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The Objectives of the
Project
To improve the quality of life of the people of the area, particularly
focusing on the neediest, by addressing the root causes of the
multiple inter-related needs of the target group through a community
based integrated holistic approach. This helps to reinstate human
dignity and self-esteem and enables them to take control of their
lives and become self-sufficient
To make all the activities sustainable
so that the development process continues even after the project
phase-out.
Terminology Used By IHA-UDP and their
Contextual Meaning
Whilst the concept of the Integrated
Holistic Approach has been thoroughly discussed in the introductory
section some words that keep coming up will be listed and defined in
this section of the thesis. However, since the word participation is a
jargon that is used frequently by development workers it will be
discussed at length.
a) Integration:
The coming together of the three
components, under which the eleven felt needs of the target community
are categorized (physical up-grading, health and socio-economic
conditions or Community Development). It describes the service
provision aspect of the three disciplines (refer to logo).
b) Holistic:
Relates to the whole persons needs:
interlinked problems which cannot be seen separately. A whole person
goes beyond an individual to needs of families/and communities.
Ultimately, through integration and holism, the endeavours should
address the root causes of the problems.
c) Dialogue:
An often used word from the start of
needs assessment through to regular quarterly community meetings.
Paulo Freire correctly describes dialogue as a mark of respect.
Dialogue results in consensus. Mutual agreement not by manipulation or
imposition. IHA-UDP's staff continuously use this method.
d) Liberating Education:
As against banking education (Paulo
Friere), the IHA-UDP claims that through the 'brain storming' method
one can identify educational needs of all its1[2]community
workers.2[3] These include the Education Extension Workers (EEWs)
right down to the grassroot Neighbourhood Group (NHG) organized by
family unit (5 - 10 households), by neighbourhood units (25-30
sub-zone or households), and zonal units (by 100 household units).
IHA-UDP also believes that adults need to listen to the voices of
children as part of the non-banking education endeavour.
e) Humanization:
This avoiding 'dehumanization'. IHA-UDP
claims that, through open and participatory dialogue, manipulation and
compromising human values will be minimized. It is through awareness
creation that the poor can fully be liberated and thus also humanized.
f) Conscientization:
Repeated dialogues, discussion and
liberating education with facts and accurate information result in
change of attitude, humanization and self determination as well as
empowerment. Since participation is part of empowerment it will again
be discussed in that context.
g) Institutionalization:
An important process towards
self-determination administration and self-sufficiency.
h) Social Justice:
A Biblical value for Christians and a
human rights issue for the humanists. The issue of poverty should be
seen as a Human Rights Issue. The Convention of Human Rights (post
war/post League of Nations) had the two agendas of political rights
and socio-economic rights.
The entire world is promoting political rights because the western
world can easily use that pretext as a manipulative weapon, but
socio-economic rights have remained untouched in any meaningful way.
That is why there is a reiteration of the fact that poverty
eradication, alleviation or reduction cannot be attained by the
political powers, since it has no relevance to them.
Participation (also Known as People Centerdness)
A more elaborate definition and
discussion needs to be given to the word 'participation'.
Participation of the grassroots is fundamental to, and results in, the
"bottom up" approach. 'Bottom up approach" is a word freely used in
IHA-UDP. It is the first principle which gives respect, a sense of
equity, raises self-dignity and self-esteem, and also promotes
empowerment, sustainability and the sense of ownership. Uphoff, Cohen
and Goldsmith concur with this view.
Questions about the relationship between participation and social and
human development have a long history in political and social
theory... Though the following characterisation is simplified, we
think it represents the recent revolution of thinking about
participation in development.... When the US and other 'more
developed' countries became concerned about problems of
'underdevelopment' following World War II, they focussed on
differences in the level of technology.... A 'technology gap' between
the more and the less developed was perceived.... Rather than examine
whether the new technology was indeed appropriate and productive,
social scientists and practitioners all too often had to explain why
people on LDC did not adopt it. Issues of people's participation in
development were commonly framed in 'traditionalism' contrasted with
'modernity'. Non- participation was attributed to people's
'traditional values' and resistance to 'modernity', concepts now
thoroughly disputed.
a) Basic assumptions of the concept of people-centeredness:
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People-centeredness primarily
acknowledges that all human beings are equal in the eyes of God. It
recognises the fact that each human being deserves respect and that
human dignity should be kept intact.
