Capacity building of Farokhshahr city for recognition and elimination of society problems by mobilization of people in Farrokhshahr development team

Participatory community based research is a scientific research method which has recently been considered in health sciences. This type of investigation is based on community needs. In other words, results of the research must give a response to society requirements and health problems. In this study institution of Farrokhshahr development team as a way for capacity building of people to recognize and obviate their needs has been evaluated.

This is a participatanory community based research, which was performed in Farrokhshahr city of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province of Iran. The population of this city is about 40000. The process consisted of 5 steps: 1– people mobilization, 2– need assessment, 3– priority setting, 4– interventional programs and 5– evaluation of the program. The study was performed by Farokhshahr development team, city authorities and local confidantes. The study was supervised by Shahrekord university of medical sciences, deputy for research affairs. Community mobilization was started by composition of development team which consisted of 10 committee. Need assessment was begun when the team subjected to capacity building by carrying on different workshops. This team collected community profile by corporation of other institutions. Need assessment was performed using rapid appraisal. Finally priority setting was performed using two dimensional matrix and some other tools.

Farrokhshahr development team was established with 4000 members who were organized in ten different committees as following: woman, elderly, health, social security, civilization and educational committees. Also, two workshops were held to build capacities in team members in order to perform need assessment and priority setting in Farrokhshahr. Need assessment led to recognition of 40 different problems. Finally, priority setting was performed using two dimensional matrix, which led to 20 priorities.

Results of this investigation revealed that people needs in every society are different according to socio–economical condition of their society. Therefore, it is recommended that need assessments be performed with participation of the society