I think that behavior change can be difficult at first for new volunteers. I have to work yourself through many village politics like figuring out the key community members to talk to before starting projects. Although I have mobilised and spoken to community members, I realize that behavior change through any means you use as in projects, activities is a process. Talking to community members is important but I also have to take the time to know everyone in my community. The needs the people communicate may be different from what their leaders esteem as important for the community.
In order to assess whether my activities/projects are promoting behavior change, I have to understand why people do what they do, and discern the perceptions guiding their behaviors (refer to the Determinants of Behavior Change post). Then I need to find my target audience. If I am talking about family planning, most likely I will be talking to women. Let's not forget that the activities have be relevant to the target audience and cannot be based on what I would like my community to do. But, what if in the village women only listen to what their husbands say.
Therefore, I would have to add men to my target audience with a special emphasis on them because women listen to their opinions. Most of my groundwork would be trying to convince men the importance of family planning. Lastly, I have to assess the impact of these activities/projects in the community to know if the strategies used have worked or not. This is just giving more feedback on how we can improve future projects to address behavior change in a population.
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