Sharing Expereience and Changing Lives

2002 Oxford University Press and Community Development Journal

Community Development Journal Vol 37 No 2 April 2002 pp. 125136 125

Sharing experiences andchanging lives

Sheela Patel and Diana Mitlin

Abstract This paper describes the work of an innovative group of Southern NGOsand grassroots organizations. In order to achieve their empowermentobjectives, the group has pioneered a methodology to root learning andknowledge creation within low-income urban communities themselves.Exchanges between communities of the urban poor have helped tospread skills, encourage solidarity and instil self-confidence. The dis-cussion explains how and why this methodology has developed and howit addresses acknowledged difficulties within participatory methodologies.The discussion also elaborates on the benefits of community exchanges.

Introduction

Empowerment is recognized to be a key goal in effective development, buthow can empowerment be supported effectively? Organizations in Asia andsouthern Africa have developed an exchange methodology to strengthen thecapacity of local grassroots organizations to devise new developmentalternatives, and to scale up community innovations from projects to citylevel and from practice to policy. These exchange programmes are provingto be a powerful mechanism for achieving empowered and skilled citizengroups in Southern towns and cities.

Exchanges start by recognizing the knowledge that people, especially thevery poor, have created through their livelihood struggles. This knowledgeis rarely acknowledged by external groups or used as the foundation onwhich new learning occurs. By enabling communities to share and exploresuch knowledge with each other, first through bilateral exchanges and thenthrough linking groups into Federations, development options are trans-formed.

The paper begins by exploring some perspectives on participation andparticipatory tools and methods, often seen as the panacea for top-downdevelopment. The discussion identifies a gap or problem with existingmethodologies that can be addressed by community exchanges. We describethe development of this methodology by the National Slum DwellersFederation, SPARC (an NGO) and Mahila Milan (a federation of womens

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cooperatives) in India. This is followed by an examination of the benefits ofthe exchange process and considers why exchanges are such an effectivemethodology. We conclude by drawing together some of the wider impli-cations of this approach.

Participation and development

Many development agencies now recognize the importance of citizeninvolvement in development interventions. In urban areas, governmentshave been urged to change their approach to the development of informalareas in favour of enablement strategies which offer better support to localinitiatives. To ensure local ownership, development agencies have soughtto improve consultation and, in some cases, offer local residents joint pro-gramme management with participation in planning and implementation(Nelson and Wright, 1995, pp. 26).

Participatory processesDespite interest and commitment from many parties, it is not easy to securean effective participatory process. Many recognize that a critical componentof effective participation is some form of citizen empowerment and themore equal sharing of power between the strong and the weak (Paul, 1987;Lane, 1995, p. 188; Nelson and Wright, 1995, p. 8). However, developmentinterventions that seek participation on these terms frequently face one ormore of three problems. First, the distribution of power within the com-munity may mean that the poorest members are unable to get theirdemands tabled and considered (Gavanta, 1999, p. 25) and/or may not feelable to take part in the processes (see, for example, the discussion ofMosses work in Robinson-Pant, 1995, p. 79). Hence, there is an issue aboutwho participates? Secondly, the process of securing participation andempowerment may involve conflict, often within the community itself, associal relationships change and a new set of winners and losers emerges.This raises a set of issues about how such conflicts can be managed suc-cessfully. More generally it raises the issue of who manages the process ofparticipation? Thirdly, and particularly relevant in the context of urbandevelopment, the participation of residents is often located within a projectcycle of three or five years even though settlement development is likely totake ten years or more. Such project-related interventions beg the questionwhat is participation for?

Participatory tools and methodsTo address these and other concerns, a range of participatory tools andmethods has been developed to assist in the interface between development

126 Sheela Patel and Diana Mitlin


professionals and the local community. Whilst such tools and methods mayenhance interaction between professionals and the community, it is nowwidely recognized that their use may be problematic (see, for example,Cooke and Kothari, 2001). The participatory process is invariably stimulatedby an external, generally professional, agency and Cooke (1998, p. 2) empha-sizes that outsiders responsible for making the intervention bring a particu-lar set of associations often with local meaning, hence . . . the very presenceof the interventionist changes things. In particular, Eyben and Ladbury(1995, p. 197) argue that the implications of such external intervention forknowledge management may itself hold back a participatory process as pro-fessionals claim the role of knowledge specialists. Because of problems suchas these, Cleaver (2001, p. 51) suggests that some poor people may decidethat it is better not to participate.

