We Did It Ourselves

We Did It Ourselves

A Look at Participatory Learning and Action

     There are many variations of a poem written by Chinese poet Lao Tsu concerning the role of a leader, but the one that stands out reads, “Go to the people, live with them…To lead people, walk beside them.  As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence.…When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‘We did it ourselves.’”  As we dive further into the twenty-first century we must be constantly redefining our roles as facilitators and community members, especially as pertains to this idea of transformational development.  Across the board, non-governmental organizations and humanitarian groups are taking on the idea that the development of the poorest societies is a priority, but when development takes on a Christian character we must be continuously assessing our participation, and the community’s participation, with a holistic mindset.  We try to work ourselves out of a job, so to speak, so that the community we are reaching can be empowered and reach sustainability in all aspects of their lives.  One must be prepared for the complexities that arise from community participation, but at the same time take advantage of participatory tools that leads people to recover their identity as image bearers of a Creator God.

     Participation by the community allows the community to interpret their own experiences and circumstances and work toward a solution that is best for the community.  The role of the development worker in this process has changed from that of an outside organizing expert-leader to a facilitator.  What is the best way to hand over the ownership of a project to the community that will be benefiting from it?  Allowing communities to participate in the process of their own development changes the questions that will be asked and the approach that will be made.  Many factors are interwoven through the process that remain hidden without insight from the local people.  These people obviously know how to survive and this “survival strategy” as it has been called cannot be overlooked.  Through participation the poor then discover how much they do know and what resources they do have and a sense of dignity and identity is restored (Myers 174).  This is not an easy task.  Bryant Myers points this out well when he says, “helping people learn how to decode and demystify their social system is hard work because our own culture and worldview keep getting in the way” (Myers 169).  Although our intentions may be good, we are full of assumptions and our own worldview is the lens, cloudy as it may be, through which we see these communities.  This idea of the role of our own worldview will be further examined later, but the point is that our attitude should not be one of going in, doing our work, and leaving.  The process of training people to become confident enough to develop themselves and participate in their own survival and sustainability is a long process that involves a commitment and a desire to see people grow.

     Samuel J. Voorhies, a prominent name in the Christian development field, defines this idea of participation in a different way.  He affirms the idea that “participation means much more than project staff simply discussing plans with local people, but that it means ‘systematic local autonomy’.  This involves communities in the process of discovering the possibilities of exercising choice and becoming capable of managing their own development.”[2]  Exercising choice is an essential part of the process of empowering.  It is not just the idea of choosing, but owning the choice.  When people make choices about their community they must also embrace the possibility of failure.  Failure or not, at least it was their choice and now they own it. 

         The idea of community participation is a nice idea in theory, but when it comes down the nitty-gritty of real life we can see the complexities that arise from it.  Many parameters of society are imbedded in the experience of people from different cultures existing in different kinds of power structures and beliefs about the world in which we all live.  When we ask people to evaluate their world we see worldviews, belief systems and value judgments, racial and ethnic considerations, political ramifications, power plays, biases and a whole plethora of issues that must be identified and examined in order to know where to begin and how to approach the felt needs, and deeper needs, of the people. When one looks at this one becomes overwhelmed with the idea of tackling these issues.  Where does one begin?  How can one make sense of the world these people live in and what does that look like as Christians who desire an entire transformation of body, soul, and spirit?  Someone else describes the complexities in this way:

“evaluation outcomes are not descriptions of “the way things really are” but, instead, represent meaningful constructions that individual actors or groups of actors form to “make sense” of the situations in which they find themselves.  The findings are created through an interactive process which involves all stakeholders.  These constructions are shaped by the values of the actors and linked to the particular physical, psychological, social, and cultural contexts within which they are formed and to which they refer” (Guba and Yvonne 1989: 8).[6]

 

People attach meaning to their experiences and this is part of their story that needs to be told.  How to approach these stories from a Christian holistic outlook is something that must be closely examined and acted upon.

    The complexities that arise and the overwhelming nature of the tasks we have as Christians in these multi-dimensional societies points to the recurrent theme that we cannot do this ourselves.  However, God is not asking us to.  When overwhelmed with the task before us we have to lean on this God who sustains and provides for His people.  We lean on the strength of the One who desires reconciliation with these communities more than we do and we rest in the fact that He has left this process of reconciliation to us.  In the midst of all the complexities and obstacles of the development process, particularly when inviting the community to participate in this process, we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and protector of our faith.

