5 Organizing meetings in the community
Asha Patil
Content outline:
Ø Introduction
Ø Learning objectives
Ø Rationale
Ø Concept of Participatory Rural Appraisal
Ø Factors affecting people’s participation
Ø Philosophy
Ø Role of community worker
Ø Need for PRA
Ø Implementation of PRA
Ø Practical Tips
Ø Thumb rules while exercising PRA
Ø Conclusion
Introduction
Understanding the community is the prerequisite for starting any developmental or welfare programme. Literacy programme is not an exception. There are various methods to assess the needs of community. They include survey, focus group discussions, etc. These methods have limitations as most of them do not fully involve the local people in assessment of their needs. People’s participation is crucial factor in assessment of the needs of the community. People’s participation helps to understand the real picture of a community. Thus, the participatory appraisal came into practice. Various approaches of Participatory Rural Appraisal, which is popularly known as PRA, help to prepare a community profile.
In this module, we will discuss the Participatory Rural Appraisal and its approaches in detail.
Learning objectives
i. Defines PRA
ii. Illustrate the rationale of PRA
iii. Elaborate on factors affecting participation of people in developmental activities
iv. States need for PRA
v. Explain thumb rules for exercising PRA
Rationale
Participatory approach has the following rationale:
1. Reduction in development cost-The actual needs of the people are understood before implementation of the programme. Naturally, it increases the utility value of the programmes and the goal is realized. There is no wastage of finance resulting in reducing the cost.
2. Increase in perceived and actual benefit-As the organizers know the exact needs of the community, they also understand the outcome of the programme to be organized. It reaches to those for whom it is meant. Hence, the actual number of beneficiaries increases. There is no need to imagine who will benefit, how much it will be beneficial, etc.
3. Correction of design mistakes-The development plans are prepared with the help of people. Hence, the mistakes get rectified before the programmes are implemented.
4. Reaching benefits to all-As participation of each and every individual is sought, their needs are considered. Hence, the benefit also reaches to everyone.
5. Decrease in dependence on government-People’s participation helps to understand the needs and problems. In addition to this, they realize the available resources- both human as well as material. Understanding these things help them to solve their problems collectively. Hence, many a times they do not have to depend on the government to solve their problem.
6. Accesses to control of resources-Most of the times the resources are available within the community, but people are unaware of them. Participatory approach helps them to gain access and avail them in the community itself. Sometimes the resources are controlled by a few people. Participatory approach helps all members of the community to have access to these resources.
7. Mobilization of local resources– Participatory approach helps to mobilize local resources and utilize them for the development of individual as well as the community.
8. Empowerment of the oppressed classes– In participatory approach, people from all the religions, castes, classes participate. Due recognition is given to each person. This helps oppressed class people to express their views, opinions, needs, problems, etc. They get due consideration as well.
Factors affecting people’s participation
Obstacles existing within the programme, the community and the society affect the participation of the people. Following are some of them:
· Easy availability of grants/subsidies– There are certain programmes for which direct government grants are available. The organizations just use them without bothering whether the people need them or not. They get funds easily. Hence, they are least concerned about people’s participation and development.
· Biases/discriminations-Many a time the government and the voluntary organizations underestimate people’s intelligence. They are marginalized.
So, participation of women, people from oppressed class, people living below poverty line is ignored.
· Illiteracy/ignorance-In rural area, more than 40% people are illiterate, so they are ignorant of different development schemes and funds. The outsiders think that they “do not know”. Hence their participation in planning, implementation and/or decision making is just neglected.
· Parties/groupism/variations in population-Usually groupism are prevalent all over the country. Power either lies with rich people or with the ruling party. The powerful people, though in minority, enjoy and exhaust all the benefits.
· Social status/income differences-People belonging to higher castes, with good economic status dominate others. They change decisions according to their convenience. This affects the development of the deprived class and minority people.
Concept of Participatory Rural Appraisal
Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) consists of most commonly used set of participatory assessment tools. It is a growing family of approaches and methods for learning about rural life and conditions.
Robert Chambers (1997) describes it , ‘PRA is a growing family of approaches and methods to enable local people to share, enhance and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, and to plan, act, monitor and evaluate’. PRA is been extensively used in natural resources management, agriculture, health and nutrition, poverty and livelihood programmes and urban contexts.
