The North East Zonal Team of Caritas India has been
meticulously working on promoting people’s development initiatives through a
project titled “Facilitating
Agriculture Regeneration Measures (FARM) in North East” since 2013 with the application of People Led Development (PLD) approach. The team is doing everything possible to
ensure that PLD is given the priority in FARM NE. It is heartening to see
that our efforts are now showing results and we have been to document quality
information from our partners on PLD in the shape of case studies. These case
studies are testimonials to assert to the fact that the target community in the
project areas are being empowered & are also given the power to decide what
is best for them. People may not know what PLD is but they are
now realizing the fact that even they can think, they can decide and
they can take action on their own.
For us as a team it’s been a beautiful journey of 2 years
with PLD taking the centre stage. Our job of capacitating the partners is
still on and we are here to ensure that the project helps the poor in enhancing livelihood options
without being dependent. Thankfully, the project (FARM North East) being armed
with the PLD component as powerful approach, makes it count among one of its
kind of projects that talks about people's empowerment. We believe in people’s
development from within and not from external force.
Here are few views & experiences of Caritas India team
members on PLD. These are a few reflections on what the team feels about PLD
& how best the concept can be taken forward.
 |
| Jonas Lakra |
I am sharing this to give you a picture how
people lived in peace with happiness and harmony during those days. Same kind
of a situation used to prevail in most of the villages in Northeast during
those days. People including my parents sustained only with crops cultivated of
their own. There was no need of producing excess food because nobody would buy
rather exchange goods as per requirement. Thus barter system was prevalent.
Every one cultivated enough food. Land was so fertile that whatever was being
sown would yield in plenty. We would even go to forests to collect forest
products especially food and firewood. People went to the market once in a
month only for salt, oil, soap and cloths.
During those days no government
schemes reached to our village. But the village people were always united to
help each other. The approach road which exists now was built by the community.
Wells were dug in each house for drinking water and domestic use. The cost of
digging well was only 3 to 5 kg of rice, one or two hen with a pot of rice
beer. They would help each other in building houses and even for cultivation.
Women would help each other during pregnancy and delivery of the baby. Thus
from birth to death people would carry out all the traditional ceremonies
without spending much cash or with no cash, because community feeling and
culture of collective support was in existence. This is how community was
always ready to help each other in every respect.
Now the scenario is very
different. Now people have to spend money for everything. No one has spare time to lend helping hands
to the other. They need to spend for birth, for marriage and even for burial.
They need to depend on market for food. Land is no longer fertile as before,
hence people are discouraged to cultivate. No forest product. Govt. schemes are
available only at the cost of spending money. Thus rights are denied.
Last two years of my personal
involvement in the FARM (Facilitating Agricultural Regeneration Measures)
Northeast project has given me opportunity to learn and unlearn through
reflection process with people (small farmers).
Two years back when I heard about People Lead Development (PLD) approach
for the first time, I was not very convinced as to how this approach would help
the project (FARM Northeast) to benefit people, because I am a practitioner of
Result Based Management (RBM) Approach. But as the time passed my perspective
on PLD became clearer. In the beginning we approached people as social scientist
telling people what they should do and should not do. We reflected ourselves as
knowledgeable person and change maker of the society. Thanks to Mr. Saju for
taking Northeast Caritas India team on board and making us understand the
concept and core value of PLD.
Following are some of my
reflections and learning as NGO worker so far:
- We as NGO workers should critically reflect ourselves and redefine our role. The entire development approach should be collective reflection, planning and implementation. From doer to reflection and thought provoking action. NGO’s plan and action should be based on the people’s knowledge, skills and resources.
- We should visit the village with learning mentality. Listen to the people, observe and extend need based facilitating support and understand what they can do on their own.
- We need to facilitate for joint reflection for building peoples perspective and vision.
- Promote interested farmers as model farmers and build them as future leaders.
- Our facilitation process should lead to people’s initiative in decision making, planning and implementation of development activities in the villages.
I
hope and wish all our project team and project partners (11 implementing
organizations) feel more or less like me. So far I have observed that farmers
with whom we are working are beginning to change their perspective on
development process. Some of the behavioural changes are highlighted in this
blog in the form of case stories. We have given different agricultural
technologies to people as option and could see few have accepted and few have
rejected because they know what works and what doesn’t. We have observed that
few people started to do multiple cropping in all our 191 villages, women
farmers are taking lead role in forming farmers club in the states like
Manipur, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh and people are opting for
traditional/local variety seeds and have their own indigenous system of
preservation of seeds.