     In addition to the overwhelming complexities inherent in this idea of community participation are obstacles that hinder the process.  One of these obstacles is the locus of the decisions.  Who makes the decisions?  Who are these decisions ultimately for?  Who evaluates and whose voices are really being recorded?  Another obstacle is the attitude and values of the staff, both western and local staff.  Development workers need to acknowledge the fact that they are learners too and not merely instructors.  The idea that local people have something to contribute is foundational to everything else.  Sam Voorhies describes it as “the fundamental underlying assumption is that people have relevant experience and knowledge to contribute to their own development.  Despite their poverty, people of a given community have learned to survive…As people with self-worth and dignity, they have the potential to take charge of their situation” (Voorhies 138).  Again, the idea of self-worth and dignity is implemental.  Secular NGOs and non-Christian humanitarian organizations overlook this because they leave God out of the picture.  All of this would be meaningless without a God who gives identity and purpose to a broken and marred people.  Without identity and purpose we might as well leave the poor to eke out their existence on their own.

    We talk a lot about participation in this paper, but what does participation look like?  What are the tools that are used in order to illicit the information needed to be a catalyst for the sustainable development? The idea is to invite key community members and leaders to explain things as they are.  Sometimes I find that people want to take you to the best parks and the best buildings and the best areas of society to display their pride in their community.  While there is a place for this it is important to see the society in all of its aspects through the lens of the local people.  On the other hand, communities may exacerbate their problems in order to receive more funding from donors.  Maps and transect walks help give a clearer picture of the realities of life in the community.  These are done by the community members themselves.

 

     Thus far we have examined that community participation is a necessity for sustainability and empowerment, something that cannot be disputed.  However, the practical side of things considered, what does this mean as Christians?  What are some principles and guidelines for the facilitation of community participation from a more Christian perspective?  As with every project, it helps to start at the beginning.  Not just the beginning of the project or the development worker or even the community, but the beginning of creation.  The creation story of a God who made people in his image is the foundation on which we approach these things.  The idea of the importance of the story has been referred to repeatedly (Bryant Myers, Sam Voorhies, Bruce Bradshaw as well as other Christian development workers).  God has been part of this community’s story from the very beginning, whether the community realizes this or not.  It is the restoration of the community to Himself is where God would have us begin.  These people have a history that needs to be told.  Sitting down and hearing their stories is the first step to this process.  Their own cultural stories and proverbs play an essential role to the understanding of their world.  It has been said that “stories often reveal the spiritual backdrop against which the community understands its history, its current situation and sometimes its future.  Listening to stories as part of the [PLA] process can give voice to cultural values which will be critical in understanding what process of change is apt to work in the community”[9]  Simply listening to the people informally and developing relationships over tea or playing with their children is a simple task to which we happily find ourselves.  The underlying layers of these stories allow an insider’s look into what it means to be these people.  Through their stories they are giving you part of their lives that is sacred and crucial to their identity as a people.  By understanding their claim of identity as people one can point them to the One who gives true identity and purpose.  At the heart of everything that happens, listening is essential to the dialogue process. 

   Also essential to the dialogue process is knowing how to ask the right questions.  When I was growing up, my father would challenge me in this aspect.  I would ask a question and he would tell me that I was asking the wrong question and then would sit there with me until I reframed the question to ask it in order to acquire the answer he knew I was looking for.  The same can be said here.  Although not a professed Christian, anthropologist and evaluator on the Joint Evaluation of Emergency Assistance to Rwanda, Johann Pottier, says, “the methodological challenge is not how we can use shortcuts in research, but how we can improve on the questions we ask in the highly charged setting of complex political emergencies.  Sitting down for as long as it takes, and knowing what questions to ask and how, must remain the principal strategy.”[10]  The kind of questions we ask, and the kind of questions the community members are asking may be different.  They are learning how to seek the answers to their own questions.  In addition to this, it’s not only the answer and the final outcome that is important.  The most important part is the process through which this dialogue is taking place.  Dr. Rhonda McEwen points out that “it’s not only the answer that matters, but the process of the dialogue itself that brings changes and shapes.”  A process-oriented approach allows one to view the idea of development not as a task to be accomplished, but as a vision to be realized.