OutsidersMosse (1995) raises further questions about the role of outsiders in know-ledge creation. He emphasizes the need for the analytical role to remain withoutsiders:

. . . [such data] . . . were not, and probably could not, have been gener-ated in group discussions by villagers . . . they represented an externalview . . . Of course, local people already have the sophisticated know-ledge necessary for everyday social life. Often this knowledge remainstacit and need not, or cannot without risk of conflict, be made explicit.The often used polarity between extractive and participatory researchmodes thus overlooks the fact that some types of knowledge employedin participatory projects are necessarily external and analytical. (Mosse,1995, p. 32)

Construction of knowledgeThe association that Mosse makes between analytical and externalknowledge clearly has implications for the way in which knowledge andunderstanding about local communities is created and validated. Thediscussion below raises questions about his assertion that externalknowledge cannot be generated by local people. As Biggs and Smith(1998, p. 241) suggest, this contribution suggests a need to extend thediscussion about insider and outsider roles . . . beyond schematicportrayals of professionalclient relationships . . . to the recognition that. . . more subtle issues are at stake involving power and knowledgetransactions and role negotiations. Kothari (2001, p. 141) notes thatKnowledge . . . far from being constructed in isolation from powerrelations . . . is embedded in them (or against them). Hence theconstruction of knowledge is a part of any empowerment process. In this

Sharing experiences and changing lives 127


context, there is, we would argue, a need to recognize how knowledgeabout communities, their development perspectives and their develop-ment needs is created, validated and used.

This paper explores the use of community to community exchangeswhereby the poor themselves are the communicators and the instigators ofa participatory development process. Information and analysis is generatedand given meaning by the communities themselves. It is argued that, withthis conscious knowledge, community members are better able to determinetheir own knowledge and preferred development options. The followingsection introduces SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation, andMahila Milan, the groups who initiated this methdology. The sectionexplains how exchanges are located within a broader approach to com-munity learning and peoples empowerment.

Learning by doing

SPARC is an Indian NGO that started work in E ward in the Byculla area ofMumbai in 1984. From the beginning, staff focused upon the most vulner-able in the city, namely, women pavement dwellers. The staff recognizedthat women had to play a central role in addressing poverty as they arecentral to survival strategies. They are the main community managers,creating systems to deal with water, sanitation and with delaying the fre-quent demolition of houses. The informal networks of women who firstworked with SPARC gradually consolidated around savings and loan activi-ties, forming Mahila Milan (Women Together).

Two years after starting work, SPARC entered into a partnership with theNational Slum Dwellers Federation, a national organization of leaders ofinformal settlements. The Federation was set up in 1974 by communityleaders to secure land tenure and basic amenities for its members. TheFederation had previously worked with several NGOs but had alwaysfound that the latter sought to control the development process. Afterobserving how SPARC engaged the pavement dwellers in E ward, theFederation began to explore the possibility of an alliance. Mahila Milanbecame a third partner in this Alliance.

The Alliances commitment to community exchanges emerges from itsunderstanding of community participation. All three partners believe thatthere can be no social change to the benefit of low-income communities ifthe poor do not participate in designing, managing and realizing thatprocess of change. Where professionals are the agents of change, the locusof learning is taken away from the community. Subsequent problems are alack of ownership, related dependency on external agencies and improve-ments that are inappropriate for practical or cultural reasons. Critically,



because the solutions are external to the community, local residents are notmotivated to be involved in their implementation.

Learning in peoples neighbourhoodsWhat SPARC, the Slum Dwellers Federation, and Mahila Milan discoveredwas that when learning is located in peoples neighbourhoods through anexchange process, community members are encouraged to participate.Through sharing their common experiences, community members identifysolutions and make plans to instigate change. Gradually they start toidentify new solutions to existing problems, passing on confidence andskills in the process. Furthermore, exchanges help to create personalized andstrong bonds between communities who share common problems, both pre-senting them with a wide range of options to choose from and negotiate for,and assuring residents that they are not alone in their struggles.

