NSTP 2

UNDERSTANDING THE
NATIONAL SERVICE
TRAINING PROGRAM
 UNIT THREE
The Process of Community Immersion

• “ We don’t accomplish anything in this

world alone… and whatever happens is the
result of the whole tapestry of one’s life
and all the weavings of individuals threads
from one to another that creates
something.”

• - Sandra Day O’Connor

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 Introduction

Community immersion generally takes

on different overlapping phases, like
performing community organizing
strategies called social preparation
phase, integration, social analysis,
program implementation, evaluation
and report writing and termination of
the project.

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 Learning Objectives
At the end of this unit, the student must be able to:
 Verbalize the process of immersion as a guide for
rendering service to the communities;
 Design a community immersion plan of
implementation following the process; and
 Internalize the importance of carrying out the steps
of community immersion in series.

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Discussion Highlights

The Process of Community Immersion

The community immersion process is a series of interrelated and

intertwined phases which commences with the Pre-Immersion
followed by Entering the Community, Community Integration,
Community Needs Assessment, Program or Project
Implementation, and Termination of the Project.

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 Discussion Highlights

This phase regards the identification of the community where the

PHASE I PRE-IMMERSION students will be immersed at. Trainees will have to prepare themselves
physically, mentally and spiritually for many tasks ahead.
Trainees must have waivers from their parents or guardians
stating that they are informed of the mandate to undergo the NSTP
community immersion.
The school also needs to organize it own manpower,
resources and other technical needs. According to many who have
undergone immersion, the activities could be both exciting and
exhausting.

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 Area Selection

Factors to be considered in area selection:

1. Select our areas.

2. Local Partners must be willing to work and support
community projects.
3. Consider needs and resources within the capacity of
the students and community partners.
4. Places that is not saturated by other agencies.
5. Stable peace and order situation.
6. Accessibility

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 To ensure success in entering the community, it is
necessary to have community mapping of the target area.
This will help you identify the geographic coverage of the
project. It will also help point out the resources that may be
used by the trainees in the community and the relationship of
people with these resources (Use Worksheet No. 6 for the
exercise).
Angelito G. Manalili in his book Community
Organizing for People’s Empowerment (1990), remarked
that there are different ways of entering the community.
PHASE ENTERING THE Similarly, immersion begins with the initial steps in
II COMMUNITY community organizing. Anchored on Manalili’s concepts,
those planning to conduct community immersion can enter
the community thru:
1. Ostentatious Entry.
2. Banking on the People’s Weakness.
3. Academic Style of Entry.
4. People-Centered Approach.

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 When entering the community, the members of
the community immersion team must establish
good rapport and relationship with the
community people.

Gathering information and doing a

background investigation about the situation in
the community may prove to be of great help in
pursuing the goal of establishing linkages in the
locality.

Ground working can also be an

effective mechanism in knowing the community
well. Talk to as many people as possible and
document or record your conversations.

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 Integration is a continuous process wherein the
trainees come into direct contact and become involved
with the community people. This phase is where the
immersion phase gets more personal. The trainees
should realize that there is an existing concern within
the community. As the problems of the community
become more apparent, you become aware and
validate that are part of the circle.
Integration may be done through:
a. Border Style.
PHASE COMMUNITY
III INTEGRATION b. Elitist Style.
c. But the best way is the People-Centered
Method of Living with the People.

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 Needs assessment, social analysis or community
diagnosis as others refer to, is a concrete base for the
formulation of programs.
It reflects the sentiments, needs, aspirations and
recommendations of the community people. When it is
done properly, it will reflect also the trainees’ feeling
of oneness with the community. They begin to see that
the people’s problems also reflect their own.
PHASE COMMUNITY NEEDS
Needs assessments becomes significant when it is
IV ASSESSMENT
conducted through integration with the people. Our
analysis and assessment should be done with the
people.

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 Assessing the needs of the community is a
prelude to effective program offered to
clients. This will ensure solutions to
problems, issues and concerns of the people
in the locality.

This discussion covers the meaning,

importance, steps, and exercises in preparing
community needs assessment instruments
that will equip students to prepare similar tool
which they will utilize in measuring the needs
of the community assigned to them.

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Community Needs Assessment Defined
Community needs assessment is the process wherein problems, issues and concerns of the community
are identified through the use of several tools for assessment. It encourages the participation of the
community, as they are the stakeholders, to the findings in the assessment.

