Welzijnsgroep is an organisation in the Netherlands that works with young people in neighbourhoods. They organise activities for fun or around prevention and specific topics. Today their challenge is that the local government, who provides their budget, wants to cut down on spending. Therefore, they would like to rethink the way they work and stimulate local communities to take ownership of some of the activities.

One of their staff members, Gemma Van Voorst, participated in a…

What does it feel like to be a citizen on the receiving end of international aid? Here’s an analogy to try to help do-gooders understand:

Let’s say you’re moving across town. You have to be out of your old apartment by 5pm that day. You’ve got the boxes already packed and the moving van rented. All you need is some muscle to help you move the heavy stuff. You ask your friend to come over early. The plan is to…

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Learning continues we also continue to roll out the Aquatic Agricultural Systems (AAS) program in the Philippines. Here is our second issue. Hope you all enjoy reading.

The expression ‘enter the gate’ is used in Tai Chi to denote the start of a journey. As you progress you arrive at many other gates that hopefully are the entrances to higher skill levels.

I sometimes wonder about those who enter the Appreciative Inquiry gate and where they will end up. Will the first path of their journey lead them to the:

• Band Aid Gate – where a quick fix mindset develops which usually leads to the ‘it…

Latest blog on Appreciating People work in community engagement 

Dear CLC friends, 

I am sharing with you the  newsletter we made to document our CLCP journey in the WorldFish Philippines Country Office.

We are currently rolling out a CGIAR program called the CGIAR Research Program on Aquatic Agriculture Systems or AAS for short. This program is being implemented in five countries (Zambia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Solomon Islands and the Philippines) and aims to improve the lives of 15 million poor who are dependent on aquatic agriculture…

On this site we are sharing experiences of local responses. Someone's local experience may inspire others to action but not all ideas transfer quickly. Here is an article by Atul Gawande in The New Yorker where he shares his experience of childbirth in Indian hospitals. Read how much effort is required to encourage change and the efforts he made to check progress was being made.