Can fishermen and farmers become researchers? YOU BET!

From 2012 - 2015, in a partnership with CGIAR and the World Fish Centre, the Constellation shared SALT and CLCP with fishing and farming communities across 5 countries: Zambia, Solomon Islands, Phillippines, Bangladesh and Cambodia.

Our joint challenge was to incorporate SALT and CLCP with approach known as "Research in Development".

At the ground level, the initiative was an opportunity for local community…

When I entered the van, I scanned the group and was slightly shocked and disappointed. I saw him, someone I totally did not expect to be coming for the outing. “Oh no!”, “Why did he come?”, “How are we going to do this with him there?”, “What do I say?” “I don’t even know his name.” These thoughts were working inside of me and I was not sure how to feel about it or how to reconcile them.  He had long ‘rasta’ hair and wore those dark glasses that made me slightly uncomfortable in the past…

The Carre d’As community comprising of 14 families is one of three that Le Pont du Tamarinier works  with and the first with which SALT as a different way of working was engaged. Over the period of five months stimulation in terms of hopes and concerns to dream building and now action…

Depuis juin 2015 nous somme lancé dans une aventure humaine pour la santé communautaire à Mayotte. C'est à l’initiative de deux associations, Constellation et IREPS Mayotte, qui s’allient pour faciliter un programme régional de mobilisation communautaire autour de la santé, que débute un accompagnement à distance d'un pool  de futur facilitateurs de l'approche SALT à Mayotte.



Nous comptons à ce jour une dizaine de personnes de structures et professions différentes, rassemblées…

Eco Maluku realizes responsible tourism and volunteer work in partnership with residents, organizations and governments of the towns and villages in the Moluccas. We connect travelers and volunteers with host families and local projects such as "Teachers Go Abroad", "Haria Bersih", "…

A Woman moulding bricks (Pather) - Her day started at 5 AM and isn't likely to end before 8 PM. Not a toilet in sight, she has to sneak into the fields near by without the farmers noticing to answer the call of nature. With no labour records, her labour is neither recognized nor valued. Nearest access to clean drinking water is 8 Kms away. A member of her family has to cycle the distance to quench their thirst. She is never paid any wages. Since…

Sarah Mount from Anti-Slavery International invited me  to conduct a training for one of its partner NGOs, Jan Jagriti Kendra (JJK) based in Chhattisgarh (India). JJK works with communities who go to other states of India for work and end up being bonded labourers especially in brick lins.

In the learning event there were 40 participants including NGO staff, volunteers and community members.  JJK team noted that their challenge in working with communities was that community members…

L'équipe mondiale de soutien propose une théorie du changement pour la Constellation. Découvrez-la ici : https://sites.google.com/a/communitylifecompetence.org/theory-of-change-for-the-constellation/ (en anglais).

Successeur de l'approche du cadre logique, la théorie du changement associe les résultats aux activités en expliquant comment et pourquoi un changement…

The Global Support Team of proposes the Theory of Change for the Constellation. Find out here: https://sites.google.com/a/communitylifecompetence.org/theory-of-change-for-the-constellation/.

Successor to the Logical Framework approach, the Theory of Change links outcomes to activities to explain HOW and WHY a desired change comes about and aims to…

Conclusion

The staycation has since become an important milestone/reference point for this neighbourhood who now has a group of residents who regard themselves as the Caring Community who looks after the children in their neighbourhood. The Caring Community tell us that their neighbourhood has changed as the children have responded their guidance. They observed that the children greet the adults and…

1. Describe a desired outcome from your intervention and how you would go about trying to reach it.

Our desired outcome is a restorative climate in the neighbourhood and we adopt the following position overview: 

To nurture neighbourhoods that adopt a restorative problem-solving approach toward young offenders and families with multiple…

In the spirt of the strengths approach, we also borrow from the Appreciative Inquiry, Solution Focus  and Positive Deviance Schools.  Below are short notes about these schools compiled by David Shaked in his book Strength-Based Lean Six Sigma – Building positive and engaging business improvement that is published by Kogan Page Limited 2014.  Parts have been paraphrased in our own language.

 1.…

…continued

 Despite their seemingly negative view of the situation 12 mothers showed up at a meeting to explore how they may assist these children. We were pleased with the turnout and began by reiterating the purpose of the meeting. However, despite everyone nodding in understanding, it did not take long for the group to start complaining about the children in the manner they…

Just sharing an exercise we prepared for some social work students.  The first part is the challenge and the second , our suggestions and "answers." Thought you may find some of the concepts we took from a Six-Sigma Lean Management book useful.

Restorative Neighbourhood Project – Beyond Social Services, Singapore

Background

Beyond Social Services…

Background- We have been using community life competence process to develop self assessment framework for domestic workers on decent working conditions. This is in Delhi under an ILO partnership with Institute of Social Studies Trust. In CLCP, after the communities develop a common dream, we facilitate self assessment ie where they are in terms of their dreams and where they want to go. Similarly, under this project in a workshop about 20-25 domestic workers did their…

Jenny Cameron from the university of Newcastle, was a pioneer of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) in Australia. She recorded her use of ABCD in 2002 and whilst this was over a decade ago the application of the methodologies is as applicable today as it was back then.

How could using Asset Based Community Development approaches improve your work with communities? Are you using other strengths based approaches? I'd love to hear from you.

I hope you enjoy both…

What a fabulous opportunity to learn, share stories and make connections with other practitioners.

Last month we saw almost 200 people from 21 nations come together at Ribby Hall, Wrea Green, UK, came together for days to celebrate 20 years of Asset Based Community Development around the world.

Here are some video snippets from the…