Which Attitude do YOU Choose?
The day after I arrived in Kathmandu after an absence longer than any in the past twelve years, I had a very unpleasant experience which is indicative of an attitude that I am increasingly seeing in Nepal. I was driving my car and was hit by a young man on a motorcycle. It was a very small accident, what we would call a fender-bender. Although it was clearly his fault, he nevertheless proceeded to insult me, shout at me, bully me and try to extort an unbelievable sum from me because I am a foreign female and on my own. For some reason this person saw a white face and clearly thought, "Oh, good! Look, if I squeeze it, money will come out."
This Sherpa man (clearly not a gentleman) claimed to run a trekking agency and work for the tourism ministry. Imagine if I had been a tourist on my first trip to Nepal! Or - as in my case - a writer who would write about the experience upon her return. I would have thought Nepali people are like that; nasty, grasping and greedy. Luckily, I know this is not true as I have many close Nepali and Sherpa friends. In my nearly twenty years in this country I have never met someone who was such a disgrace to his people and his country.
Then I began to think about some of my experiences working with rural communities and I wondered if this was a growing attitude. Sometimes when I am asked to work with a community (usually through Nepali friends, I might add, since most of my rural development work is private research and funded by my husband and I) I have a large hurdle to overcome before any useful work can be done. Again, a white face is seen and immediately the question arises, "What funding do you bring?" It doesn't seem to be acceptable that I am there to share learning and am willing to teach a methodology that they might like to use to enable them to work better together in developing their community. It isn't necessarily the white face either, I have a Nepali friend who is a successful businessman and through his friends abroad he raised over five lakh to build a primary school in his village. The building is not consistently well looked after and he, too, now constantly faces outstretched hands demanding yet more money.
As I said in my article last week, it is time to change the way we do development. I would like to share a story of a time when a new method of development worked. This is the story of Phakhel VDC in Makwanpur. At the end of 1998 and early 1999 I was researching alternative methods for rural development. Phakhel was willing to work on their development together with me. Over the next two years we held several meetings using the Appreciative Planning and Action methodology (originally developed by Mac Odell at TMI and based on Appreciative Inquiry) and we achieved quite astounding results.
There was a core group of people who were almost always there when we had our meetings (a few times a year), but we just worked with whoever showed up. I was later asked to work with the next village as well. The work we did succeeded in changing the dialogue in the village. At the first meeting, a man got up to say, "This really brings it home to me. We"ve been bloody lazy! For the past 40 years we have been holding our hands out for aid and what do we get? We fight, we can't agree on anything and we don't feel good about ourselves. Forty years ago we did a lot together because there was no one else to help us and you know what? We were proud of what we did! We were proud of our village! Are any of you proud now? No? Well, let's do this together and be proud again!"
At our first meeting about 40 people came, agreeing to work together for two hours. They were divided into three groups; men, women and children. Then they were asked to tell us stories about their good experiences of achieving something together in the village. People talking about planting trees on the ridge above the school, or about helping to build the chautara or the gompa. They spoke of helping neighbours and working together. Quiet pride was in their voices. They drew pictures of what they had done (although the women were at first not at all keen on using a pen). Next they were asked to build upon that good work and dream of a future village as they would like it to be for their children and grandchildren. Immediately the level of noise in the groups rose as they began to discuss and several people would draw on the paper at the same time. The women dreamed first about each having a water tap close to their homes, the children dreamed of a new school, the men wanted to fix the chautara and plant some trees.
Then they began to design how they would achieve this wonderful future. Which things were to come first? What steps were involved, who needed to help and so on. Finally, everyone who was willing to commit to doing something stood up in front of the group and made their commitment. We had two more steps; we asked the group do something together immediately. For instance we cleaned up the schoolyard once, and another time we rebuilt the wall around the tree to provide a resting-place. In a few minutes, we had achieved a great deal with everyone helping. This is very important because it quickly allows people to see what happens when they work together (in case they have forgotten). Finally we finish with a debriefing and dancing and singing. It is best if people have a fun memory of their work together.
This week, three years on, I went out to see what had happened. I focussed on the planned secondary school that the villagers reckoned would take them five years to build. It is already finished and in use!
In one of the early meetings, after the women's problem with water had been solved, all the groups were working on the secondary school. One of the women got up to say that she was going to organise a meeting with representatives from each ward so that they could decide where the school should be located (she is currently one of the 11 member committee). She is unmarried, but wanted to do this for her village. The men applauded furiously. They had managed to raise money among themselves, but didn't know how to deal with the thorny problem of where to locate the school. Meanwhile the children had worked out a plan of what facilities the school needed to have. In that meeting a group of approximately 40 people raised 10,000 NRs.
In total the villagers raised about 45,000 NRs in cash - a phenomenal amount for a community of 88 families where the average income of a family of six is about 10,000 NRs a year. This money was the deposit required for teachers' salaries. They sank the foundations for the school themselves - this was ready to build upon by May 2000. Then they approached PLAN International and received a grant for 22 lakhs. They had to provide the equivalent of 15% of that themselves (162,000 NRs). This they did by supplying work at the rate of 100 NRs a day for unskilled labour (75% of the work) and 150 a day for skilled labour (25%) of the work. Today there is a beautiful school with 8 light and airy classrooms and a library with books and furnishings; there is a playing field and a motorable road from the main road to the school. There are 8 teachers too, 3 provided by the government, 3 paid for by PLAN and 2 paid for by the villagers themselves.
The 11-member committee looks after the school and its upkeep. Although they face problems from time to time (now that the school is finished it is harder to raise money), they seem to move from strength to strength. It is clear to me that they have pride in their village and it is improving every time I visit - with a new health post and a new VDC building that wasn't there a year ago. This is clearly a village to admire and appreciate! And an attitude that others would do well to emulate. This is truly afno gauw, afne banaune!