Importance of Needs Assessment

1. Gather information about citizens’ attitudes and options in order of importance.
2. Determine how citizens rank issues, problems and opportunities in order of importance or urgency.
3. Give citizens a voice in determining policies, goals and priorities.
4. Evaluate current programs and policies.
5. Provide speculations about what people are thinking.
6. Provide speculations about what people really want.

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Information to be Included in Assessing Community Needs:

1. Historical Development.
2. Geographical and Transportation Information.
3. Political and Legal Functions.
4. Demographic Data.
5. Economic Data.

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THIS INCLUDES THE VALUES AND SOCIAL PATTEERN.

I. Geographic Profile
(Data source may come from barangay or city/municipal hall)
A. Physical
I. Location/ Boundaries (North, East, West, South)
II. Terrain
III. Facilities (like clinic/hospital, schools, recreations hall, etc.)
IV. Climate
V. Basic Food
B. Cultural
I. History of Place and People
II. Languages being used
III. Peace and Order situation (usual community conflict and/or crime rate)
IV. Clothing (most applicable to rural setting) 05/16/2024
II. Social
(Data comes from survey)
A. Total Population
B. Total Number of Household
C. Population distribution by Gender (and Age)
D. Population distribution by Educational Attainment
E. Health and common illnesses
F. Recreation

III. Economic
A. Wage Earners in the Family
B. Employment
C. Household monthly income

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IV. Life Skills
A. Abilities
B. Interests
V. Spiritual Aspect
A. Number of people with active membership in the church
VI. Socio-Political Aspect
A. Known social programs or projects and other related community efforts
(whether existing or planned efforts)
B. Expression of satisfaction/dissatisfaction towards current social programs
C. Perceived community problems
D. Recognized community leaders
E. Other Agencies, GOs or NGOs that are in the area or that serve the
community

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 Methods in Collecting Data for Community Needs Assessment
1. Focused Group Discussion (FGD) with Key informants.
2. Community Forum/Activity.
3. Public records.
4. Survey.
Survey can be implemented through the following:
a. Mailing questionnaires to randomly selected members of the
community;
b. Performing telephone survey;
c. Handing out surveys while people are in an assembly; and
d. Posting questionnaires on your public access computer catalog.
*An example of this is the Minimum Basic Needs (MBN) Form
of the DSWD.

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 Steps in Conducting Needs Assessment

1. Establish a working committee to solicit citizen and

community involvement and develop a plan of action.
2. List important aspects that are needed to be looked
upon.
3. Identify the population to be surveyed.
4. Determine the information that is needed.
5. Select a random sample of person to survey.
6. Develop and pretest a questionnaire.
7. Collect and Collate the information.
8. Analyze the data.
9. Go back to the community for validation of
information.
10.Finalize the document.

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 “THE STORY OF THE LONE COMMUNITY SERVANT. . .

Once there was a community servant who saw that the problem of
poverty in his community was related to the low wages that a big-shot company
was giving to the residents who work for it. So, the community worker organized
a work stoppage until “their” demands were given, including a wage hike. He
was successful in gathering 100 community people to picket with him. But on the
third night of the strike, he was surprised to find no one behind him in the picket
line... apparently the problem, in the eyes of the community people will not be
solved through strikes but through a round table discussion table with the
management .

The community was consulted of the real method of approaching the problem
and so the community servant was left on his own in the picket line.”

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Community Assistance in Assessing Needs
1. Help identify community groups and citizens to be involved in the working
committee.
2. Facilitate group discussion to identify important issues and set priorities.
3. Help select the sample to be surveyed and design a system to identify respondents.
4. Provide tested questions from which the working committees choose questions that
address the issues and concerns.
5. Help design a process to distribute and collect survey questionnaires, code, enter and
analyze the resulting data.
6. Provides summary reports of data.
7. Suggest programs to report the results and strategies to solicit community
involvement.
8. Work with citizens to identify courses of action based on the information.

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 Project implementation deals with the
actual execution of the plans. This phase of
project development includes making the final
arrangement with the target clients/community
partners, officials involved in the activities, right
schedule of each event, day to day activities and
needs of the clients, manpower each day of the
program, monitoring and evaluation plan and
other requirements like social and recreational
activities and the culminating activities of the
project.
It must be remembered always that the
needs of the clients will be the dominant
consideration throughout the conduct of the
projects.
PROGRAM/PROJECT
PHASE V
IMPLEMENTATION

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To ensure the success of the NSTP community service projects performed by the
trainees during their immersion time, the following must be considered:
 program must be responsive to the needs of the clients;
 Contribute to the upliftment of the living conditions of the clients;
 maximize the resources available in the community;
 tap the potentials of the clients and give due recognition;
 objectives must be SMART with tangible results that touch the lives of the clients;
 project must be done systematically to ensure significant contributions from pre-planning,
planning stage, implementations and evaluations;
 complete documentations must be observed as basis for reporting and for future studies;
 projects must be within the capacity and concern of the trainees that will allow them to
gain the knowledge, skills and encourage reflective action: and
 develop shared commitment among the trainees.