PRA is still evolving. In this approach, learning takes place from and with the rural people. Different approaches were evolved in different countries. It had different contexts. To include all these, in 1994, PRA was described as, ‘a family of approaches and methods to enable rural people to share, enhance and analyze their knowledge of life and conditions, to plan and to act’.
Philosophy
The philosophy behind PRA is that community members are the best experts of their own situations. PRA is an easy method to collect information about a community. To do this, outsiders must establish a good rapport, build trust and then use different techniques and tools to collect the right and factual information.
Always remember, people’s participation changes according to local situation. Though it is a participatory approach, the percentage of participation, its type/method, quality differs from place to place, even within the same community. Hence, the advantages and disadvantages of participatory process vary according to the local situations. Unless you practically implement all the techniques, you will not understand which works in a particular situation and which does not work. PRA helps the outsiders as well as villagers to learn more about village. The experiences of people who implemented PRA tell that local people have more knowledge about their village.
As stated earlier, PRA helps to analyze local problems and formulate tentative solutions with local stakeholders. It makes use of a wide range of visualization methods such as mapping, diagramming, etc. These tools can be very effective for getting detailed information from large groups. As most of these methods are visual, they can be used with illiterates or who have very low literacy. This also encourages the participation of all members of the community.
Role of community worker
PRA is a good method which can be used to understand the village. The role of an outsider/community worker is that of a facilitator, who should guide the discussion and help community members tap their own knowledge and resources and use them effectively.
The community worker should act as a catalyst and a convener to enable local community people to identify and investigate their exact problems/needs, analyze them, plan and implement solutions. It also helps people to face the outcome. That is why PRA is considered both- attitude and methodology. It serves as a tool for outsiders to understand village system, its dynamics and politics using combination of techniques.
If the community worker, who is an outsider, takes people in confidence and explains the purpose behind PRA; convinces people that they can learn new things by doing this; explains its benefits; then people definitely cooperate. The community worker should make an attempt and ensure that everybody participates in the PRA including illiterates, literates, women, children, backward and minority communities, etc. As an outsider, the community worker should always be eager to learn from people. S/he should be ready to accept mistakes committed by him/her. S/he should avoid giving unsolicited suggestions/ advices. It is really beneficial if the community worker undergoes training in how to conduct PRA.
The unique feature of PRA is that it enables local people to participate actively, express their views, opinions and make them aware of their hidden potentials. It changes and reverses the role, behavior, relationships and learning. Here, outsiders do not dominate and lecture or impose their ideas/ programmes on local people. They just facilitate the process by sharing with local people, listening to them and learning from them. Outsiders do not transfer any technology but they share methods, which can be used by local people for their appraisal, analysis, planning, implementation, evaluation, and upliftment.
As PRA involves sharing of information, experiences, it helps to create a culture of openness. The information generated can be shared and used by government departments, NGOs, university departments and others. On one hand learning takes place and on the other hand a good rapport with the community gets established.
It is astonishing for outsiders when they see local people use PRA methods. Mere observation of local people-(who are illiterate, semi-literate) doing participatory mapping, affects the attitude and beliefs of outsiders. People come together in a group, where lot of knowledge, ideas and values are shared. This generates commitment, cross checking, enthusiasm and even the fun element amongst people. In a way, lots of knowledge and information gets shared between local people and outsiders, who are facilitators.
It has been seen that, PRA helps to empower lower strata of society which includes women, minorities, the poor, the weak and the vulnerable.
Need for PRA
Before 1970s survey method was the most widely used method. This method was easy to collect quantitative data and analyze it. But it is a time consuming method, also not cost-effective and flexible. Information collected through questionnaire has to be analyzed and stored in computer. If the questionnaire is faulty, the information collected remains incomplete. It is impossible to correct the lacunas once data is collected. The major drawback of survey is its limitations of collection of qualitative data. The most peculiar characteristic of PRA is people’s participation. Another feature is PRA helps to collect qualitative as well quantitative data/information.