We as NGO workers
should understand that development though peoples’ perspective change and
collective initiative/action is a long term process and does not happen
overnight like any other service delivery development project. We need to have
patience and work towards peoples’ capacity building on people’s collective
initiative and leadership from within the community. We need to value the rich
knowledge and experiences of people and promote those for their own sustainable
development. Building community to assert their constitutional and human rights
is another aspect we need to work on so that they live in dignity. People have
the best solution for every problem and are the agent of change for future
development for themselves and for the community.
Jonas Lakra
Zonal Manager, North East
Caritas India
Guwahati, Assam
Prabal Sen
Albinus Kujur
Guwahati, Assam
 |
| Prabal Sen |
Being a man from
Environmental Sciences, People Led Development (PLD) approach was a completely
new subject to me. Initially I was not convinced with the concept as my
question was that how would it benefit the farmers, something that the project
is trying to do?
We were
specifically then told that PLD being the integral component of Facilitating
Agriculture Regeneration Measures (FARM) project has to be taken up on a
priority basis. I obliged but still with a little confused state of mind as to
how to give it a start?
I went through a
few stories on PLD shared by West Zone. The first read, well I could not
connect to the North Eastern context. I went through the stories a couple of
times more & was trying to figure out how best these stories could help me
in understanding PLD.
All that I could
understand about PLD was that it’s about community and not individual. The
second best thing that drew my interest is PLD talks about revival of traditional
knowledge, a domain that I have been working in the past. I wondered that PLD
is already omnipresent in my region yet could not be identified. I thought there
could be innumerable examples of communities across rural North East (NE) India,
where the spirit of oneness is still visible in so many aspects of life and society.
Different tribes, different groups are the custodians of a rich culture &
heritage that they have inherited from their ancestors. My simple understanding
was that elements of PLD are just there & all that is required is identify
them.
I made up my mind
to go the partners’ field and the see how PLD can be put into action. I did not
make any plan or strategy to discuss PLD with different partners. May be I
realised that it had to come of its own as per the situation on the ground.
Being in the field,
the simplest of common examples (on PLD) I cited to the partners was that of
the community coming together to help someone who lost his house in a fire
incident. Prompt came the response from them, “Yes we know about this practice and it’s still in practice”! This
reply was perhaps the starting point for understanding for them. I carried on
from here and tried my best to explain to the project teams on how PLD works.
However, I made it very clear to them that any farmer or community has got
nothing to do with PLD and that its exclusively for us to understand &
apply.
I put array of
questions to them & tried to find out PLD cases with special reference to
the project. They understood and responded with a number of such cases that had
elements of PLD within the project as well as outside. All this came up on the
first day of visit during meetings with the respective project team. Come
second day and we were off to the field, in the specific areas where PLD cases
were reported by the project teams. I took the initiative in interacting with
the community & showed to the team in details on how to go about. I helped
them to identify more of such cases throughout my visit. It was then for the team
to take the lead in interacting with the community.
The project teams
carried over from here & the ray of confidence was clearly visible on their
faces. My hard work seemed to have paid back when I heard the project team
saying that now they have a clear understanding on PLD & now they take it
forward. Results are showing now as I have received quite a few PLD case
studies from the different project teams & these stories have been
published on the blog.
Being again from a
different educational background, I do not have indepth knowledge of RBM but I respect
the subject & try to learn as much I can. Likewise PLD, as already stated
above, would not have drawn my attention had it not included components like
what I was looking for.
PLD has changed in
a way changed my thinking as a technical person, who was busy sharing
technologies to the farmers & gave me an opportunity to think out of the box. I have learned that as per the concept of PLD prescription would not work but options do.
Finally, it’s been
a great journey of two years with PLD and above all, learning has been my
biggest of gains.
As they if you
enjoy your work you love it and so am I....
Prabal Sen
State Officer, North East
Guwahati, Assam
 |
| Thangsha Sebastian Anchong |
I have learnt that the age old traditional practices among
the communities in North East help them to a great extent to find a solution to
their issues. I also experienced that of late the same community are somehow
losing their rich traditional practices. Therefore, I see a kind of disconnect
that the community of present day is faced with. However, whatever little the
community has been able to practice till date in different sectors, sets a
great example to show that the community never acts individually but as a unit.
In this context I would say that People Led Development (PLD) approach is all about creating
empowerment of the community by building their capacities and supporting their
initiatives with the aim of giving them greater control over their own
development initiatives. It helps them
to reflect and think to identify their needs, issues and concerns to generate
community solution. PLD approach would also lead to strengthen the age old
traditional practices that hold a high risk of getting extinct. PLD in FARM
North East is perhaps a good step towards moving out from the traditional mode
of project that we implement.