The first exchanges took place within India. From 1988, exchanges spreadfrom India to Asia, through the Asian Coalition of Housing Rights, and tosouthern Africa with the support of a South African NGO, Peoples Dia-logue on Land and Shelter. In 1996, an international network of peoplesorganizations, the Shack or Slum Dwellers International (SDI) was formedfrom the national federations and individual and autonomous communityorganizations that have been drawn together through exchanges. Thecountries in this network include Cambodia, Nepal, the Philippines, andThailand together with Namibia, Kenya, Senegal, South Africa andZimbabwe (Patel, Bolnick and Mitlin, 2001).

International community exchanges have grown into a movement of soli-darity and mutual understanding between the urban poor. This is not aprocess that focuses on international policies and practices but rather it isglobal in outreach, strengthening groups capacity to deal with what isoppressive and exploitative within their local environment. The followingsection looks in more detail at what exchanges offer.

The exchange process

Exchanges start by encouraging communities to reflect on their own situ-ation. Together, neighbours identify their problems and explore possiblesolutions; they then either visit a group close by or invite them to their ownsettlement. Within the city, these exchanges occur rapidly and informally.The first visits may be supported by experienced community leaders, thenpeople organize their own exchanges, visiting other communities spon-taneously. Two types of exchanges occur; in one, a core city leadershiptravels to assist city level groups, in the other, local community leaders visitother nearby settlements.



All learning is by observation and participation as new leaders accompanyseasoned ones on visits to nearby settlements. Women generally form themajority on the exchange. Exchanges can provide a catalyst for a developmentprocess within a new community as they see the development approachesthat they are using. Sometimes the exchange process stops after the newcommunity has articulated its needs. More often than not the new communitydecide to affiliate to the National Slum Dwellers Federation and Mahila Milan(or other similar organizations in other countries) and follow the activities thatare taking place elsewhere. The community leaders can see the benefits offederating and networking. Such institutions support communities to solvetheir problems, moving forward through exchanges and solidarity.

Communities gradually become familiar with the development optionsthat other communities in the Federation are using. Exchange visits thenshift from being open and exploratory to being more specifically concernedwith the development of skills and/or the resolution of problems. Com-munities share ideas about how to manage savings groups, give loans, buildhouses, negotiate for land, manage difficult councillors, address leadershipbattles, develop commercial centres and other development options thatmeet their immediate priorities.

The benefits of community exchangesCommunity exchanges appear to strengthen the ability of low-incomewomen to control the development process. Poor people, especially poorwomen, are sceptical about the solutions presented to them by professionalexperts but they are unable to respond in kind. Through exchanges, thecapacity to teach, to disseminate new ideas, to explore current events and toanalyse beyond the level of an individual settlement, to take on new skilledactivities and to manage relationships with powerful bodies, becomesvested in individuals who are inside the community. Opportunities forgrowth and development can be controlled by the poor themselves.

We learnt the experience of Mahila Milan, and we were impressed. Butstill we did not believe it would work. It started to catch on gradually,until today people question me when they do not see me every day. Ilearnt from my neighbour about the savings system. I am shy, and canttalk to people easily, but I know my neighbour, and I decided to give it atry. I did not always want to come to the meetings because I felt uncom-fortable, but they would come and ask me to join them anyway. Theysaid: you will learn and become less shy over time. At the meetings Iwas forced to speak by the others. At first I thought they were againstme, but it worked: here I am! I live in my own house, and I come toIndia now to share my experiences. Xoliswa Tiso, Victoria MxengeSavings Scheme, Cape Town, South Africa (internal reports, PeoplesDialogue on Land and Shelter).



The benefits that community exchanges offer can broadly be divided intothree areas.

i. Strengthening knowledge and organizational capacity. Central to any develop-ment process is the creation of knowledge. Exchange processes help localresidents gain a new understanding as they repeat what they know in adifferent environment. As they look at themselves through the eyes ofothers, their knowledge increases. Because this reflection is prompted bypeople who are also poor, their confidence may be enhanced. Residents startto explore some of their own frailties in a non-defensive way as they talkabout their experiences, positive and negative, to assist the development ofothers.

Communities also have a chance to explore options to address their needs.People begin with what they know and understand. Then they move, oftenvery slowly, from this starting point. There may be no solution within theirpresent perspective. Exchanges offer a supportive environment for viewingthe problem differently, helping to identify a solution.

