People working together around the world to generate ideas and action for social change
Rehearsing for Reality: Using Role-Play to Transform Attitudes and Behaviour in the Fight against HIV and Sexual Abuse of Young Women
Retos Metodológicos para la Investigación y Extensión AgrÝcolas: Valorando los Procesos
Este ßrticulo analiza el concepto de "participaci¾n" como reto metodol¾gico a las corrientes mßs convencionales de la investigaci¾n y extensi¾n agrÝcolas. Los autores primero hacen una distincci¾n semßntica entre "metodologÝa" como enfoque general y "mÚtodo" como instrumento particular. Si la participaci¾n es un reto real a las corrientes existentes, implica un cambio metodol¾gico, y no s¾lo la adopci¾n de nuevos mÚtodos.
RRA and Needs Analysis: Whose Knowledge Counts?
This paper explains how various PRA exercises have been used to help health - and other - workers think through and challenge the assumptions that they make in their work. Thus the process of conducting the exercise is often in some ways more important than the outcome. Examples are given of PRA which has led to reversals in learning in Asia and Africa. It is concluded that PRA does not solve problems but rather reveals the complexity of the problems encountered - PRA is not a fad or fashion but a fundamental challenge to conventional approaches to development.
A note on the use of disease problem ranking with relation to socio-economic well-being: an example from Sierra Leone
An RRA training exercise was conducted by ActionAid staff in Kambai District, Sierra Leone. Four half days were spent conducting intensive fieldwork, a well-being ranking exercise led to the sub-division of the community into better-off and worse-off members of the community. Ranking exercises with the two groups produced very different results. A graphic example of the differences is given in the ranking of disease importance. (p87 provides illustrations).
How women see their lives changing
Examples are given of situations where PRA activities have shown how "environmental and economic pressures tend to have a negative impact upon women". Discussions with groups of women and how seasonal calendars were constructed are briefly described.
Extracts from a trainer's notebook
A three week PRA course was run for Redd Barna, a Norwegian NGO, with twenty participants from Ethiopia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These extracts describe the trainer's preparation, her emphasis on "approach" before introducing methods and organisation of groups for fieldwork. A day-by-day schedule lists the themes covered in theory sessions - certain activities (Chairs Game, Mapping for Mars) are described fully in the participants' words. The fieldwork activities are not described here, but available in a full report from Redd Barna, Zimbabwe.