What are the common challenges and opportunities for community outreach in rural and remote areas?

Building community capacity is something I see as a tool to bring about change and build a brighter future because I care deeply about empowering people and communities. It involves locating and utilizing resources, creating solid relationships, and offering knowledge and support to people so they can prosper and give back to their community. Building community capacity is, in my opinion, a long-term investment in the future and a means of producing a more just and equal world. We can assist people in rural and distant places overcome obstacles and realize their full potential by empowering them. Community capacity building is about valuing each individual's worth and potential and giving them the tools and encouragement to succeed.

The most common challenges in rural areas is mobilization, in most rural set up the residence are scattered making it difficult to mobilise. Another challenge is the engagements, usually ideas are imposed without really consulting with the community members if they do they only reach out to the leaders majority needs and opinions are ignored. Lastly the infrastructure for getting into the communities in most cases the roads are bad that only off-road cars can pass through. There are a lot of opportunities in remote and rural areas if attention is given to them to address their own needs and wants.

In my experience, CCB's serve as a safety net for rural communities, where despite some of the same challenges faced in urban communities, they are exacerbated further in the rural communities. A recognized strength of the CCB's is that they offer a holistic approach to meeting the needs of their communities, one person at a time. Additionally, it is also likely that CCB's in rural communities have a deeper connection to those being served, due to not only a familiarity with the people but also the problems.

It's critical to give people in rural and distant places the opportunity to explore new technology, learn about their rights, and live the way they see fit. Also, it's critical to provide instruction on subjects that will enable people to live more sustainably. In these locations, a large number of people need to be made aware of their rights and prospects. To provide them with the knowledge and tools they need to take charge of their life and achieve their objectives, we must educate and equip them. In order to enhance their quality of life and give them access to new prospects, we can introduce new technology at their own speed.

In rural and remote areas it is also important to remember that in nearly every place on earth there are indigenous communities who have longstanding ties to the land. These groups should be informed and involved early on in all community engagement processes. The ties between indigenous communities and the land may be formalized in a legal sense through treaty rights and federal tribal recognition. It is critical that these rights and tribal sovereignty is respected during community engagement processes. Notably, many indigenous communities do not have legal standing and it is important to recognize and reinforce sovereignty for all indigenous communities regardless of their legal status wherever the community engagement is occurring.

In archipelagic countries like the Philippines where I am from, still the access to basic services and resources remains a challenge. In particular areas of health and education are most vulnerable, where remote communities do remain isolated from local government centers that are servicing them, hence, scant if not nil assistance is accessible to residents. Compounding the problem is lack of infrastructure for telecommunication and connectivity which is of course an essential for conmunity development nowadays. When the pandemic happened, educational institutions had to resort to online means or virtual classrooms, and of course, this was a challenge for many who were not digitally-adept or -enabled.

Community capacity building is a critical component in connecting people to information. The community must trust that you are operating in their best interest by providing accurate, unbiased, helpful information. Once that is consistently proven, the community will seek you out.

As a public land manager, the engagement of communities - both in the context of the physical location where such a group lives and a group of individuals that collectively represent a user group such as hikers or ranchers - is critical to effectively managing the locations and natural resources we are responsible for. We have to understand what is important to these communities, where our mission aligns with those values and where it conflicts. And from that place we can identify a path toward collaborative management that results in a broader ownership of the outcome of any decisions we make and thus increasing the capacity of our organization to achieve our mission.

From the perspective of a public land manager, because we are often beginning from a place of contention or controversy, it takes a commitment of both time and energy, often years, to move past differences, come to agreement on shared values, and build the trust necessary to start taking group action. And often what is desired of the agency doesn't align with mission or capacity. And not everyone has the passion or patience to endure those challenges and find a way to succeed.

Rural areas have a "way of doing things" that works well for their unique context. For example, rural partners are probably spread out and connecting in person may not happen often. Tech issues are always pop up, and this might be more so in rural areas. Understanding some of these norms are how you find innovative ideas. Start by co-creating, what are some of the challenges and opportunities we need to figure out together. See what ideas and solutions you come up with together and try them out. You want to create a culture with your rural partners that promotes innovation and experimentation. This will be a crucial step in getting the most from your current partnerships and creating space for new groups to assist with the work.

While agreeing that we must ensure our approaches are culturally appropriate and responsive to the local context, we must also attempt to carefully define what really constitutes "culturally appropriate". For example, in certain communities, how do you reconcile a deep-rooted traditional culture that promotes child marriages on one hand, and our noble cause of promoting girls' education on the other hand? Who defines "cultural appropriateness" in this context? If it is from the perspective of the targeted community, their definition/perception of what is culturally appropriate might be different from ours and can bring a certain level of controversy and credibility-test when it comes to issues of cocreation, community participation, etc.

In my experience, one of the problems of community capacity building, and rural areas is the way that physical distance compounds issues of confirmation bias. People in small communities may believe that everyone in their region is experiencing the same capacity challenges and opportunities. This occurs because they may only regularly interact with folks whose experience mirrors their own.

The approach is simple enough, as in the adage, “each one, reach one”. However, this notion encounters challenges when a person or a group attempts to conduct community outreach in rural and/or remote areas. Rural and remote locations, as it implies, are far from urban hubs. This results in residents in these underserved communities, because of proximity, are often cut off and learn to adapt to disparities. Some are not even aware that disparities exist. The disparity becomes their norm. One of the major challenges in connecting and engaging with people in rural and remote areas is their lack of access to and knowledge of technology. Due to limited access to views outside of their community, their thinking becomes cloistered.

1. I totally agree with the notion that no single approach to CCB is suitable for all communities due to their varying needs. However, it is critical to ensure that whatever approach is used considers the principles of inclusivity, and there has to be a deliberate effort to ensure women or people with disabilities, for example, participate at the same level as others. 2. The question of sustainability is another important factor. The participatory needs assessment and asset mapping to identify gaps and opportunities for community outreach and development should not only be confined to what needs to be achieved now but must always look beyond the short-term and immediate outcomes.