Planning of any developmental activity requires accurate information, especially to address the needs and problems of weaker sections. PRA helps people-
· To bring sustained/ sustainable change
· To collect accurate and timely information
· To find solutions to their problems
· To Cut down biases
· To make the programme cost effective.
The main purpose of PRA is to understand local priorities by developing direct contact with local people. Hence, it increases responsibility of a community worker. One has to understand the diversity and try to bring equity and empowerment amongst the marginalized, excluded, deprived people, including women.
Implementation of PRA
As stated earlier, PRA is a group of methods and approaches. Before starting PRA, one needs to understand its nitty-gritty. To get better results, one has to follow following steps-
I. Pre-field work: Once you have decided to conduct PRA, first step is to prepare a team of five to ten people. The team should be multi-disciplinary in nature. The team should include a few local people as well. While selecting team members from your own organization, you should remember that they need to have good listening, communication, observation and writing skills. They should be ready to work before and after office hours, should adjust to village situations/discomforts, have faith in people, should be keen and willing to learn new things especially from local people (illiterate/semiliterate), etc. Team members should be culturally sensitive. Selection of local people should be done carefully. Select such people who have good knowledge and awareness about their own village, have better understanding about local problems/needs. They must have good knowledge of available resources and should be willing to devote time to be with you. The team must have representation of both the sexes, if possible in equal number. But, women representation is a must. Before staring actual PRA, one needs to collect following information about that locality/village population. This information can be collected through secondary data as well as by paying two-three initial visits to that village.
· Language/s spoken by the people
· Economy(main occupation and other issues)
· Culture
· Social and political organizations working
This would give a preliminary idea for line of inquiry and choosing potentially important topics. Before conducting the actual PRA, the community worker should select the methods and tools, pay visit to the village and explain the process to people and seek peoples’ involvement/participation. The date and timings of the PRA should be decided after consulting with the people according to their convenience.
Location: While deciding the location of the PRA exercise, the community worker should consider the following points:
· Purpose of the exercise
· Number of house holds
· Programme terrain
· Others: such as the capacity of the village to host the outsiders (group of 10-15 people) for 4-6 days-food, water, accommodation, etc.
Logistics: It is advised to stay in the village till the PRA gets over. In such case, it is very important to see the accommodation facilities available in the village. One can explore the possibility of staying in the houses of local people. If not, the team has to travel every day. In such a case, explore available transport facilities and their feasibility. This is essential so that the team can stay in nearby city/ town and travel everyday to the desired place of PRA. In addition, the food arrangements, space for working on presentations and notes, space for evening meetings and group presentations, etc. should be explored.
Materials and kit: Followings are the few important items, which the community worker should carry for exercising PRA:
· Rangoli powder (at least one kilogram) (minimum six different colors of rangoli powder in which red, green and blue are essential) or chalks in different colors
· Brown paper sheets (for charts and presentations)
· Colored felt pens (the thick ones are better)
· Gum, cello tape, scissors, colored papers, pins, note books, pens, etc. (general stationary)
· Seeds and counters
· Board- for presentations
· Substitute for electricity. For example petromax, torches, candles, etc.
II. Actual field activity: PRA requires minimum 5-10 days to complete, depending on the local situation, purpose/objective of the programme, the information needs to be sought, etc. Accordingly one can select the methods and tools of PRA to be used. Then all the required preparations, as stated in phase I, should be made. One of the first issues in starting PRA is deciding on who should be involved to get the best possible picture of the community. One should try to involve all the people irrespective of their religion, caste, institutions, social status, etc. Listen to everyone. Different perspectives give useful information. Listen for emotional, physical and spiritual needs. Try to gather information on what has already been done to solve problems.
Briefings: The group should be divided into sub-groups. Each sub-group should be formed in such a way that it has people with technical competencies and skills of PRA. This enhances the quality of the interaction and affects the output. Each sub-group will use different techniques of PRA depending on the objectives of PRA. The sub-groups be briefed on-
· How to draw maximum information from the people?
· Which method should be used for a particular topic?
The group members should remember the following questions:
· Why are we doing this exercise? (purpose)
· What do we want to get out of it? (outcome)
· How do we go about it? (strategy)
The group members should decide the roles of its members which includes interviewer (who asks questions), observer and recorder.
