of Jammu and Kashmir, India
Falendra Kumar Sudan (University of Jammu, India)
Copyright: © 2019
|Pages: 50
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-5225-7615-0.ch008
Abstract
Jammu and Kashmir State of India has been hit the hardest by ongoing violent conflict with its devastating impact on human lives and development. Demobilization and reintegration into society of all people uprooted and affected by violent conflict—ex-combatants, youth, and women—is an important challenge for development policy planners and decision makers. Demobilization and reintegration are fundamentally about the need for new forms of livelihood for ex-combatants, youth, and female that ultimately requires the creation of new jobs and providing them sustainable employment opportunities on micro enterprises through micro-credit programs. The task is all the tougher because youth, women, and ex-combatants often have no job market skills. Successfully incorporating ex-combatants, youth, and women requires economic sustainability, which has a longer time-frame than the political dimension of demobilization and integration.