Interactions on Participation, Communications and Participatory Communications.

I had transversed across my country without being familiar with either the participants or the organizers to be a part of a workshop focusing on participatory communications during September 2008. However two aspects were clear in the first session and these made me realize the usefulness of my decision ~
· This was not going to be a “Talk in the air” workshop like some others I have in the recent past been a party to.
· Sheer diversity amongst the participants in respect of age, experience and sector of involvement would make it a fascinating experience. On attempting to draw a parallel to the diversity of the group the nearest I could come to was a railway platform.

The workshop provided me space to reflect on our actions of past four years at our Meghalaya and Mizoram field bases in a different setting and with a novel perspective. When co participants, working on issues ranging from Hiv Aids to Theatre, were sharing their experiences I many a times went back to our initial office in Meghalaya, besides the coconut tree with about two dozen chicken trotting around, wondering what if we had laid the foundation in a different fashion!

I share some moments or aspects that interested or confused me.

We had the task of defining a word and then sharing it of course! It was interesting how each of the 27 of us had a different notion of a single word that we believed was used by us frequently. The sector we were associated with coloured our definitions! We then got to discussing whether it was possible to freeze definitions and if it was, was there a need? Encouraging deliberations and creating space for different opinions is of greater utility than arriving at a uniform definition. Definitions hinge on people, perceptions, context, situations and other variables. Rights ~ we tried to define, in the beginning, in a language friendly to us. I put it as thus “Freedom to undertake actions that bring no harm to any object and living being”.

Entrance to the Environment Education Centre, the venue for the workshop at Talegaon.

We discussed different approaches of change agents ~ Charity approach (giver and receiver), Welfare approach (manager and beneficiary) and Rights approach (duty bearer and rights holder) and different levels of participation in these actions ~ Active participation (self directed, shared), Passive participation (consulted, informed) and Non participation (decoration, tokenism, manipulation). While these boxes and matrices looked impressive on the board they got me thinking on how different programmes within our office espoused dissimilar levels of participation and whether a conscious shift was feasible! Regarding the approach I wondered whether it was possible to have “ideal participation” in course of our programmes without implementing them at the same vigour at our office! As I shared this with co participants I recalled Mr. Fernandez’s working papers that succinctly put forth the issue. We talk of equity in dealing with people but do we have it in our office?

Another aspect that had me pondering was how our perceptions shape our communications and thus our endeavors. Two examples brought this out in an impressive manner.
· Many times people, we want to work with or we work with, we refer to as 'target group'.
· Most programmes working with pregnant women refer to them as ‘sick’.
How we communicate to and of people, we work with or desire to work with, shapes our actions as well. Targeted and sick people are subjected to our programmes and not active participants in them. I recalled a discussion I had been a part of, a few years ago, focusing on the impact of how the manner in which she/he was referred to by her/his superior, had on an employee. The word “colleague” stood a world apart from “subordinate”.

During interactions where we
· Discussed facilitation as being separate from manipulation and emergence of facipulation!
· Undertook an activity to bring forth the issue of “push and pull” which we bring in people’s lives!
I realized how pertinent it was to respect and work towards generating synergies from the amazing diversity we are blessed with, on aspects ranging from the colleagues in the office to the natural resources; rather than trying to bring about uniformity and as a corollary strangling life out of them!

The neighbouring environs of the venue that lies between Pune and Lonawala in Maharashtra.

Talking of the individual actions, in course of the workshop, I saw with awe the amazing songs and dance sequences, by co participants, that were undertaken as energy infusers but meant much more. The confidence levels of many of the co participants as they shared incidents of their lives in the course of “interactions on injustice” had me silently admiring their guts. The debates that we had each day as a part of the workshop spilled over during tea breaks and other times. These debates; where we explained our stands, changed them or even stopped participating, brought out for me the need to encourage the practice with the people we work with and before that with colleagues! The spilling over helped me to open up and discuss personal situations with individuals and small groups; this would have been difficult otherwise. During the evening time when we had an option to share our efforts I facilitated an interactive slide show focusing on interactions of people with natural resources in Meghalaya. It was an invigorating experience to discuss, without using text, ~ fishing, shifting cultivation, jack fruits, carnivorous plants with co participants hailing from different parts of our country.

Throughout we discussed tools used in communication by organizations working in different sectors. These ranged from wall paintings to story telling; however Community Based Theatre where a group is acquainted with skill sets pertaining to theatre and it then decides the issues it wants to address by way of these skills and Collage where clippings are used from magazines and newspapers to communicate sans writing interested me the most. We then discussed how participatory communication talks of handing over decisions on tools to be used for communication to people we desire to work with. It depends on the level of involvement we desire people to have. The notion is to encourage these people to be producers of ideas rather than producing ideas at our end and them being the end consumers!


Thanks Marinha for the sharing pictures and editing the draft.


For discussions and criticisms ~ nimesh.ved@gmail.com