Full Circle Associates

Chris Corrigan pointed out this report about a project in Sri Lanka seeking to hear and include the voices of the community around post-Tsunami reconstruction issues. I'm quoting a significant chunk of the summary as it raises some important points for those of us seeking to facilitate people's contributions and decisions. Bold is mine. I'm looking at it slightly differently than Chris did -- and what he and his commentors wrote is important and worth looking at. This is just a different lens.

"The Post-Tsunami Community Voice was set up with the funding of the
World Bank to give voice to the views of the community on the Tsunami devastation and reconstruction and on economic, governance, and social accountability of the community. The project was carried out in Batticaloa and Galle districts as a closed group discussion. The selected people were divided into groups according to age, geography, and employment. Thus, the three groups in the age division consisted of one of people over forty-five years, another of those less than forty-five, and a final group of both age groups. They were chosen as representatives of all the people of the respective areas. Organizers of the project took priority to choose people who have shown leadership in these areas in the post-Tsunami reconstruction. In the project in the Northeast, all ethnicities and religions were represented. The research was conducted by the Research Consultancy Bureau, Sri Lanka.

Click here to download the Report on Post-Tsunami Voice of the Community Leaders

The report is a result of a study of post-Tsunami community through voices of formal and informal community leaders. The study discusses the impact of the 100/200metre rule in the economic and social context. Instead of the commonly used approach of survey methods in understanding trends and attitudes, the study used qualitative methodologies as a form of retrospective and prospective analysis of comments by modified focus groups. The findings, therefore, explain how actions of decision-makers, providers of assistance and receivers have affected the post-Tsunami situation in the East and South as at August 2005. The research draws attention to the manner in which the rule is imposed and how it has impacted on the livelihood of the people. Further it gives possible answers to lesser economic development in the areas affected by the Tsunami. Finally the research discusses change in value system in the community and accountability of providers of assistance."

The things that I wonder about here are these:

• What effect does a closed group have compared to an open one? What if these had been open discussions? Do we really understand when to choose open or closed?
  
• While formal and informal leaders are traditionally key community catalysts, would including folks who were not leaders a) encourage them to begin to contribute their leadership? b) present different data and conclusions and if so, how would this be reconciled by the community acting upon the data?
  
• How do we track changes in value systems? The older I get, the more I believe that exploration of our values is intrinsic to getting deeper into a situation, but we still use our values as weapons, rather than tools for understanding.
  
• Finally, in an appropriate situation of connectvitity, what would this process have looked like online?

I need to read the report again slowly, with more thoughtfulness, but I'm immediately reminded that we here in the US need to benefit from such sources of information and knowledge. More often, we keep our scope within our own borders, while there is much to be learned outside.

Technorati Tags: SriLanka, community, leadership