Beyond Posters and Loudspeakers: Trust at the Heart of Community Mobilisation
- Sonia
- Jul 23, 2025
- 3 min read
What does it really take to mobilise a community? It isn’t posters, loudspeakers or the perfect agenda. It is trust. Trust looks different everywhere. I learned this while working in two very different settings: a dense settlement in Delhi and a village in Bihar. Both were home to women navigating poverty and poor health, yet their response to our outreach was shaped by their daily routines and their sense of belonging.
In Delhi, I interned with an organisation that had worked in those slums for over two decades. The slum lanes were narrow, with doors almost shoulder-to-shoulder. A sharp smell of drains hung in the air. At the centre of this settlement stood a local hub run by the organisation, offering income-generating activities and, more importantly, a consistent space for women to gather. That centre became our foothold. Even when the women didn’t know us, they recognised the staff member who accompanied us and that helped.
We met them briefly outside their homes, introduced ourselves, and explained the agenda. Some said yes immediately. Some declined politely. No vague promises. But those who said yes showed up. I thought this was it, that’s how mobilisation works.
In contrast, when we tried the same approach in a rural village in Bihar, everything flipped. In Bihar, I am interning with ZealGrit Foundation, a relatively new organisation that has been working in the area for just over 1.5 years. The village felt more open, with wide spaces and fresh air, but homes were often cramped inside, with limited access to basic services. Unlike Delhi, there was no ‘centre’ to build on. We had to start from scratch, door to door, face to face.
As a Development Communication student, I was tasked with planning our first community session on complementary feeding, along with a ZealGrit team member. We planned the agenda, prepared all the materials, and began inviting women a day in advance. The response was warm, and we felt hopeful. But when the time came, only one woman showed up. I was surprised and sad.
With some reflections based on conversations with community members, we realised it wasn’t disinterest. It was unfamiliarity. This was the first time such a group session was happening in the village. We had chosen someone’s nearby home as the venue, which everyone had agreed to, but perhaps it didn’t feel neutral or comfortable enough.
So the next time, we shifted the session to the Anganwadi Centre, a space already tied to maternal and child health services. We also paid closer attention to small but important details: the times when women were relatively free, the spaces they felt comfortable in, and the things they didn’t say out loud. What does “free time” even look like for a woman here? What’s at stake for her if she chooses to join a public event? Considering all these, the next time, we followed up on the morning of the session. This time we could mobilise 20 women and conduct the session, and everyone enjoyed it. I was happy.
In Delhi, the long-standing institutional trust made mobilisation possible for me. In Bihar, relational trust, the kind that grows slowly, was the only way in. I realised we weren’t starting from zero. We were starting below it, chipping away at hesitation, one at a time. And that’s the beauty of working with a new organisation: I get to be part of building something from the ground up.
These two experiences taught me something that will stay with me for a long time: mobilisation isn’t a method; it’s a mindset.
What works in one context can completely fall flat in another. The same toolkits, the same language, even the same logic, none of it is universal. Because people are not abstract recipients of awareness. They are embedded in relationships, daily routines, and social layers.
