Resources

This paper discusses community exchange programmes as a powerful mechanism for increasing the capacity of community organisations to participate in urban development. By enabling communities to share and explore local knowledge created through livelihood struggles, a powerful process is triggered, whereby community exchanges transform development. Through a cumulative process of learning, sharing and collective action, strong sustained and mobilised networks of communities emerge. Central to this has been the sharing of experiences between communities, first at very local levels, then in the city, then nationally and internationally. The development of this methodology by the National Slum Dwellers Association, SPARC (an NGO) and Mahila Milan (a federation of women's cooperatives) in India is described. Exchanges are located within a broader approach to community learning and people's empowerment. Benefits of the exchange process are examined, and the paper reflects on why exchanges are an effective methodology for supporting a process of people-centred development. The necessary conditions for the exchange process to be fully effective are reviewed, which consequently point to the distinct characteristics of the exchange process vis-Ó-vis other participation methodology. It concludes by drawing together some of the wider implications of this approach.

This book presents issues and challenges facing those facilitating children's and young people's participation. The contributors come from a wide range of backgrounds including NGOs in development, children's agencies, academic insitutions and governments and provide case studies from the UK, Eastern Europe, asia, Africa, the Carribean and central and north America. Chapter 1 gives and overview to the main issues and concepts and chapters 2-7 each expand on a particular theme. The main issues discussed and analysed include: the ethical dilemmas facing professionals, the process and methods used in partlicipatory research and planning with children, the inter-relationship between culture and children's participation, considerations for instiutions and the key qualities of a participation programme.

The concept of participation of the clientele in the process of development, amelioration, and rehabilitation is akin to the profession of social work. Terms and phrases such as, 'helping the people to help themselves', 'client self -determination', and 'empowerment' are emphasized in this profession. Social work education focuses on the development of knowledge, values, attitudes and skills in the trainees. This paper discusses the experience of the Department of Social Work at Visva-Bharati, India, in teaching:learning participation in its revised curriculum. It has a detailed description of the curriculum, discussing the extent to which participation has been included as well as how it has been included. It goes on to examine the factors that constrain and facilitate participatory teaching from teachers' and students' perspectives and discusses the importance of fieldwork in the revised curriculum. It argues a cultural context and mentions the effect of the organisational culture in the conclusion.

This paper examines the relationship between RRA and the theory and practice of development, and asks how it contributes to a new paradigm. It begins with an overview of the history of western thought as it relates to the origins of the conventional (evolutionary, unilineal, positivistic) development paradigm. It then sketches alternative paradigms which question notions of progress and change. They suggest alternative understandings of 'systems' and action, leading to recognition of the potential roles of local people in applying their own knowledge in determining their own development, and the need for learning processes in development activities. These processes are increasingly seen as determined by their context. RRA is suited to responding to the needs and opportunities inherent in this new paradigm in many ways. Although realising this potential depends on the acceptability of information generated by RRA to decision-makers, questions of data validity are not always relevant: openness and multiplicity of feedback circuits compensate for small sample sizes and rapidity. RRA can also facilitate dialogue and has the potential to change practitioners as well as 'objects' of development. Thus in the right situation, RRA can be a valuable supplement to conventional research methods - if done well - but should not replace them.

This article, as part of the special 50th edition of PLA Notes, looks at specific tools and methods used by an alliance of three organisations in India that are engaged in initiatives to reduce urban poverty. The organisations are the National Slum Dwellers Federation (NSDF), Mahila Milan (savings cooperatives formed by women slum and pavement dwellers) and the Indian NGO SPARC. The article provides a background of the development of the tools and methods used by these organisations over the last 20 years, which are then linked to empowerment, learning and transformation: Poor people know what their problems are and generally have good ideas regarding what solutions they want. But they lack the resources or capacities to demonstrate that they can produce a solution. So the federations support their members to try out solutions in what can be termed a learning cycle. Some of the tools and methods covered in the article include savings and credit, mapping, surveys, community exchanges and house modelling. The author also describes how the Alliance (the grouping of the 3 organisations) works differently from other NGOs whose strategies tend to be about lobbying and advocating directly for change. Instead, the Alliance focuses on setting precedents and using these precedents to negotiate for changes in policies and practices. As a case study of this approach, the article describes the use of community toilet initiatives. Some of the outcomes include bringing communities together, expanding livelihood options for the participants (who gain useful skills and experiences from building the toilets), strengthening relations with municipal authorities, changing national policies, and enabling spaces for communities to learn. The article concludes with three overarching implication for change processes initiated in the community by the toilet projects, arguing that the poor make ideal partners in the projects and that the projects themselves need to be community managed and controlled. These are: organisation for empowerment; community-based problem solving; and learning to negotiate with city and state governments and other groups.