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 Projects must promote civic consciousness imbued with good
citizenship values of Pagkamaka-Diyos. Pagkamaka-Tao, Pagkamaka-
Bayan and Pagkamaka-Kalikasan.

“… needs of the clients will be the

dominant consideration throughout
the conduct of the projects.”

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 The following flow of activities will guide NSTP trainees in the implementation of their
projects:
a. Pre-immersion - Preparation of project proposal based on
community needs
- Approval of the proposal
- Once the project is approved, the trainees
will prepare all immersion requirements.
a. Letter of request regarding their immersion
to the community or the partner agency
signed by the trainor/coordinator and
approved by the NSTP Director.
b. Community responds to the request by
signifying their acceptance through a letter.

c. Trainees, based on the identified needs,

submit a project design to the community for
approval.
d. Once approved, trainees will submit a
detaile4d program schedule of action.
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 - Based on the detailed program approved, the NSTP
trainees will implement the specifics of the activities as
designed. The actual immersion time will last for 8-10
meetings with the clients or partner community. It may be
also depend on the design of the project.

b. Actual community immersion - In the course of the actual work, coordination, monitoring
and evaluation is done to give immediate action to problems
encountered and make necessary adjustments if needed.
- During this stage, trainees are required to make and
complete their journal of events which serves as a reference
in finalizing their tasks. Pictorials are also required to
support the activities undertaken.

c. Presentation of community service outputs - Each group of trainees will make a narrative report. The
presentation of documents during the post evaluation of the
program is about the community service activities
conducted during the immersion time.

d. Monitoring - Continuously done to measure effectiveness of activity.

e. Evaluation - Each group will be rated as part of the final rating given to
them.
- Implementation of the project ends by the time all 05/16/2024

requirements have been satisfactorily done.

 NSTP trainees are expected to complete their
projects in the community in the span of 50-90
hours as prescribed of the CHED-endorsed
Program of Instruction for it to be credited in
the training course.
Right at the very start the trainee-implementers
must apprise their target participants of the
particulars of the projects undertaken
especially in terms of time frame.
This will enable their clients or partner
community to prepare for any eventualities
should the implementers will terminate the PHASE TERMINATION OF
project. VI PROJECTS
Trainees are advised to inform them with due
respect of the status of the project and other
details as may be deemed necessary.

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 A trainees, one must learn how to work
within the allotted time frame given, for
their convenience and also for the
community’s sake.
If one stays in the community beyond the
agreed time, the action can be construed
by the community for something else like,
extending more help (intensified
volunteerism) to them or that they could
still ask for their help even beyond their
capability.
This might also encourage their
dependency on the implementers.

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SYNTHESIS
Community needs assessment is a means to measure problems, issues
and concerns of a specific locality which could be done by interested
group with sponsors to establish credibility.
It involves steps to follow in order to consider well specific areas
which will be included in developing the instruments.
It particularly involves the population demographic areas, economic
and social level.
It is also designed to gather information and help determine how best
one can respond to the needs of the community, issues or concerns, and
potential areas of intervention.

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Finally, know and make your case. . .
Needs assessments are a critical part of the community organizing
practice/development work. It is essential to ask the questions:
 How do you know there is a problem?
 How do you know there is a need for a particular intervention? Answering
this question entails gathering empirical (objective) and perceptual
(subjective) data.
 How serious is the problem/need?
 How pervasive is it?
 How many people do it affect?
 Who believes there is a problem/need?
 Who is defining the problem/need?
 Why at this time?
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 “A nation is a totality of men
united through a community of
fate into a community of
character.”
- Otto Bauer

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Structured Learning Exercise (Optional)

1. The students will be divided into groups of 10 members.

2. Each group will be assigned a particular phase to discuss and role play.
3. They then, will be asked to prepare for a creative presentation for a period
of 15 minutes where they will properly portray the immersion phase
assigned to them. A 7-minute allotment will be given to each presenter.
4. After the presentation, indicate the process of community immersion in 5
minutes by making the number order.

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