Sharing Happiness Through PRA
 By
Kamal Phuyal, kamal@infoclub.com.np
Nepal

 "Training participants do not concentrate on the contents of the training,
 but they watch the trainers' behaviour - whether their behaviour is as per
 their teaching / saying in the classroom or not. Moreover, participants
 will bring their learning in practice if they are convinced with trainers'
 practical behaviour"
        (Mr. Uttam Dhakhwa, Sharing Forum on Spirituality and Development).

Why to use PRA? This question has been raised in various fora, like training and
workshops. In my experience, I have mainly seen three major important components
of PRA; attitude and behaviour aspect, Concept or vision aspect, and process (of
application of tools) or skill aspect. The third aspect seems to be very clear,
which concentrates on how to use its tools. There is a comment that most of the
training focuses on this aspect. Training starts from the history of PRA and
ends with the application of tools.

The first component deals the question; who should use PRA? What are the
characteristics needed of a PRA practitioners. Second question concentrates on
why to use PRA - Why not other tools? What are the values of PRA? Likewise, the
third component focuses on how to use its tools more effectively? What is the
process of its application?

Participation of local people depends on the attitude of PRA facilitator.
Development Means Sharing Happiness
Once one of my colleagues told me that, "You know, what does development mean?
In my experience, it is mainly sharing happiness with others." He explained,
with various cases he had experienced, and I liked his idea of development.

I have had opportunities to visit many development projects; some spending
millions of rupees, and some only a few thousand. Once I was in a nearby village
of Pokhara, within 200 km of Kathmandu. We were doing a participatory evaluation
of a drinking water project. We had a very good time there; we could share a lot
with the villagers, they were very - very happy to have us in their village.

Financially, it was a small project. Government's watershed district office and
a Japanese organisation did the project jointly. They spent about Rs. 35,000 to
complete that project. The women explained about their project during our
sharing:

 A Didi (sister) came to work in our village. We ignored her for a long
 time. You know, the villagers told her to go back (as they had some bitter
 experiences with previous development workers) but, on the other hand, she
 would think about our problems for the whole night. She was so nice.
 Eventually, we liked her and worked together and completed many things.
 Now we have our own co-operatives. We did literacy classes. We did have
 very nice time to be with her. We were very happy while working together
 and enjoyed a lot. We completed all our work happily, you know. We get
 excited even now by remembering those days. We love our project very much
 and we never let it die even to recall our time with her.


Those villagers even cannot pronounce the name of the organizations properly;
the only thing they revealed repeatedly was that they were very happy to be with
that Bikase Didi ('development worker - sister'). Unfortunately, we could not
meet that Didi, but when shared about her, what we found was she used to be very
happy to work with rural women. We came to know that her only motto was to share
happiness with other people. Both villagers and Didi shared their happiness. The
drinking water project was the means for them to share happiness. And, that
happiness brought that project into success. The villagers do not care about the
amount spent for the project, nor do they remember how much was spent. During
the whole evaluation period, they recalled their happiness repeatedly. That
happiness encouraged them to do many other things. Now they have their own
co-operative, they have formed a maintenance committee among the women. They
have saving groups. "We are happy to be in a group and we come there, we share
our problems and in fact we can share our happiness there," they said.

One of the biggest multi-lateral organizations spent 1.5 million rupees on one
village's drinking water project in Nuwakot district, the northern part of
Kathmandu. Yet, one village development committee (VDC), that covers about 800
families (several villages), receives only 500 thousands rupees from the
government as their annual budget. Again, there has been large conflict between
the project and the villagers. The villagers were not happy with the project,
although their problems of fetching water from a long distance had been solved.
In their evaluation of the project, the villagers expressed:

 The construction of the project is almost completed, but we do not even
 recognise the project people. They keep changing the staff members. We
 never see any people for the second time in the village. We do not think
 this is our project. We heard that they have formed a working group. We
 do not know who they are. They must be among the political leaders. The
 staffs do not have an office here nor do they have any permanent place to
 stay. Most often they go back to Kathmandu or Trishuli (the district
 headquarters) on their vehicle after visiting the sites. One of the
 neighbouring village's contractors has taken responsibility of
 construction work. We once went to talk to the staff members, but they did
 seem happy to talk to us.

The villagers have been fetching water from the nearby spring for many years;
and they can continue to do this in the time to come as well. The villagers were
not asked about their desires; what their real thinking was. It was planning by
the outsiders and also implemented with the support of a handful of people who
did not have water problem themselves. Here, we found that the project could not
be the means of sharing happiness. The gap between the villagers and project
people started widening from the very beginning of the project's entry into the
village. It seems that the staffs took that project as just a part of their job.

They think that they are kind to the villagers by bringing a project to the
village. They are not ready to take the time to talk to the villagers; if they
do not talk to the people, how can they share happiness?
Our history tells us many stories regarding the participatory work done by the
people themselves. We can find that people have made many temples, roads, dug
wells and ponds, schools and so on. They used to do all these things as if they
were celebrating the ceremonies. If you go on analysing, you will find that the
main motivation behind all of these things was to share happiness. They used to
sing songs, conduct social work collectively, shared food with each other at
parties, laughed and enjoyed and completed their work. It seems, sometimes they
do share their happiness by giving something to others and sometimes by taking
from others and sometimes by sharing with each other.
Once a big organisation offered a big job to one of my colleagues. She thought a
lot, shared with others and at last she refused the offer. She said:

 I am not sure whether I can get such a 'happy environment' in the new
 place or not. I am very happy to work with my colleagues here with whom I
 can share my happiness. I am enjoying my work here. Yes, of course, they
 have offered me a double salary and facilities. But, I am afraid of losing
 my happiness.

