Table 2.

Key elements of success for community mobilization in Project Accept

Element of success	Representative quotes
The evolution of community mobilization strategies in Project Accept	“Basically we just look at the make-up of the communities and the activities that happen in the communities and just developed [mobilization strategies] as we go.” —Soweto, KI #2
	“And from the first round we learned to conduct the community mobilization and then later on we adapt and we gather information and we change the strategy over time.” —Thailand, KI #1
Process of acceptance	“So at the beginning when they [community members] don't really understand about the study, they didn't cooperate with us very well…But afterward when we go to the communities often they start to understand and the community leaders cooperate with us very well.” —Thailand, KI #3
	“And then over time as we got the trust of the community and we really established a relationship and we talked and answered questions there began to be more of a dialogue and people began to want to engage more in discussions about HIV, discussions about testing, discussions about myths they had heard…” —Tanzania, KI #1
Each village is unique: the importance of creating a tailored, yet flexible, mobilization	“It would be incorrect for me to say that we had one strategy of mobilizing all the communities… what works in one community might not work in the other community. So we tended to look at it on a community by community basis—” —Zimbabwe, KI #3
	“And one thing that we realized is that there is no recipe to community mobilization. You cannot say you will do one and two and then I will get three… We learned many things. We learned new things every day.” —Vulindlela, KI #1