Brainstorming By Allah Dad Khan

2. Brainstorming: What is
participation
Divide your trainees into small groups of 3-4. Hand out small
cards to each groups and ask to brainstorm together and
come up with meanings for the term ‘participation’. Ask
them to write these down on the cards. Collect the cards
and group or cluster them under similar topics. Try to find
major headings for each group or cluster.
Debriefing:
The debriefing of this activity can be combined with the
debriefing of the next few steps over several sessions. This
was found to be a very successful approach in the Syria
workshops.

4. The History of Participatory Approaches
1. The history of participatory methods in development co-operation began in the
late
1970s with the introduction of a new research approach called "Rapid Rural
Appraisal
(RRA)", which immediately became popular with decision-makers in
development
agencies.
2. During the 1980's NGOs operating at grass-roots level used RRA to come up
with further fine-tuned approaches called Participatory Rural Appraisals
(PRA).
3. Since the beginning of the 1990s extended concepts OF PARTICIPATORY
PROCESSES and INTERACTION have been developed, and summarised under
the name Participatory and Integrated Development (PID).

5. Discussion: Experiences with participation
 Ask training participants about their experiences, if any, with changing
development approaches and the emerging use of participation during their
working careers, and list answers on a flip chart.

6. What is participation"
 Participation
 leads to increased sharing of benefits and decision-making
power in the development context.
 materialises in that people or groups of people access skills
to analyse their living conditions, to plan for themselves
and that they are enabled to act.
 means social processes that take place within certain
groups or collaboration networks and beyond them,
 is not an end in itself, and should not be seen in isolation.
Most often, the increase of participation is a powerful
catalyst towards achieving other objectives, such as
improved management of natural resources.

7. Trainees working on "Participation"
 After the initial session, which was an introduction to
participatory research and the historical context of PRA in the
development paradigm since the early 1950s, the participants at
the Palmyra workshop were asked to give their ideas of what
constituted participation. These ideas were recorded on a flip
chart and included:
 bottom up approach
 sharing in decision making
 settling people (this topic caused very heated discussion)
 cross disciplinary collaboration
 persuasiveness
 getting to know the opinion of people
 discarding of coercion in human relations
 sharing management with beneficiaries

8. Typology of Participation
 Many factors influence the degree to which participation is
evident. The conditions under which participation
flourishes differs from place to place. The following
parameters may be important in determining the degree
and extent to which participation is present in any one
context.
 traditions, including cultural rules and norms of social
behaviour
 political environment
 local power structures
 previous contact and interaction with development
agencies

9. Iterative Process"
 "
 Give a very brief presentation on what is meant by the key
principle "Iterative Process". You may find the following useful
for a short presentation.
 Participation is an iterative process which develops and occurs
over a significant period of time. The concept of participation
cannot be developed or implemented over night or within the
course of one workshop. just as a relationship between different
interest groups cannot change over night. Participation is a
process which requires patience and commitment from all. It is a
process which requires courage in order to recognise and admit
when things go wrong. In the participatory process it is
important to revisit agreements and decisions periodically to
adjust them for changes which might have occurred in the
respective situation or conditions of the various groups.

11. It is mainly for this reason that participatory
processes try to include as many perspectives as
possible, in terms of:
 Facilitators' team composition
 multidisciplinary, gender, different backgrounds and skills,
insiders and outsiders:
 Tools & Techniques
 interviewing, mapping, diagramming, ranking, observing,
discussing, using secondary data
 Sources of Information
 resource persons, secondary data like literature, maps,
films
 Interest Groups
 women and men, elders and youth, different socio-
economic groups, ethnic groups and professions

12. Participatory Attitude and Behavior
1. Every idea counts/everybody’s view counts
2. The learning attitude
3.Transparency
4.Flexibility
5.Positive working style

13. Working on tasks in a team
1.Nominate role (moderator, visualiser, time-keeper, observer, presenter)
2.Clarify the task
3.Decide upon working steps
4.Decide upon a division of labour
5.Elaborate a time schedule
6.Begin Stepwise working
7.Flashlight/Feedback Round
Always Rember
• every idea counts
• every team member is a resource
• deal with uncomfortable feelings immediately

14. Steps of Planning a
Participatory Training
a. Forming a PRA/PLA team
b. Constructing a programme for a workshop planning
session
c. Preparatory visit to the local people and their traditional
representatives
d. Listing the objectives of the workshop
e. Forming key-questions and checklists
f. Producing a detailed programme for the workshop
g. Distributing roles and responsibilities
h. Establishing a team contract
i. Preparing the logistics of the workshop