Capacity and confidence is built up within communities. People becomeinvolved in participating in the exchange because they get something out ofit. In the process, they build their collective and individual consciousness.The implications are profound, particularly for women. Many things changeduring the apparently simple process of a group of predominantly womenvisiting another community. Families are encouraged to allow women totravel, requiring others to take care of their household chores. The morewomen leaders talk about their own growth and the more they are aware ofit, the more confidently they speak and the greater their capacity to be rolemodels. Women often take on leadership roles in their communities, gainingrecognition in their neighbourhood. Some become empowered to re-negoti-ate their relationships with the traditional male leaders. In many communi-ties, men and women begin to work together, and women leaders emergeat all levels: community, city and country.

ii. Managing relations with groups outside the community. Managing exchanges,and the events associated with them, pushes forward the development oflocal capacity. An important part of organizational capability is the abilityto plan and manage. International community exchanges add a new dimen-sion to the capacity of already experienced communities. Providing newopportunities to stretch the existing capacity of active groups can be import-ant for their growth.

Exchanges may be associated with a public event that further adds to theskills and capacities of local communities. For example, a recent exhibitionof life-size community designed house models in Kanpur (India) involved



5000 local visitors (from other federation groups and government officials),200 leaders from other cities around India and 45 international guests fromseven countries. Such activities catalyse the host community by opening upnew opportunities. The presence of visitors, particularly international visi-tors, creates opportunities for communities to further a dialogue with stateagencies and other professional groups. There are opportunities to showlocal government and service providers how to respond more effectively tothe communitys needs.

Community leaders often have to deal with guests brought to their settle-ments by the city officials or NGOs, but during such visits they are passiveobservers. With an international exchange, the community leaders themselvesare the focus of attention. They may have to present their work to the localmayor, be interviewed by TV and radio journalists, and suddenly find thatthey are the valued experts. Being drawn into these new roles transformsthese individuals as they are invited to take up positions from which theyhave long been excluded. This process makes them re-examine their expec-tations for themselves and other community members. Having played theseroles in another country, they are more ready and confident at home as well.

iii. The acquisition of technical skills. In addition to the general capacity tocreate knowledge, the exchange process helps to ensure that communitieshave the skills they need. These skills are obviously specific to the develop-ment intervention that is required. With respect to the initiatives describedhere, they include financial management skills for savings and loans,strategies to obtain government entitlements such as ration cards in Indiaand housing subsidies in South Africa, and building and construction skillsfor housing and infrastructure.

The transfer of skills is done through practical demonstration, enablingmany people to see how easily they can do what is required. The exchangeprocess is powerful in creating skills. First, community members quicklybelieve that they too can do it. When they see professionals undertaking anactivity, they may be sceptical about how easily they might take it over.When they see another community member doing it, they know it ispossible. Secondly, the teaching is appropriate, as is evident from followingquote by Mbaye.

When I asked the technician (who works with us in Dakar) to show ushow layout plans are designed, he used such sophisticated jargon that Ibarely understood a word he said. In Protea South (Gauteng, SouthAfrica) during our last evening, we asked a woman to draw us a plan.When she explained house modelling, I understood and felt that I toocould do it. Aminata Mbaye, Senegalese Savings and Loan Networkvisiting the South African Homeless Peoples Federation (ACHR, 2000).



Community members find it easy to say Stop, I do not understand when-ever it is necessary. A further benefit is mobilization, whereby other localresidents come and see what is going on and are encouraged to join in.

Conclusions

Many professionals involved in development projects fail to effectivelyinvolve communities and support grassroots activism because, howeverthey seek to avoid it, they remain in control of community processes. SPARChas sought to explore how professionals might work in partnership with theurban poor to support community driven processes of change. Throughworking with the urban poor, tools and mechanisms have been identifiedthat enable grassroots organizations to create, strengthen and refine systemsof learning and mobilization. Central to this process has been the sharing ofexperiences between communities, first locally, then in the city, then nation-ally and then internationally.

Within an exchange process, the external instigator of change is a groupof community leaders from another settlement, generally within the samecity. The dynamic between an instigator from another low-income com-munity and local residents is very different from situations in which theinstigator is a professional. Firstly, the concerns of Eyben and Ladbury(1995) are addressed. The knowledge held by the instigators is more likelyto be appropriate to local needs. Perhaps more importantly, the visitorscannot use status or privileged access to information to win their arguments.They have to use an authority based on experience, demonstrating how theyhave reduced their own poverty and vulnerability and explaining how othercommunities can achieve the same. As residents in the new community areoffered choices about what is possible and a tangible demonstration of howa similar group of low-income women and men have changed their lives,their own vision of the future begins to change.