Presentation of report to the local people: It is very important to call a meeting of local people and present the information gathered through PRA. People must be told about needs, problems, resources found by using PRA techniques.
Presentations: Evening timings should be kept aside for presentations of the day’s findings. This helps to understand, scrutinize the information and if required, to do the correction/s. It is also helpful in getting an end product of everyday that is accurate and reliable.
Documentation: One can take-
· Photographs, prepare slides and films (video shooting)
· Individual and group write-ups
Practical Tips
Following are some of the practical tips for those who want to conduct PRA:
a) Before PRA
· Meet villagers with open and frank mind few days before the actual exercise begins
· Build personal rapport
· Identify villagers who are willing to share experiences
· Show full interest and enthusiasm
· Relax tension of the interviewee
· Sit down with the villagers on the same floor, at the same level
· Decide the suitable timings for PRA
b) During PRA
· Listen carefully
· Show empathy
· Observe intensively and carefully
· Understand villagers’ way of reasoning
· Do not interrupt, suggest or prescribe
· Be polite, gentle and accommodative
· Try to adjust with the villagers’ convenience
· Do not LECTURE
· Respect villagers as human beings
· Avoid head nodding
· Follow existing social customs
· Participate whole heartedly
· Accept hospitality, if offered
· Be patient and do not be too inquisitive
· Lead towards sensitive issues
· Ask simple questions
· Take detailed note of all answers, discussion and information generated
· Tackle gatekeepers carefully
· Do not prolong discussion unnecessarily
· Revolve discussion around main issue
· Change topics smoothly
· Intervening group should not be prolonged
· Use Kipling’s seven servants-WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHO, WHICH, WHY and HOW
· Identify potential resource persons
· Intimate the group formally while going out during the course of interview/activity
c) After PRA
Once you complete the PRA, you should thank all the villagers individually. Decide, if possible, the time when you will be sharing the information collected through the whole process and the plans for the development/further action. Remember, information must be shared in an honest and realistic manner, without making false promises that cannot be kept.
Thumb rules while exercising PRA
Following are a few things which should be practiced by all those who wish to exercise
PRA:
· Protocol– The success of the PRA exercise depends on how you follow the
‘required’ protocol in the village. Each village has its vested interests, power structures and the establishments. Try not to interfere with them. Hence, it is very useful to have few meetings initially with the village elders, opinion leaders, chairpersons and youth leaders, women representatives, etc. This should be done a few days before the PRA exercise begins. This gives a sanction of legitimacy. Legitimacy refers to participation of villagers from all categories either directly by attending sessions or indirectly through interviews. Legitimacy is also for the ‘outsiders’ to move freely in the village (of course respectfully and sensitively).
· Village camping: This is a MUST in all PRA exercises. Staying in the village with local people helps to break down the barriers between the outsiders and the villagers. A great degree of access to the villagers and vice-versa is achieved.
· Ice breakers– On the first day of PRA, one can organize a few games in introductory session itself. Beginning with games help in breaking down the barriers and establishing rapport. Everyday some light games can be organized. You can make games as an integral part of PRA. It helps people to feel refreshed, to become more energetic, and they continue their participation whole heartedly. The whole atmosphere becomes friendly. This helps to collapse the gap between outsider and insider (local people).
Games should be used very carefully. It should not give the impression that you are not serious towards your activity and simply trying to kill the time. Hence, use games according to the situations.
·Friendly approach: Lecturing must be avoided as it is disastrous in PRA. The aim of PRA is to gather accurate and relevant information. Hence, an effective inquiry mode should be adopted. Lecture is one-way communication. Always remember; never interrupt a person, who is talking. Many a times, we miss important information, due to frequent interruptions and interventions. First, listen to them and if required, ask questions.
Summary
As mentioned earlier PRA methods and approaches continue to unfold. PRA is both popular and powerful. It has spread with alarming speed. This is one of the best methods to empower not only the local people but also the vulnerable and the marginalized. It allows them to express, share and analyze the complex and diverse realities of their life. It encourages them to plan and act on it. Before implementing all developmental programmes, the government as well as NGOs should conduct PRA. This will help them to reach the real needy people, who are deprived from their rights.
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Websites
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