Asking questions is important in order to uncover the heart of the community, yes, but as Christians we are called to ask a different kind of questions.  Sam Voorhies says, “there is more to be gained by applying these principles not only to the “development” activities in holistic ministry, but also to the activities and interventions in establishing a sustainable Christian community”  (Voorhies 146).  Applying these principles of community participation to the spiritual side of things and the context of a kingdom vision is what makes Christians stand out from other NGOs and secular organizations.  Bryant Myers and Bruce Bradshaw wrote an excellent paper on “Introducing the Spiritual Dimension Into Participatory Community Appraisals.”  The mechanistic, logical, scientific nature of the western worldview does not give answers to many of these communities who look to the supernatural world of spirits, ancestors, and external forces.  Paul Hiebert’s principle of the “excluded middle” embraces this problem.  Westerners attribute diseases to germs and solve them through antibiotics and other technological innovations.  Many societies in which development workers act attribute those diseases to spirits and solve them through appeasement of these same spirits.  How do we expect them to accept the One Living God if we do not point to this aspect of the spiritual realm?  How do we expect them to embrace the God of the Abraham if we do not speak to the cosmic battle that takes place in our communities?  We cannot neglect the spiritual dimension of things.  When we ask for community participation, we have to frame our questions in such a way that asks them to acknowledge the spiritual dimensions of their communities.  Suggested ways to overcome this problem include designing interviews that inquire into the spiritual realm (open ended questions, trends in worship, for example), maps and diagrams showing relationships between the physical and spiritual realm (village map pointing out mosques, places of worship), time lines and schedules of events that include religious and spiritual information (time line of a Hindu village), expanding causal diagrams to include both the scientific and the spiritual (preferred treatment of disease), as well as continuing to listen to stories.[11]   Ravi I. Jayakaran says, “our effectiveness in understanding a community’s reality depends on how well we can make a paradigm shift in our approach” (Jayakaran 36).  It is the community’s perception of reality that matters here, not our own perceptions.  A common phrase that goes around in historical circles is the fact that “all truth is God’s truth.”  God has a way of creatively pointing the community to Himself and the different kinds of questions we ask in bringing the spiritual dimension of participation into the experience provides a way for that to happen.

    However, what does all this mean in the real world?  Specifically, what does it mean to a specific context in which I find myself living and working now?  How can I make all this applicable to my current situation?  In order to answer this question as a conclusion to this paper, I would like to take you to a group of people who have become part of my own vision and passion.  Go with me to a small village on the outskirts of the city of Hotan in Xinjiang province of the People’s Republic of China.  If a Christian development worker were to approach this community, where would one begin?  These people have a rich history and vibrant cultural that is prevalent throughout their community.  The people of Hotan are primarily Uighur, a Turkic people who practice folk Islam enmeshed in an agricultural rural community that is becoming increasingly overpowered by the predominant Han Chinese.  Especially since the terrorist attacks in New York in September 2001, these people have a marred identity as “terrorists” and have been suspiciously branded as such.  China field worker Ekren D. Miller points out that “attempts at assimilation by the Chinese government have made much of the Uighur population struggle for their identity, to the point that some now consider them endangered peoples.”  With the background of this community in mind, how would a Christian development worker approach this community?   First, one needs to establish what the Chinese call guanxi (connections, who you know is more important than what you know).  Once one has been invited to be part of the community, in this case we’ll take on the agriculture platform of entrance, then one would spend a good deal of time simply getting to know the people.  Entering this experience with a long term expectation is important here.  Listen to their stories, hear the implications of their cultural proverbs and folk beliefs, and try to imagine the things between the lines, the questions they are not asking.  On the practical side, then one can enforce tools of Rapid Rural Appraisal or Participatory Learning and Action.  One should have them draw a map of their community, take them through transect walks, and see the reality of things through their eyes.  In addition, one can design interviews that inquire into the spiritual realm of their Muslim heritage.  The folk nature of their beliefs have them relying on what we westerners term “superstitions.”  Knowing these might be helpful when it comes to farming techniques and agricultural suggestions.  It helps to allow them to gain some kind of ownership to their community, especially when they are feeling powerless in the first place.   Somewhere in all this, (again the complexities of the region is overwhelming but that is why God is God and we are not), actions and reflections and the questions that are being asked point to this Christ who brings reconciliation for all things.  Sustainability and restored identity will be achieved and a community will be empowered.  Ideally, this is the way it should happen, but realistically there is still a very long way to go.  For the Uighur people, however, their story is already a story of waiting and expectation of better things.  

