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| Our learning’s about participation and participatory approaches |
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| We believe that Participation is basic to humanization, democratization, development and the dynamism that reinforces human rights, social justice and environmental sustainability. Moreover we understand that Participation is the activity of acquiring “Right, Control and Ownership” by the people (stakeholders) over the process of producing knowledge and the product i.e., “knowledge” itself. Production of knowledge from the life situation by the people/stakeholders is the foundation of participation. |
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Use of produced knowledge for decision-making, planning and policy formulation and application of these decisions, plans and policies into concrete actions are the “knowledge-reinforcement” dynamics through which the knowledge is experimented, validated and tested. This knowledge reinforcement process brings about real empowerment of the people/stakeholders, as “knowledge is power”. Hence, empowerment denotes the intensity of such “knowledge-reinforcement” processes undergone by an individual, community, organization, institution, government etc…
Hence it is the range of by the individuals, community, organization, institution, government etc… that are measured to be the indicators of participation.
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Therefore, all episodes (problems, issues, projects, programmes, changes, achievements, etc…) in the life situation are experiences for creating stakeholder knowledge base. It is this knowledge base that instigates further actions and production of knowledge and constitutes the substratum of democratic and development processes. |
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Finally, the bedrock of democracy is citizen’s knowledge base and hence participation facilitates democratic process and decentralization.
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The members of the network comprise individuals working with various NGOs, Action Researchers, Academicians and Development Activists. Presently, 38 members constitute the organization. After equipping themselves with the basic knowledge, skills and attitudes relating to participatory processes, the members gain many years of experience in applying the approaches in the field situations for addressing specific issues in Development, Governance and Institution Building. |
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