Development from below

"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.