Development from Within

"Development from below" is not enough. The key to sustainable social change is development from within- change in individual and group consciousness that leads to collective capacity for self-management among people's organizations. This book is a conversation between a practitioner and a scholar of participatory development exploring the inner and outer journeys of both development facilitators and women villagers. It is grounded in the experience of manavodaya, a non-profit organization that has facilitated self-help groups among rural poor and trained development practitioners in methods of dialogue and empowerment for over twenty years. The book presents a successful method of dialogue called collective reflection that has enabled significant changes in the lives of the participants-both development professionals and villagers alike.