     In conclusion, participation, as pertains to the desired holistic and spiritual nature of it, is a great tool to enable community members to become empowered to make choices and develop themselves according to the vision they have for their community.  Different experts and development workers have contributed to the dialogue about how to go about this in a very complex system.  Guidelines and methods have been explored to incorporate kingdom living into the equation. Community participation is essential to the well being and empowerment of a broken people who desire to experience life at its fullest as God originally intended it to be.  Where God fits into the story, there is hope.

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography

Bradshaw, Bruce and Bryant L. Myers.  “Introducting the Spiritual Dimension Into Participatory Community Appraisals.”  World Vision Staff Working Paper #21.  Monrovia, CA: World Vision International. 1996.

 

Elmer, Duane and Muriel Elmer.  “Dialogue, Fix-it Pills and Development”.  Chapter 16 in Elmer, Duane, and McKinney, Lois eds.  With an Eye on the Future.  Development and Mission in the 21st Century.  Essays in honor of Ted Ward.  Monrovia, CA: MARC.  1996.

 

Huizer, Gerrit.  “Participatory Action Research and People’s Participation: introduction and case studies.”  Third World Centre, Catholic University of Nijmegen, Netherlands.  May 1997.  www.eldis.org

 

Kroeck, Dr. Thomas.  “Participatory Training in Tanzania” in Footsteps magazine No. 29.  December 1996.

 

Jayakaran, Ravi I. “Holistic Participatory Learning and Action” in Working with the Poor: New Insights and Learnings from Development Practitioners, edited by Bryant Myers.  Monrovia, CA: World Vision. 1999.

 

Kaiser, Tania.  “Participatory and beneficiary-based approaches to the evaluation of humanitarian programs.”  UNHCR Working Paper Number 51.  February 2002.  www.unhcr.org

 

Laderchi, Caterina Ruggeri.  “Participatory Methods in the analysis of poverty: a critical review.”  QEH Working Paper Series, Working Paper Number 62.  January 2001.  www.eldis.org

 

Miller, Ekren D.  “Many Windows, Many Chances: Reaching the Uighur People Since the Tang Dynasty.”  2005.

 

Myers, Bryant L. Walking with the Poor: Principles and Practices of Transformational Development. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books.  1999.

 

“Rapid Rural Appraisal.”  Sustainable Agriculture Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development, London.

 

Voorhies, Samuel J. “Community Participation and Holistic Development” in Serving with the Poor in Africa edited by T. Yamamori. Monrovia, CA: MARC. 1996.

 

;[1] This is taken from QEH Working Paper Series Number 62 “Participatory methods in the analysis of poverty: a critical review” by Caterina Laderchi (www.eldis.org)

[2] This is taken from Sam Voorhies’ chapter “Community participation and holistic development” page 128 from Serving with the Poor in Africa, edited by T. Yamamori, 1996.

[3] Page 181 of Walking with the Poor by Bryant L. Myers, as well as from the UNHCR Working Paper Number 51 “Participatory and beneficiary-based approaches to the evaluation of humanitarian programmes” by Tani Kaiser, February 2002 (www.unhcr.org)

[4] RRA document produced by the Sustainable Agricultural Programme, International Institute for Environment and Development, London.

[5] This is taken from QEH Working Paper Series Number 62 “Participatory methods in the analysis of poverty: a critical review” by Caterina Laderchi (www.eldis.org)

[6] UNHCR Working Paper Number 51 “Participatory and beneficiary-based approaches to the evaluation of humanitarian programmes” by Tani Kaiser, February 2002 (www.unhcr.org)

 

[7] For a more in-depth look at each of these methods see Appendix 1 at the end of chapter 7 (page 198) of Walking with the Poor by Bryant Myers

[8] “Participatory training in Tanzania” by Dr. Thomas Kroeck from Footsteps magazine No. 29, December 1996

[9] World Vision Staff Working Paper #21, “Introducing the Spiritual Dimension Into Participatory Community Appraisals: Going Beyond Physical Needs in Transformational Development,” May 1996

[10] taken from UNHCR Working Paper Number 51 “Participatory and beneficiary-based approaches to the evaluation of humanitarian programmes” (Pottier 1995: 124) by Tani Kaiser, February 2002 (www.unhcr.org)

[11] World Vision Staff Working Paper #21, “Introducing the Spiritual Dimension Into Participatory Community Appraisals: Going Beyond Physical Needs in Transformational Development,” May 1996