Gender and Participatory Approaches : Implications and Experiences

IWID (Initiatives for Women in Development) is a resource centre "which aims at fostering a gender perspective within NGOs in India through training, institutional development, research and documentation support". This paper describes the process of training at community level, showing how existing PRA methods have been used to help raise gender awareness (eg ranking according to oppression, not just wealth and social mapping to show gender based ownership). New methods have also been introduced : mapping of the gender division of labour, self reflection on gender stereotypes through pictures. Examples are given (including illustrations) of all the methods described.