The Intensive Movement Building Cycle
The Intensive Movement Building Cycle (IMBC) is made up of twelve closely interlinked steps that generate knowledge and help communities organise, validate processes, implement action plans, and evaluate progress. At the heart of IMBC is desire for grassroots women and marginalised groups to find empowerment in the context of patriarchal systems and promote gender equality.
The Objectives of IMBC include:
Reveal the realities within communities in the context of the on-going crisis of neo-liberalism, patriarchy, and other discriminatory systems and structures. This highlights the impact on the lives of women, girls, people with disabilities, and other marginalised groups.
Strengthen the capacity of grassroots groups to use a feminist lens for analysis, organising, and networking to demand accountability from all levels of government (local, district, regional, national).
Provide the process by which grassroots groups can engage local government authorities to create and support gender responsive structures, policies, by-laws, programmes, community development plans, and budgets.
Improve social services and livelihoods. Influence the outcome of ongoing issues at the local level from a gender perspective.
Increase the number of community animators and transformative feminist champions who can facilitate Participatory Action Research (PAR) and Knowledge Centre processes.
Three main components of the IMBC process:
1. Participatory Action Research (PAR)
TGNP works with grassroots activist groups to assess community challenges and achievements and to design action plans. Using animation methodologies and action-based community development approach, the PAR process empowers women and other marganised groups to voice their priorities and drive change.
TGNP has applied PAR since 2010 to strengthen feminist organising at community level. The Transformative Feminist Movement Building [TFMB] study conducted in 2008, provides the foundation for TGNP’s approach.
2. Ward & District Level Feedback Sessions
These sessions bring together local activists, NGOs, and government officials to review the findings from the action research, set priorities, and plan collective actions. These sessions create space for dialogue and improve accountability between communities and leaders.
3. Knowledge Centres (KCs)
KCs are community-led hubs that provide forums for sharing knowledge, building capacity, and coordinating advocacy to improve social services and livelihoods. They link grassroots voices to policy processes, influence budgets, and demand accountability from leaders. They are vital to the transformative feminist movement at the grassroots level.
The KCs have proven to be instrumental in engaging with policy and budget processes and in demanding more accountability of elected and appointed leaders at both the local and national level.
TGNP provides technical support, but KCs remain community-owned and operated.
Find a Knowledge Centre near you.
The IMBC process results in:
- A Knowledge Centre (KC) that provides community members with a forum to develop their skills and work together to engage with the existing systems and local government officials.
- Empowered community members who understand and use various IMBC methods and tools to assess, analyse, and strengthen their confidence to demand their right to access social services.
- Strengthening the ability of grassroots women and marginalised groups to analyse issues affecting them and understand how these affect power relations.
- Community members with the skills and knowledge to monitor changes in their community because of their engagement with the local government authorities.
- Boosting community-led initiatives and using available resources to advance socio-economic rights and advocate for positive changes around policy priorities, budget allocations, and approaches to community engagement.