Conflict as opportunitiesThe community networks that have emerged from exchanges recognize thatchanging iniquitous relations is likely to create conflict. However, they seesuch conflicts as potential opportunities. Supported by other communities,local leaders can intervene successfully if the whole community is involvedin making choices about the speed and extent of the changes that they areable to secure and maintain. There is a potential to achieve a new status quothat can be more gender balanced, equitable and transparent; but the localleadership has to feel ready to deal with it. A vital role for the larger feder-ation (through other communities involvement) is to absorb local tensionsby sharing information and encouraging open discussion. At the same time,



the new leadership is supported through exchanges with other communi-ties that have successfully managed similar problems. These groups offerpractical suggestions and psychological support.

Emerging knowledge owned by the poorAs exchanges offer exposure to a range of different situations and demandsthat the visitors share experiences, the local leadership within each settle-ment is encouraged to develop an analytical capacity. The emphasis thatMosse (1995) places on the need for an understanding of social relationshipsand social processes for successful development is reinforced by the experi-ences of SPARC, the National Slum Dwellers Federation, and Mahila Milan.However, his claim that such external knowledge is necessarily non-local ischallenged. Through exchanges, this knowledge is both created and explic-itly articulated by the urban poor themselves. Such knowledge becomesembedded within the solutions that are articulated and developed. Throughthis process, the power that emerges from analytical understanding andwhich has traditionally been held by professionals is owned by and locatedwithin local people. The argument is not that community exchanges avoidpower in knowledge but rather that the emerging knowledge is owned bythe poor and more likely to serve their interests.

These experiences exemplify an earlier tradition within participatorymethodologies, that of participatory action research (Rahman, 1993, pp.220221) which has perhaps been forgotten in the use of participation toachieve project goals. Rahman argues that there is a myth that professionalshold the knowledge necessary for development. He seeks to get away fromthe notion of training as a way of imparting knowledge because of its associ-ation with hierarchy and lack of creativity (Rahman, 1993, p. 222). TheFederations that are discussed here use community exchanges to come closeto the notions of building each other and sharpening each other that hedescribes.

Building new relationshipsThe interaction between the communities, the bringing together of often iso-lated settlements within a federation and the identification of memberorganizations with each other through a common set of interventions,mobilize local residents around their development aspirations. Withmobilization, the poor are able to build new relationships with their localand national governments, demonstrating at scale an alternative set ofdevelopment interventions. It is the combination of learning and mobiliz-ation that makes community exchanges such a powerful methodology.Local communities develop their own improvements to the difficult situ-ations that they face; and have the critical mass that is needed to move from



proposal to policy change (Khan, 1997). In this emphasis, the methodologycan be recognized as belonging to the action rather than the research tra-dition of participatory approaches. But research in the sense of knowledgecreation is also central. The process of participation becomes one of creatingan understanding of what is needed together with a capacity to use suchknowledge. Whilst no methodology can claim to provide for empowermentand people centred development, the use of community exchanges througha loose federation of local organizations appears to have offered somethingtangible to thousands of local communities across southern Africa and Asia.

The authors of this paper both have a long association with community exchanges. Sheela Patelis director of SPARC, an NGO that has used these methodologies. Diana Mitlin is a researcherin the Human Settlements Programme at the International Institute of Environment andDevelopment. This paper was completed as part of a programme of activities to better under-stand community exchanges supported by Pilotlight and funded by the National Lottery. Inter-ested readers may like to obtain a copy of a report from practitions, Face to Face, from ACHR,73 Soi Sonthiwattana, 4 Laoprao Road Soi 110, Bangkok 10310, Thailand; [email protected] authors would like to thank an anonymous referee for their very helpful comments.

Address for correspondence: Diana Mitlin, International Institute for Environment andDevelopment, 3 Endsleigh Street, London WC1H 0DD, UK. Tel: +44 20 7388 2117;Fax: +44 20 7388 2826; email: [email protected]

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Sharing Expereience and Changing Lives