Why does it take time to adopt SALT?

[Rituu B. Nanda]

Rural Aid works with Tea Garden communities in West Bengal and started using SALT more than a year ago. I asked the wonderful team the reason why those working with communities take so much time to understand and use SALT. Here is what they said- Very powerful and clear. Thank you Rural Aid team!

Reason one- We were very used to being told what to do and deliver it in the community . We had a fixed agenda and pre-planned programmes. We would go, educate the community and come back. When we are expected to focus on numbers and targets like find out school drop outs or missing children and get them into school. As we have to reach our target, we develop this mindset of focusing to achieve these goals irrespective of what the community wants. We think its good for them. Facilitation and SALT was a very alien concept for us. We can say that we had gotten into the habit of doing awareness and teaching in the community. Communities are also confused why are they suddenly appreciating and listening to us.

Reason two- We started taking SALT seriously in Dec 2022 when we noticed results in the community and in ourselves. It takes time to see results through SALT Faciitation and one does not know what is going on. But when we saw that we began to change in our personal and professional lives, our relations at home with our family became stronger as we were listening more. Similarly our bond with community was getting stronger and deeper. There is an Aanganwadi helper who after SALT has started keeping a list of school drop outs and goes and convinces their parents to get them back in school. When you use SALT in the work, the community takes ownership of the solution and NGOs goals are automatically achieved. Then we don't have to chase targets.

Reason three- we did not know how to incorporate in our activities, we initially thought it was to be done separately. But when we begin to understand we can apply  it in our work and it would enhance our work we started taking it seriously in Jan 2023.

I further asked them what i could have done better- if you had visited us more often and we would have seen you demonstrate how to facilitate SALT and if you had done more follow ups. It is hard to pick this up through Zoom. We should have developed some targets.

I conclude with a powerful quote which in Hindi language is vey poetic.

“When we used to lecture them, the community would run away from us, now when we listen to them, they are connecting with us.“ Ujana