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All human beings basically know what
they want or need (even if sometimes, for various reasons, they will
not readily express their wishes or felt needs.
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Communities will, if allowed and
accommodated, communities will take responsibilities, however poor
they. They will, therefore, voluntarily participate to achieve a
better quality of life. It is a fact that no one, in their right mind,
deliberately work against their own interest.
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That effort at 'enabling' people rather
than 'dictating-imposing' will bring out the best in them and build
confidence. This results in them taking their own steps in inviting
development workers to help them prioritize, implement, evaluate and
sustain their own projects or programmes.
Clearly the people-centered approach rejects all forms of
manipulation, patronizing and romanticizing of the participatory
approach. The reality is that often workers fail to look deeply into
factors that prevent genuine participation. The task of the
development worker to deal with the problem of participation is to try
and find out why people refuse to have anything to do with newly
introduced programs. People do not refuse to participate without
reason.
Development workers often succumb to the
temptation of wanting the people to tell them what they want to hear.
When this is not forthcoming the workers are frustrated and often give
up. Often development workers go to work with prefabricated ideas and
programs and try to persuade the recipient community to accept it
because their plan is based on scientific considerations. However, the
people may think differently because they have an agenda, which they
consider to be vital from the point of view of their interests. In
modern parlance this is known as the 'donor driven' approach.
b) Problems and Constraints Identified
and Recognized by IHA-UDP:
Some Barriers to Participation or
People-Centerdness:
Among the lessons learnt by IHA-UDP right from the beginning were:
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There is no short-cut to the solution of
the problem of attitudinal change and attitude is a major impediment
to participatory development.
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Fatalism is a major obstacle to
participation of slum dwellers. Slum dwellers find it difficult to
believe that anybody cares about their plight.
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Slum dwellers also believe that they are
born to poverty and no one can change that situation. They believe
that God made people either to be rich or poor.
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Since the lives of slum dwellers are
patterned on living one day at a time, and to mouth they had already
convinced themselves that tomorrow cannot be better than to day and
yesterday.
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They have not experienced no social
justice nor had their basic rights recognized or taken on board. That
they have become suspicious of anyone claiming to do anything to
improve their quality of life.
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Most existing policies are not designed
to help the poor have better access to social services (education,
health services, etc).
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Most development workers are forced to
comply with donor requirements rather than being concerned with the
felt needs of the people they are supposed to help develop.
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Professionals and development workers
can believe that, having attached themselves to certain communities,
but without including them in decision-making, their action alone
should be seen as people-centered.
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The people-centered, or bottom up
participatory approach requires time and the accommodation of working
hours to fit into the toiling masses' convenience. Most professionals
would opt for 'nine - five' type of development work.
c) The Way Forward
"Attempting to liberate the oppressed without their reflective
participation in the act of liberation is to treat them as objects
which must be saved from a burning building; it is to lead them into
the populist pitfall and transform them into masses which can be
manipulated."3[5]
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To create people-centeredness in a
patriarchal Ethiopian culture, development workers have to recognize
the time consuming process of conscientization. In this process,
attitudinal change occurs and the poor build up their capacity and
capability, so that they control their lives and become self
sufficient and self sustaining.
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The newly recognized social capital
value (qualitative change) has to be acknowledged so that
sustainability can be guaranteed. Without attitudinal change,
reinstated self dignity and people-centeredness there will not be a
successful meaningful change that brings about an improved quality of
life for the poor.
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Development workers must recognize that
process orientation is important and that teaching and learning is
two-way. By listening to the people they also learn that the
participatory approach is all about recognizing that each individual
has something to offer - even if poor communities are slow in decision
making. Any of quality change can only last if individuals feel that
it is their or her felt needs that are being addressed. This in turn
leads to full ownership which sustains the development process.
Ultimately no development work will be successful unless it is people-centered.
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CBO models such as CBISDO should be
encouraged and not isolated or excluded.
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NGOs should perform their developmental
functions with a high sense of accountability and transparency.
