PROBLEMS AND SOLUTIONS WHEN WORKING WITH THE COMMUNITY PROBLEM POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS Affected communities may not trust authorities. Understand the root causes of lack of trust. This needs to be a fundamental part of your approach to education and empowerment, and may entail a strategy for working with—and seeking to change the behaviors of—specific individual officials or entire segments of the bureaucracy. Lack of interest in documentation. Exclusion of certain groups (e.g. women, persons with disabilities, older people) by the wider community. Recognize that lack of interest may reflect, for example, weak state presence, having other needs that are more important, having never had formal employment, having tried to gain documentation in the past and failed. Design a community engagement strategy that takes these factors into account from the start, for example by organizing community meetings or other outreach activities that are open to different parts of the community. In some communities, “agents” or “brokers” have facilitated access to documentation for a fee. Members of the community may not understand how paralegals differ from these actors. (See “Agents, brokers, and paralegals” box.) Community-based practitioners in some contexts have found it helpful, especially at the beginning of the project, to wear jackets, vests, or other clothing to visibly identify them as paralegals and indicate their affiliation with a local group or organization. Local leaders or chiefs who received bribes to sign documents or testify as to individuals’ identity may be reluctant to work with your project. The leaders may benefit from carefully designed efforts to educate them about the consequences, for clients and the community as a whole, of their conduct. 4.2 Working with Civil Society CSOs are generally a major part of the institutional landscape. By building productive relationships with these organizations, your project can build on their expertise and experience as well as the work they are already doing in the region. If your project is a part of a CSO, incorporating it will generally involve these kinds of analyses. Leverage existing structures and programs, such as clinics, schools, orphanages, and religious institutions, for sustainable outreach and delivery of services. Referral systems—where different organizations and institutions DISCRIMINATION EMPOWERMENT SUSTAINABILITY DATA RELATED RESOURCES (EXTERNAL) RELATED SECTIONS (WITHIN) A C O M M U N I T Y- B A S E D P R A C T I T I O N E R ’ S G U I D E : D O C U M E N T I N G C I T I Z E N S H I P A N D OT H E R F O R M S O F L E G A L I D E N T I T Y | 43