Nuhu, I believe that meaningful community engagement is critical to driving positive change. 1. Active Listening: To create safe spaces for community members to share their concerns, ideas, and experiences. 2. Inclusive Outreach: I ensure that diverse community voices are represented 3. Empowerment I educate community members on their rights and responsibilities. 4. Collaboration I foster partnerships with local organizations, leaders and stakeholders 5. Feedback Mechanisms: accessible, and ensuring community concerns are addressed promptly. 6. Cultural Sensitivity I respect cultural nuances and adapt my approach to accommodate diverse community needs.

To encourage community members to give feedback, I focus on creating a safe and open environment where their voices are genuinely valued. I start by building trust through personal interactions and emphasizing that their input will directly impact program improvements. Simplifying the feedback process, whether through informal conversations, anonymous surveys, or interactive sessions, also helps ease concerns. Additionally, offering incentives, like community recognition or small rewards, can motivate participation. Ultimately, showing how their feedback leads to real changes fosters long-term engagement and a sense of ownership in the program’s success.

To encourage community leaders to give feedback, I need to create a safe, open environment where their input is valued without judgment. I need to use specific, open-ended questions to prompt discussion, and engage in informal conversations to ease hesitations. I also need to emphasize shared ownership of the program, making them feel like co-creators. I will also offer anonymous feedback options if needed and actively listen to show that their input will lead to meaningful changes. During my initial days with community interaction, I often had such moments , but then after some time, wish these above mentioned strategies, I could get ease with them and make them feel more comfortable and confident to share about anything! And i listens.

Ask the question: what would they want the program to know/learn from them? Truly listen to their fears, concerns and suggestions. Having the community involved in the entire process of the program could help decrease the hesitancy, including the planning and reason behind the project - community-led from within.

The most important thing that needs to be evaluated internally in the organization is, make sure about this: is the program really needed by the community? or the organization and the program needs the community ?. If the program is really needed by the community, then they will be happy to get involved and provide input for the program because they will feel like they own the program. if the program needs the community, then make sure it will have a real impact on the community. That impact will make the community start to feel that they need the program and will provide feedback for the success of the program. With the involvement and get feedback for the program, we have succeeded in realizing a useful program.

I've come to understand that any hesitation in providing feedback is from the perception that feedback is only given when you have something positive to say. I usually encourage my community for feedback by letting them know that I'm comfortable with all types of feedback including constructive criticism and ways to improve. Honest feedback makes me feel like I have a genuine connection built on trust and hearing people out.

Building their trust. Reaching out and being exact and clear on the subject with previous examples to build responsive engagement. Using specific information and examples to arouse interest and awareness on the subject. Breaking up the audience as per their potential and idiosyncratic behaviours and biases.

I've found that asking 3 questions is helpful and in this order. Has this program helped you or hurt you? Why do you feel this way? What should we change about this program? They open a dialogue. They encourage people to engage in both problem and potential solutions or refinement. They are given power to discuss options.

It’s all about having the right community engagement processes in place from the very beginning of the project or program. Once you ensure that you have established feedback systems based on transparent consultations with the target community, you will naturally encourage them to provide feedback, as you’ll build a sense of ownership toward the mechanism. If you have systems with channels that are already in place and you don’t have the flexibility to change them, put extra effort into sharing information with the community and set realistic expectations about what you can and cannot do. Being real and transparent is key here. After all, it is a continuous process of learning and building trust with the community.

I find that creating a culture of collaboration from conceptualizing to implementing the program, including how dollars for the program are spent, fosters impactful and solution- focused feedback. An example is we let our youth cohorts decide how program dollars for their program are spent. We were purchasing meals and some cohorts felt groceries for group and to take home was a better use of the same amount of money. We hire youth participants relatives for services we would contract out like haircuts or catering. The community is woven into the fabric of our programming whereby making community feedback, organic team building conversations. This also dramatically increases program participant success and outcomes.