How community organization is approached
in the IHA-UDP System
Education Extension workers (EEWs):
Education Extension Workers (EEW)
working at the grassroot level. They are all-purpose, semi-volunteer
community workers selected from the communities. They are groomed to
hold key positions in sustaining programmes (in the case of the old
IHA-UDP, the present CBISDO 52 Programmes), later on the since IHA-UDP
approach insists on community involvement at all stages and levels.
Thus different methods have been used in selecting the EEWs. For
various practical reasons, it has repeatedly been pointed out by
community members that this group should only consist of girls who
have completed 12th grade. They are trained from the beginning and
throughout the project's life. The method of training is not a set
curriculum but based on their requirement (demand responsive). The
staff of the three components conduct brainstorming sessions to assess
their needs based on objectives of training. After their training,
together with the project team, they assist in setting up and
organizing the Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs), teaching community members
and generally being used as 'a bridge' between community and project.
The Kebele is divided into zones comprising 100-120 houses. Zones
combine into 25-30 households. The smallest unit in the neighbourhood
structure is a sub-zone group of 5-10 households.
These Education Extension Workers are high school graduates who
receive more training than the Neighbourhood Groups and are assigned
to every zone in the Kebeles (Refer to Community Organization
Organogram in the appendix).
Neighbourhood Groups (NHGs)
As a community based organization, the project divided each kebele by
household (5 to 10 households), subzone (30 households) and
neighborhood. The four kebeles in a pyramidal structure, elect 1
representative from each component, 3 from each kebele. The 12 (3 x 4)
from the 'Tamra' which is the joint executive body and is part of the
Community Based Integrated Sustainable Development Organization (CBISDO)
which has taken over from IHA UDP after phase-out. These form the NHG
which meets regularly to explore problems and work out possible
solutions in collaboration with project staff.
From each sub-unit right up to the Kebele level, residents elect
persons to represent them on the 3 major program components of health,
socio-economic activities and physical up-grading . This approach
resulted in the involvement of approximately 2,000 persons. Like the
EEWs the training for NHG is on-going and is demand responsive. The
following is an example of the kind of situations in which the NHG and
the EEWs are involved. Where home demolishing is needed, the EEWs
discuss the matter with NHG using the data from the survey on housing
conditions and seek the opinions of the members of NHG about whether
demolishing and reconstruction, repairing or some other methods of
improvement are likely to meet the needs of the people. This is an
example of situations where project staff have to defer to the
community needs expressed by the members of NHGs.
Youth
The other important group in the community is the youth. Although the
youth structure works in collaboration with the NHG, the high
proportion (66%) of youth and children in the population, meant it was
absolutely necessary to set them up as a group. They specifically
focus, in addition to common activities, on issues of education,
recreational activities and other issues which involve youth. They are
also represented in CBISDO in their own right (refer to youth
structure organization chart in appendix).
Needs Assessment/Problem Identification Method (Baseline Survey)
So Jesus stood and ordered the blind man to be brought to him. when
he came near, Jesus asked him, 'What do you want me to do for you?'
'Sir' he answered 'I want to see again.' Jesus said to him, 'Then see!
your faith has made you well! At once he was able to see, and he
followed Jesus, giving thanks to God.
IHA-UDP uses two methods in door-to-door baseline survey to assess
community needs:
a) Professional
b) Community
Professionals and members of communities are both trained for the
purpose of the door-to-door survey. Both types of survey are done
simultaneously to avoid the possibility of professionals trying to put
words into the mouth of respondents.
Reference was made to this earlier when it was stated that, even when
professional surveyors are hired to render professional service, they
are contractually required to use trained community members as
locators and data collectors. In addition to serving as locators and
data collectors, the relatively more educated members of the community
(those with some secondary school education) are encouraged to do
their own surveys.
The IHA-UDP was, therefore, very careful to make the process
participatory each step of the way. This exercise proved to be a
useful approach. The initial involvement of the community at the base
line survey stage helped build self-confidence in the community and
paved the way for future participation in actual development
activities.
The survey was designed in such a way so as to elicit the felt needs
of the community, listed in order of priority. Priorities established
by the survey will not be changed by any body under any circumstances.
Indeed, no professional or managerial decision would change the
priority of the community. When results indicate unrealistic
prioritization, Kebele 41 experience had shown that, with some
educational orientation, the base line survey had to be repeated. It
is very encouraging to see that both IHA-UDP experiences since 1989
were found to be realistic.
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