Resources

This paper discusses the methods of collecting information in a field study carried out in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) a suburb of Salvador. The study was part of a training exercise for students of the "International Course for Primary Health Care Managers at District Level in Developing Countries" based in Italy. The study also aimed to explore the potential for Primary Environmental Care and identify ways by which the local health district could support squatter communities. A rapid appraisal was carried out in three squatter communities. Secondary data was analysed, life history interviews were conducted, a "risk map" was drawn in which local participants geographically located problems, focus groups and ranking, key informant interviews, ten institutions with an interest in environmental issues were interviewed, and a feed-back meeting was held for all community members. It is concluded that RRA is well suited to study fast-changing environments, a potential danger of the exercise is taken to be undue expectation-raising of the local community. Finally "microplans" are introduced as a possible means of making RRA action oriented. Five pages are devoted to illustrations arising from the exercises.

Discusses the methods of collecting information during a field-study carried out in Brazil, in the health district of Pau da Lima. It was intended to provide a learning experience for students as well as to explore the local potential for Primary Environmental Care (PEC) and to produce a number of recommendations to local bodies. Possible actors, conditions, means and resources to promote PEC within the Pau da Lima district were investigated. PEC integrates three components: empowering communities, protecting the environment, and meeting needs. The first step was a preliminary identification of present and future potential actors in PEC in the Pau da Lima district. A Rapid Appraisal (RA) was conducted in three squatter communities within the district, focusing on felt problems; interests and priorities in PEC; forms and conditions of community organisation; and instances and conditions of community-based action. Methods used include: review of secondary data, informal disucssions with informants, direct observations, laboratory analysis of water samples collected during the observation walks, life history interviews, focus groups and ranking exercises, semi-structured interviews. While the study found the RA methods useful, it suggested that they may not be sufficient to identify community-based solutions to specific problems. The techniques in "Making Microplans" (Goethert and Hamdi 1988) provide an example of how this action-oriented phase could proceed.

This article gives an overview of housing and environmental problems in the metropolitan area of Mexico City. It describes the history of attempts to encourage participation in two particular cases, and discusses the basic elements of the methodology used to conduct these processes.

This training manual for innovative, community-based shelter training programmes is the result of a partnership which has developed since 1991 between the People's Dialogue, a national network linking representatives from illegal and informal settlements in South Africa, and a group of three organisations in India. These are SPARC, an NGO working broadly in the area of housing and community development; the National Slum Dwellers Federation; and Mahila Milan, a federation of women's collectives. The first part of the manual describes the participation of the South African delegation in a shelter training programme in India. Part two focuses on a follow-up training conducted by the South African delegates in their own country, with the support of the Indian trainers. Forty leaders of the Federations of the Homeless Poor in South Africa took part as they assisted one township to explore their shelter options. The final section reflects on the kinds of methodology followed in the process and provides guidelines for training.

This article describes 'Development Planning for Real', a new approach for integrating participation into the uban planning process. It has grown out of 'Planning for Real', which is discussed in the article by Tony Gibson in the same issue of RRA Notes. Pilot trials of the approach are being held in a number of countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Early pilot results from Cambodia, Tanzania and Zambia suggest that the approach can be successfully used to generate a community-controlled planning process in both rural and urban contexts, and in a variety of societies and cultures.

The paper analyses the experience of institutionalising participatory approaches in the design and implementation of slum improvement projects in India, focusing on the case of Calcutta. The authors highlight the excessively compartmentalised structure of the project institutions (strictly divided between Engineering, Health, and Community Development sections) as the most significant obstacle to the effective adoption of participatory approaches. Despite staff enthusiasm for PRA techniques, these were considered useful primarily to extract information rather than for planning. Another limitation was the insufficient attention paid to behaviour and attitudes training. The main conclusion was that for scaling up to be effective, it may be necessary to scale down first, by concentrating on a handful of cases of sustained community action in which participatory approaches played an important role, and using them as learning laboratories.

This newsletter documents innovative and participatory programmes by urban people all over Asia and also in South Africa. It includes articles of slums, land tenure, services, sanitation, housing, micro-finance and more.