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Module 1: A way of working and a way of thinking about CLCP
1. Learning from the experience of Amber: Changing your view.
Amber was introduced to the ideas of Local Response and the SALT visit by the Constellation in November 2008. At the time, she had worked in the not-for-profit sector for 8 years and she thought that she had lots of experience of visits to communities.
‘We all came with good intentions—to offer solutions to life’s problems to those who we presumed could do nothing for themselves.’
‘We were then encouraged to consider the communities we were about to visit not in terms of inadequacies but rather to focus on the strengths, achievements and successes.’
It is easy to think that this is about communities in developing countries, but if you read Amber's work you will find that the effects go a lot further.
This is Amber’s story
The first thing that struck me was the approach. I’d been to numerous site visits since beginning my career in the non-profit industry over eight years ago. They all seemed the same after a while. Whether the visit consisted of taking visitors from abroad in suits and ties to see the local farming initiative where we all discussed the situation of the poor shoeless farmer showing his family’s “inadequate” dwellings and property or seeing yet another hospice complaining of dwindling supplies, the scene always seemed reminiscent of the one just before. We all came with good intentions—to offer solutions to life’s problems to those who we presumed could do nothing for themselves.
SALT changed the view.
Before the group of about 15 people from various points on the globe set out on the visit we were asked to go through a personal exercise where we reflected on our own accomplishments, fears and hopes. We were then encouraged to consider the communities we were about to visit not in terms of inadequacies but rather to focus on the strengths, achievements and successes. This struck me as I've gotten quite used to numerous community mapping exercises where the highlight had been more often on the deficiencies, needs, and where the community was lacking support. The SALT team leading the site visits expounded on the merits of appreciation and encouraged the participants to share stories of times when we’d all felt appreciated and acknowledged for our own hard work, personal initiative, and resulting successes.
With this view in mind we set off for the communities. When welcomed, we did not see the shabby clothes and dilapidated wood homes of the people living there but rather the soft smile of a teacher who, with the community in northern Thailand, started youth programs to create HIV/AIDS awareness. Where once before I would have noticed the lack of toys and school supplies in the makeshift drop-in centre for street kids, I saw volunteers with a passion and dedication to genuinely mentor and assist those children who had no other home to go to at night. Even without a steady supply of crayons, the street children made beautiful art that adorned the walls. I realised at that point that we in the development industry had it all wrong. All we needed was to add a bit of SALT to our approach and perspectives on communities, even our own communities.
After basking in this positive perspective on the places we were visiting, and life in general, after a week, I called into my office to see how things were going. I had already been reflecting on how I was going to apply this newfound approach to life back in “the real world” of deadlines, responsibilities, and high-pressure environment. The shock came when I was lambasted by a colleague for shirking these responsibilities back home in favour of “tripping around the countryside".
My first reaction was to shoot back an equally biting response about how we should all be pulling together minus the attitude, but instead I bit my tongue. I listened to the frustration and fatigue in my colleague’s voice and realized that I had never once told him how much I appreciated the work and support he provided to all of us in the office every day. I had become so accustomed to counting on him to pick up the pieces when things got busy that I never once in my time of working with him told him how much his unwavering and dedicated support meant to me.
I walked into the office the next week with a smile on my face for the first time in months and with the intention to apply SALT to my everyday working environment. I walked straight up to my colleague who was deeply riveted to his laptop screen and told him exactly how much his assistance meant to me and how profoundly grateful I was to be working with such a reliable, dedicated, and knowledgeable individual and team at the office.
He stared at me in stunned silence. A hint of a shy smile began to appear as I walked from his desk. He has never since complained to me or made negative comments about the work that he does for me or the rest of the working team.
A SALTy approach made the difference in this souring context.
I have since applied the more positive SALT perspective in numerous situations and my general approach to doing development work. Rather than hearing the stories of inadequate funding and lack of resources in communities I wonder what great initiatives might exist in this or neighbouring communities to help. Instead of looking at colleagues like cogs in the machinery of our daily activities I now see them as valuable members of the team with unique skills and contributions to make to the betterment of us all and the work we do. Everyday I get a bit saltier.
This has made all the difference in the world. Much like the AIDS Constellation, with their SALT approach, does every day.
2. What the Constellation has learned from its experience
The text below comes from the preamble to The Constellation Charter. It lays out how The Constellation thinks and works. This is what The Constellation has learned from its experience.
"Every community has the inner strength to envision, to act and to adapt. This is our core belief, and it stems from experience. From Merauke to Mombasa and from Bujumbura to Brussels, we are rediscovering community strengths: the human capacity for care and change, for community belonging, for leadership, for sharing who we are and what we know."
"Our energy for change comes from our regular immersion into community experience, at home and elsewhere. By asking appreciative questions, we discover and reveal strengths which communities themselves might not realize. We in turn are inspired to transfer the experience into our own contexts: at work, in our social and family lives. We call SALT our mode of interaction with communities: Stimulate, Appreciate, Learn, and Transfer. SALT is the DNA of the Constellation."
"There is one condition to our journey: we must recognize that we are all human, moved by similar hopes and concerns. In our interactions with others, we leave behind our references to a world made of experts and uneducated people, clerics and lay persons, rich and poor, donors and recipients. We then become free to share our experience and to appreciate others."
You will find the preamble to the Charter of the Constellation in the ‘Additional Reading’ section.
3. Learning from Constellation Members: Experiences from Ning and YouTube
You can learn a huge amount from the contributions that Constellation members have made on the blogs and the forums of our social media website, Ning, and the videos that members have posted on YouTube and on Ning.
Here are some very short extracts together with their links. You can find the full contributions of the blogs and the transcripts of the videos in the sub-page in this module called 'Experiences from Ning and YouTube'.
Benyaich Aicha
"The lesson of this SALT visit is that self-acceptance allows the acceptance of others, our perception changes to find the positive things around us."
http://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/entre-deux-cultures
(This blog is in French, but the first comment on the blog is a translation into English.)
Caca Carillo
"I realized that we all are potentially as powerful as everyone is. We can take care of ourselves and people will take care of themselves. I think my advocacy has stopped being about HIV. I have decided to take on the advocacy of spreading LOVE and making people feel loved and worthy."
http://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/feb292010-1
MariJo
"I understood that HIV (both my individual experience and the global epidemic) is a challenge and an opportunity to address our own understanding of what being human is, with all the joys and problems life sets in front of us. But all those discoveries cannot be taught and people need to discover them by themselves."
http://aidscompetence.ning.com/profiles/blogs/feb292010-1
(This is a comment made by MariJo to Caca Carillo's blog. You have to scroll down the comments quite a long way, but it is well worth the effort!)
Usa Duongsaa
"There are not enough people who believe in other people's capacity to think for themselves and respond."
Jean-Louis Lamboray
"We believe that there is an approach to development, whether by rich or poor countries, and that starts by appreciating the strengths of the people....the first step in the cycle for project development has to be strength analysis, not just shortcomings."
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