PLA 32: Participation, Literacy and Empowerment
Most of the articles in this bumper 10th anniversary issue of Participatory Learning and Action explore the theme of participation, literacy and empowerment.
- Participatory Learning and Action: a journal for newcomers and experienced practitioners alike
- About PLA: Background, aims and history of the journal
- Explore the archive: browse and download issues or individual articles
June 1998
Guest Editors: Bimal Phnuyal, David Archer and Sara Cottingham
Based on experiences with REFLECT, this issue demonstrates how participation must become a community-led dynamic that links analysis to action. This mirrors the move away from RRA and towards (and beyond) PRA to promote a sustained process of participation. The issue emphasises the diversity within and between communities and stresses that literacy, in its broadest sense, impacts upon the ability of different groups to communicate and participate.
The articles also explore some concerns common to practitioners of PRA, such as the role of manuals and training in promoting standardisation and/or diversity, how to develop strengthened local-level (horizontal) networks of practitioners, and how to scale up a participatory process from the local to regional, national and international levels.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Content can be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided the source is fully acknowledged.
Follow the links below to download the whole issue or individual articles in pdf format.
Contents
Helping health workers to plan with communities in Ethiopia and Zambia
Karabi Bhattacharyya and John Murray
Participatory basic needs assessment with the internally displaced using well being ranking
Clare Hamilton, Alice Kaudia and David Gibbon
Lessons from community empowerment programme formulation: Mission-2 of UNDP, Bangladesh
Neela Mukherjee
'The Wayq'os (gullies) are eating everything!' indigenous knowledge and soil conservation
Graham Thiele and Franz Terrazas
How to get reliable yield estimates from terraces
William J. Fielding
Participation, literacy and empowerment
Reflections on REFLECT
Bimal Phnuyal, David Archer and Sara Cottingham
The REFLECT process at an international level
David Archer
The organic process of participation and empowerment in REFLECT
Bimal Phnuyal
An encounter with a 17th century manual
Keshav Gautam
How can REFLECT be used widely without diluting the participatory nature of the process?
Sara Cottingham
REFLECT in practice: literacy and change in India
N. Madhusudan
REFLECT and empowerment: our field experiences
James Kanyesigye
REFLECT, savings and credit in Bangladesh
Fazilatum Nessa, Begum Rokeya and Achintan Mazumder
SEACOW and Chisa Kruskaisa
Teeka R. Bhattarai, Debendra Adhikari and Ishwari Nepal
REFLECT in Oxford, England
Alison Norris
Challenges in facilitator recruitment and training
Maria Nandago
Facilitator training and innovation in REFLECT: experience from Nepal
Jillian Popkins
Empowering trainers: An experience from Bangladesh. The REFLECT trainers' forum
Habibur Rahman and Serajud Dahar Khan
REFLECT and institutional change: the experience of CIAZO in El Salvador
Luis Orrellana, Nicola Foroni and Marden Nochez
Beyond the bounded community: REFLECT in urban settings
Anne Jellema and Marc Fiedrich
REFLECT with children
Sara Cottingham
REFLECT on a large scale: challenges and prospects
Salifu Mogre and Julie Adu Gyamfi
Gender and REFLECT
Kate Metcalf and Geni Gomez
The evolving conception of literacy in REFLECT
David Archer
Numeracy in REFLECT
Nicola Foroni and KateNewman
Talking out of turn: notes on participation, learning and action in REFLECT
Anne Jellema
Commemoration of Paulo Freire
Bimal Phnuyal
REFLECT contacts
Feedback: Using participative techniques with people with disabilities
David Thomforde with a response from Sulemana Abudulai
A brief guide to the principles of PLA (II)
Tips for Trainers: Marching soldiers
Paul Mincher