General impressions of the PSO Barefoot Guide workshop

'It was a day well spent'

PSO and her South African partner, the Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) organized the workshop 'Supporting the development of sovereign local organisations and social movements', which took place on the 4th of June 2009 at the Concordia Theatre in The Hague. The participants found it an inspiring meeting.

The twenty five participants came from PSO, Oxfam Novib, Tear, Both ENDS, World Vision, Theatre Embassy, TIE, ETC, ICCO, Schorer Stichting, Aim for Human Rights, IRC, IICD, ZOA, STRO, Solidaridad, ISS and the Dutch ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Social change

During the workshop CDRA presented the 'Barefoot Guide' on working with organisations and social change. According to Doug Reeler from CDRA, the Barefoot Guide should not be considered as merely a tool to strengthen or improve organisations as implementers of developmental projects or programmes.

The Barefoot Guide is about an organizational approach. He cites: 'If you give me a fish, you have fed me for a day. If you teach me to fish, then you have fed me until the river is contaminated or the shoreline seized for development. But if you teach me to organize, then whatever the challenge, I can join together with my peers and we will fashion our own solution.' The Barefoot Guide is thus about supporting local organisations and social movements as an end in itself.

Arelys de Yánez from Oxfam Novib is very enthusiastic about the approach and the Barefoot Guide. 'The content discussed here today is very focused, relevant and applicable.' She is particularly grateful that PSO facilitated the workshop. 'PSO has played a fantastic liaison role by sharing knowledge and bringing people together.'

Listening from the heart

Listening is crucial when using the organizational approach for supporting local organisations. This can be done on three levels: head, heart and feet. Listening from the head is the 'thinking' level. This is where thoughts, concepts, ideas and arguments take shape. Nomvula Dlamini from CDRA clarifies: 'It is important to focus on thoughts. That is how I can understand you.'

Listening from the heart is the 'feeling' level. This is where emotions, mood and experiences are at work. 'this level focuses on what is important to the other person,' Nomvula explains. This surfaced beautifully through the poem writing session. And the last level is listening from the feet. On this level intentions, motivation, drive and will are formed.

In order to understand someone or something, one has to ask the right questions. As an exercise, the participants were divided into small groups and asked to formulate a question. Then they listened to each others' questions without offering a solution, but by helping to clarify the question.

Carmen Da Silva-Wells from IRC observes: 'Listening without prejudice is difficult. But the idea is that you can move forward together and that is an interesting perspective.' After the listening session the participants give each other feedback. 'People observe different things than you might observe yourself. That is fascinating to see.'

Aha-moments

Groups were formed to read together from different chapters of the Barefoot Guide. Carmen da Silva-Wells read chapter 5. 'I had a lot of aha-moments. The chapter deals with resistance to change. It is interesting to see that one can channel resistance into creating broad support within the organization to achieve the goal.'

Bram Langen, who works for the Schorer Stichting, was pleasantly surprised by the comfortable atmosphere of the workshop. 'It is special to see that people from different organisations trust each other enough to tell them what they are going through in their own organization.'

He was happy with the set-up of the workshop. 'It is nice to go through the Barefoot Guide together; that's a good basis for discussion.' He also had some critical words. 'From time to time, I missed consistency in the workshop.'

A Guide

Neither PSO, CDRA nor the Barefoot Guide - which is, a guide and not a toolkit - have tailor-made answers. Jeroen Jurriens of ICCO, thought the workshop was a day well spent, yet he was a little disappointed. 'I came today looking for concrete answers. But I haven't found them yet. Maybe it is just not possible to discuss the Guide in one day.' 

The workshop ended with a plenary for reflection and discussion. The general tenure of the reflection was that experiencing the philosophy behind the Barefoot Guide had been inspirational. And there were also questions, in particular regarding the 'reality check' of the Barefoot Guide.

Doug explained that the Barefoot Guide is based on real experiences of different organisations. 'Everything that is in the Guide has been done somewhere by organisations. However, the idea is to enrich the Guide with more experiences.'

Invitation for feedback

He therefore invited the participants to contribute with their comments, observations, questions and experiences in order to keep the Guide growing. Following the enthusiasm and the wishes of the participants, PSO is looking into possibilities to organize a follow-up on this first successful introductory day on the organizational approach.