Sharing Happiness Through PRA

We have not found any PRA training boring so far. Recently, I reviewed 60 PRA
training reports. I consulted the evaluation part done by the participants,
which is mainly done at the end of the training. I never found in even a single
report that PRA training is boring. You will find there saying like: "Ten days
spent like ten minutes," "The learning process was like games," "We did not
feel bored," "We laughed a lot," "We shared a lot," etc. What you learn from
PRA can be learnt in other ways as well. However, one of the main values of PRA,
in my experience, is that it creates an environment for sharing happiness. The
participants do not feel hierarchy there; they do not feel any disparities
(socio-economic, caste, gender) there. They all laugh, learn and share. Sharing
happiness develops the sentimental attachment among the sharers that is what PRA
ultimately does either during the training or in the community.

 "You know, while doing social mapping, the villagers move stones, sticks
 and make houses. They remember that they are making a village map, or an
 artificial map, for the first 15 minutes. Then they all forget that they
 are playing with stones and other local materials. They go to the reality
 then. They shout, they laugh, they talk openly, and sometimes they become
 angry too. Therefore, what I have felt is that, after 15 minutes they
 start entering to the live discussion and analysis, and the sharing of
 happiness moment starts. When the artificial moments ends and sharing
 happiness starts, other villagers they are standing aside commence to
 participate in the exercise. Even the illiterate and the marginalized
 people who in fact hesitate to speak in public start to participate.
 Sharing happiness makes the process easier"
 One of the PRA facilitator once shared.

But, PRA without 'sharing happiness' becomes boring and very technical.
Sometimes, it becomes dangerous as well. Once the chairpersons of a VDC of
Dhading district, neighbouring district of Kathmandu, shared their experiences
of seeing 'PRA gang' like this:

 "A team of PRA practitioners came headed with four or five porters
 carrying their lodging and foodstuffs. They arrived in the village and
 some of them went to find the chickens, some went to cut the branches of
 trees for an evening camp fire. A group of youths went to the water-tap
 and started teasing the young village girls. In the evening they had a big
 cultural evening. They played Angreji (English) music and started to disco
 dance. They shouted and the dancing stopped only when two dancing drunk
 guys began to fight. The next morning they gathered only seven or eight
 people, including 3 from the house where they had stayed, and 'did PRA'."

This kind of non-participatory PRA does not share happiness but steal the
happiness of people. Moreover, such PRA exercises, with their vested interests,
also ruins the values of PRA itself.
Whatever we do through PRA can be done in other ways too. Using other techniques
as well can raise participation of community people. We can encourage the
illiterate and marginalized section to participate in development processes by
using other techniques. But, the main value, or contribution, of PRA is that it
holds the potential to create an environment of sharing happiness.

Once well-being ranking was being done in a village of Sindhupalchowk district,
which lies on the east northern part of Kathmandu. A group of villagers did it.
They kept an old man on a 'lower (poor) rank'. He was there in the group too. He
denied that. Discussion took place for a long time. Others wanted to prove that
he was poor by giving many examples. Actually, they wanted to help him as the
project was going to provide some programmes for the poor people. The old man
had nothing. It was even difficult for him to arrange two meals a day. He said
- "I do not have enough food, but I am happy. I am happiest person in this
village you know. Have you ever seen me being sad or depressed. How can you call
me poor?" In fact, he was the one who used to be first to take part in, or lead,
any social work. Finally, the others put him on the 'middle rank.'

After that exercise, we talked at length with the man. We found that he had a
source of happiness within him. All the villagers feel his absence when he goes
away for several days. The PRA team realised that of course basic needs (at
least) are the right of all human beings, and hunger might create obstacles in
the way of feeling happiness. However, economic well-being cannot be compared
with emotional and spiritual well-being.
Last month we had a discussion on development and spirituality. Somebody asked:
"What about the empowerment of the marginalized section of society?" Sharing
happiness with whom? That discussion had some conclusions like:

 "Yes of course, we want justice, we do not want disparity, we do not want
 exploitation and we want 'the empowerment of the disempowered'. Therefore,
 we want the marginalized people or deprived people's participation in
 their development process. We want to listen to them. We want to listen to
 their ideas. We want to be their friends in the process of their
 empowerment. We want this not because this is our job but because we will
 be more happy for this. We want them to 'rise' and the disparities to
 become smaller. We should let them feel that we will be happy to be their
 friends in their empowerment process. This is how we share happiness with
 them. Once, they understand our desires, they also start sharing their
 happiness with us. Yes, of course PRA can help us a lot to share happiness
 with the marginalized sections. PRA removes all the formalities between us
 and PRA supports the process to go on as per their way of thinking."


One of the VDC chairpersons shared his experience of using PRA for planning.

 "Before PRA, we used to collect demands from each ward members. Our table
 used to suffer a lot before - as each and every ward member tried to prove
 their demands were the most important by banging on the table! However,
 pair-wise ranking has saved our poor table these days. We do all the
 prioritising happily."

It has been through this process that I have learnt from the experiences I have
had so far that PRA helps us to share our happiness with the villagers as well
as their happiness with us, and of course especially with those who are
vulnerable and marginalized. I believe that reflecting on the positive aspects
(of anything) can help us to go forward for development. Reflecting only on the
negative aspects encloses us; we cannot go forward through concentrating on the
negative alone.

Kamal Phuyal
Nepal

Article Submitted to the IDS workshop, "Pathways to Participation."

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Updated: 2003 May 14