Thangsha Sebastian Anchong
State Officer, North East
Guwahati, Assam
 |
| Albinus Kujur |
Peoples’ initiative is
observed in day to day life in Adivasi community and also in most of the tribes of
North East India. But People Led
Development (PLD) approach in FARM
Northeast project talks about the developmental aspect of the community through
their own initiatives; and which is looked to be more sustainable. This developmental aspect is about peoples’
initiatives within the community and also relates to development through
government through the peoples own initiatives by means of linkage building,
enhancing capacities and explore their own potentials.
Having been exposed to
the concept of PLD, I can’t wait to share a unique peoples’ initiative called Hawri,
practiced by my community. Hawri is a traditional system prevalent among the
Adivasis that promotes the spirit of working together to help each other. People
get organized themselves to help their own people. The family that seeks the
help from the members of the community would provide food and refreshment to
all. This is one of the traditional practices that have been practiced from ancestors. HAWRI can be seen in many aspects of the
society like agricultural activities; construction of houses, collecting
firewood, marriages & also during many other activities & rituals.
PLD as such is visible
in most of the ethnic communities across the NE region. I am happy to learn
that through PLD a trial is being made to into picture the rich treasure of traditional
knowledge & ethics of the ethnic communities of North East India.
Finance Officer, North East
Guwahati, Assam
 |
| Saju M.K. |
My
first meeting with the eleven organisations working on People Led Development
(PLD) in North East India was the quarterly review in July 2014. One of the
things that I did during the review meeting was sharing with participants my
opinion on PLD. In spite of my best efforts to convey my convictions and the
experiences on PLD, I knew the coordinators
understood very little of what I spoke. Even more, they looked puzzled. I had expected
it since it was natural. For a cadre of workers which was accustomed to Results
Based Management (RBM) and the necessity to deliver results more as ‘drivers’
rather than ‘facilitators’, introduction of PLD halfway into the project had to
be confusing.
While
the review was still rolling on, I was searching for a PLD narrative that is simpler,
clearer and more convincing. I must have missed a couple of presentations
because I was lost in my world of PLD. Coordinators, without exception,
followed the RBM format for presentation not just because they were asked to do
that but it was easier as well. Finally when I started paying attention to the
presentations, I discovered there is an intriguing pattern in the presentations.
To my pleasant surprise, some of them also added a few slides in which they had
presented the results which they could not fit into the RBM presentation
format! None of these results were planned or written in the proposal and most
of these results were achieved by communities on their own! Equally striking
was the enthusiasm of coordinators to showcase those creditable achievements
which were relevant to the real life contexts of communities.
The
PLD discussion resumed from there and it was more contextual, meaningful and
enjoyable.
I
will leave RBM to its exponents to defend it. In a context where agencies seek
to ‘work with’ communities in true sense, RBM helps neither the communities nor
the agencies. Or at best, it helps only a little. There are several
perspectives on the possible interactivity of RBM and PLD. However, I would
pick up the practice of result presentation in the context of RBM and PLD, as expressed
in the review experience referenced above.
In
an RBM scenario, the mission of a field worker is rather simple because s/he
normally does not think or act beyond what is written in the project document. S/he
just does not need to. If we inquire anytime during the project period about
what they do they will invariably give answers that are consistent with what is
written in the proposal. They will
always prefer to do, or at least prioritise to do, the activities that are
written in the proposal and not always the activities that the communities
would expect them to do. This applies to the representation of results as well.
We, more often than not, tend to report the results in a framework that is
manufactured away from the community. And, in those very few occasions when
coordinators deviate a little to include the vital and meaningful gains of
communities, they are ‘disciplined’ to follow the format of presentation.
It
was, hence, very satisfying for me to observe that some enterprising coordinators
resisted the tendency to ‘conform’ and gathered enough courage and motivation
to ‘improvise’ their formats for capturing the results that communities had
achieved with a little assistance from the field workers. The happiness of
coordinators when they said “we have some more results to present” was so
pronounced.
As
a person who has seen both RBM and PLD sides, I have become increasingly
doubtful of the ability of RBM to satisfactorily capture the successes of
communities in responding to their evolving and continuously changing needs. In
a normal rural scenario, how many issues remain in constant degree of severity,
in constant extent and in constant length of time? I wish RBM will suit those
few. But there are far more pressing and urgent needs of the community which an
organisation needs to respond to as a companion of people in need. The
coordinators who had presented additional slides of successes in their
presentation were trying to do just that!
PLD is all about responding to the everyday
needs of the community without the precondition of having a proposal. It is all
about responding in a more meaningful way – encouraging and enabling communities
to lead themselves.
Saju M.K.
Zonal Manager, West Zone
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
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