Looking back
Back from home stay in a village, participants reflect on an important learning of the last session. - “Development should be sustainable”. If it destroys environment then that is not the right kind of development.
Sustainable Development – State, Private Sector and Civil societies
Dr Gopakumar the director of Public Affairs Centre started off his session by linking it to the previous activity of “Looking back”. The focus was on understanding the evolutionary map of “Sustainable Development”. While the 50’s & 60’s focused on Productivity as an outcome of world war, the 60’s & 70’s was aimed at State Action through good policies and governance. 80’s brought the voice of Sustainability into focus. Early 90’s focussed on Participation through decentralisation. Accountability/Transparency were the hallmark of late 90’s, Dr Gopakumar brought the session focus to the concept of Sustainability.
It was pointed out that civil society has always been an advocate of Sustainable Development, although it came into official government corridors in the 80’s. To substantiate this stand the example of 1977 Kenyan green belt revolution was cited – a good three years before the government and other caretakers of society laid their claim to it as policy matter.
It was mentioned that there are 70 official definitions of Sustainable Development revolving around the three domains – Social, Economic and Environment. Dr Gopakumar challenged the participants to improve on the model. The Fk participants came up with the following additions - technology, political guidelines, role of institutions, human resource and education, making it the unofficial 71st definition for Sustainable Development.
The pictorial representation of SD along with Rule of Law and Quality of Life standing on a structure of Governance caught the attention of all participants. The need for political will through public awareness and societal values was shown as the foundation necessary for SD to take place. A global map of red and green showed how corruption and economic development are related.
The question raised today was – What is good society?
Shocking news
$ 50 Billion in aid is required to have global poverty eradicated by 2015
$ 1 trillion is paid as bribe globally by household and small firms (200 times more that what we require to eradicate poverty)
“Rural Haryana has more millionaires than urban Bangalore – This is not an economic situation, it’s a social situation”
Dr Gopakumar pointed out that The State, The Corporate and The People have to work together to achieve set objectives. Social audit – Businesses being open to auditing by the society - an emerging concept. The new question being raised is how are corporate’s and NGO’s being accountable to society.
In the second part of the session the participants were divided into three groups and asked to create roadmaps on how to contribute towards sustainable development through the a) State b) Business and c) Civil Society
Sabrina Sharmin
With her head cover you cannot miss her in a crowd, Sabrina from Dhaka, Bangladesh. A geography lecturer from University College, her aim is to relate geography and migration. This is her first visit to India. Before embarking on this journey she was informed that people from Bangalore are simple and English is the main language spoken here! A traveller at heart, she has travelled widely within Bangladesh and is going to Nepal after this training. She is very interested in working with returning migrant workers and women. Her hope is that during her one year in Nepal she will be able to acquire enough knowledge, which she can use in her country. A lover of handicrafts, she also designs clothes and is a shy singer. The one thing she misses the most is her family.
The Roles and Responsibilities of a Development Worker
Mr. Vijay Kumar from Society for People’s Action for Development (SPAD) facilitated a much-needed session on the roles and responsibilities of a Development Worker (DW). He started off with a question on what they thought were the characteristics of a village. Fresh from their home stay in villages in Hoskote, the answers came flying from the participants – No bed, no toilet, no schools, animals in the house, division of labour in a family and so on. After listening patiently to these replies Mr. Vijay Kumar came to the crux. He listed out the basic/universal characteristics of a village.
o Primary relationships – Everyone knows everyone else.
o Open society – There are no secrets, everyone knows the state of affairs
o Closed society – at the same time, the village is resistant to change and development. This, said Mr. Vijay Kumar, was very important to keep in mind.
o Joint Family system – Again the strongest and weakest point, the joint family creates harmony and division of labor, but is also patriarchal, and therefore resistant to new ideas. Mr. Vijay Kumar asked the participants to look out for such fine social fabrics.
o Feeling of oneness – The entire village is represented by one or two leaders. Antagonising one will antagonise the whole village, which again is very important for a DW to note.
o Sharing – Every little thing that happens is known, so every one reacts to any issue.
What are the problems of a village community?
…was the next question. They were divided into geographical groups for this, and were asked to list answers specific to their country. Again lots of common answers came thick and fast – lack of hygiene, lack of education, infrastructure, gender bias and so on. When all this was discussed, Mr. Vijay Kumar again summed it up in one perfect insight – “the biggest problem is to get people to talk about their problems. So the change agent, that is you, will have to have a specially sensitive heart to read the unspoken problems in the eyes of the people.”
Mr. Vijay Kumar posed the next question
What is development?
The answer had been given in a previous session, and he summed it up as development that concerns economics, politics, culture as well as environment i.e. both material and non material.
Finally Mr. Vijay Kumar finished with the role of the DW or as he framed it
What are the roles a DW needs to play?
o Respect yourself – the most important message of the day, a DW is a professional in his own right, on par with any engineer or doctor.
o Function like a change agent – work with individuals, groups and communities, look at the larger picture always
o Friend/philosopher/ guide – you need to be a resource bank with the knowledge to solve the problems of the community.
o Catalyst – Be the link that bridges the people and the external services, link the people with the program
o Management expert – Adapt to playing the roles of HR, understand finance and organise people
Involve people to create sustainable development for a long term future
As a final exercise, he made the participants ask themselves about the qualities and limitations of a DW, a fine way to create the introspection that comes with being a change agent
Final say
On being asked about what he would like the participants to take home from his session, Mr. Vijay Kumar quoted a Chinese poem, which he felt summed up the entire truth of being a social worker
Go to the people
Live among them
Learn from the people
Plan with the people
Work with the people
And finally when there is positive change, credit it to those who made it possible, the people and not you.
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