Rejecting "the manual" for more critical and participatory analysis : REFLECT's experience in El Salvadore

REFLECT is a structured, participatory learning process that facilitates people's critical analysis of their environment. This process is guided by local facilitators, who in the early years of REFLECT were trained on the basis of the 'REFLECT Mother Manual'. There has been debate about whether or not to use a manual at all and if so, what form it should take. This article documents recent experiences from El Salvador, whereby facilitators of participatory processes learn by experiencing, rather than by being taught. The training process is described, which encompasses an experiential learning process of learning how to train facilitators 'on the job'.