Children who are under five years, require consistent and monitored health care. We have partnered with other organizations to provide “Moses Baskets” to mothers who work in vulnerable environment, like open air markets and hawking, to keep their under one year old warm and secure. Through our programs we have helped in keeping children in schools, offered counseling to vulnerable ones which in turn has helped save lives, restored health to the malnourished and supported their parents and guardians to better take of their children and families. We also have a very good follow-up program to ensure that the children under our care do not drop out of school and that their families are taking of them well.
Within community development, CBOs tend to serve primarily as the middleman for resources and actions. Many larger groups, like non-profits, and intersecting communities use CBOs as a way of interacting with those who are already at work on issues within the community. A CBO is often how volunteers find public service projects that they can participate in, as CBOs tend to be in the thick of things within the community. In a way, an established CBO can attract and filter resources necessary for the community development process.
CBOs also have a role in community development as the public voice of the community. One of the best features of a CBO, due to their localized focus, is that it is a wealth of information regarding the issues it is focused on within the community. They highlight issues that need to be addressed and then include every relevant piece of data regarding those issues for those that will be working on them. This includes details about what is wrong in the community, what should be done to remedy the situation, what needs to be done, the resources available, and the effects the issue is having on the community. For anyone who is attempting to instigate the community development process in their community, including a CBO in the process can help make things go smoothly.
Community-based organizations, or CBOs, are local non-profit groups that works to generate improvements within a community on the local level. They are basically the community development process in the form of a formal organization. They are usually locally formed, locally staffed, and their actions are specific to the location they operate in. Most CBOs are mainly volunteer organizations, with few paid positions as most of their funding is delegated towards completing the group’s objectives. Their local status also means that they may be limited in what resources they have access to, depending on the geographical location of the CBO and the community it serves.
Since they are so localized, a CBO is only going to tackle issues within the community they operate in. This does not mean that CBOs only focus on minor things; large scale issues like crime and poverty are common areas of interest for CBOs. These groups are free to look at issues that exist outside of their community that are affecting the community itself, but they will just look at how those issues impact things within that particular space. In some instances, a CBO may collaborate on an issue outside of its community with another CBO. This usually happens when there is some overlap in regards to their areas of interest, such as shared geographic boundaries between the two communities. They may also look at how a larger issue is being handled in other communities and by other CBOs in order to find guidance or alternative solutions. Otherwise, it will remain within a specific community and not venture outside of it.
It should be noted that will most CBOs are considered to be a type of non-profit and may operate similarly, they are not the same thing. Non-profits are usually large operations that have a particular area of focus and methodology that they are addressing through multiple projects and actions. A CBO is far more limited, usually handling a single project pertaining to an area of focus purely within the community they are present in. Aside from the collaboration exception mentioned previously, a CBO will not exist outside of the community they act in. They can be a part of or connected to a larger organization like a regular non-profit, but they will not act as a branch of that organization outside of their geographic focus.2 This does not mean that communities going through the community development process are limited to working with either a CBO or a larger non-profit; they can work with both if they so choose.