Amedzro, A.K.Montii, A.G.University of Ghana, College of Education, School of Continuing and Distance Education, Department of Adult Education and Human Resource Studies2015-06-172017-10-132015-06-172017-10-132003-12http://197.255.68.203/handle/123456789/6220Thesis (Mphil)The purpose of this study is to determine whether rural communities in the Upper West Region participated in eye health care education programmes. The study was in two phases. In the first phase, 200 people from selected cluster communities were interviewed. These selected communities were chosen using the simple random sampling technique. After this, purposeful sampling technique was used to select eight community members from each of the twenty-five local communities. The aim was to find out from the local community members whether they participated in eye health care education programmes, and how they helped in combating blindness and eye problems in general in their local communities. From the study, it came out that the rural communities did participate in some of the activities such as taking part in the decision-making and availing themselves for voluntary eye health care work. However, they could not participate fully due to abject poverty, inadequate methodology used in educating them on eye health care issues, inadequate capacity building techniques on the part of the facilitators, and de-motivation among others. The study recommended some ways by which rural communities could participate effectively in eye health care education programmes irrespective of their socio-economic status. Rural communities could be supported with poverty alleviation programmes to bring them out of this abject poverty to enhance their participation in the programmes. Additionally, rural communities should be encouraged to participate in the eye health care education programmes and practised maternal and child health care seriously. It is also important that rural communities are educated to see the importance of immunizing their babies against the six childhood killer diseases as an important issue in their life. In summary, the study notes that though the concept of community participation in rural development in general is appealing, if its real implementation is hampered by complexities and difficulties like abject poverty, inadequate teaching methods and capacity building techniques, local communities in the Upper West region will still continue not to participate fully in all community development programmes including eye health care education programmes.IX, 82 PenEye CareHealth Care EducationBlindnessEye HealthThesisUniversity of Ghana