[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: research on pc projects needed, 3
- To: permaculture <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
- Subject: Re: research on pc projects needed, 3
- From: Pacific Edge Permaculture + Media <pacedge@magna.com.au>
- Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2001 21:47:57 +1000
- In-reply-to: <LYRIS-75912-37095-2001.04.28-15.20.52--pacedge#magna.com.au@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
- Newsgroups: permaculture
- User-agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022
From: "Marsha Hanzi" <hanzibra@svn.com.br>
Reply-To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Date: Sat, 28 Apr 2001 11:54:28 -0300
To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
My proposal for permaculturists interested in working in aid to do some
voluntary work (or paid work, if they can get it - we need more people to be
paid for their permaculture work so that it becomes integrated into their
lives and income stream) with aid agencies in their own country was to
enlarge their skills and to provide insight into the aid industry, the
limitations that aid agencies receiving government or other donor funding in
developed countries work under and how the agencies respond to the needs of
their partners in developing countries.
Yes, that is one very important function,. But I also suggest that bringing
the multi-disciplinary tools of Permaculture into the aid agencies could
help these go in the direction that they are trying to go...
The idea of bringing the 'multi-disciplinary tools of permaculture into the
aid agencies' as you suggest Marsha is, of course, a good one. It is also
one fraught with the difficulty of overcoming organisational inertia - the
momentum that existing ideas have developed over the years.
While you might be able to change organisational direction over a period of
years, what I have found is that personalities within the NGOs can be the
source of suppression of new ideas. I - and others I continue to work in
aid with - had just this experience and we found it profoundly discouraging.
We have all left that NGO and feel a lot better for it. The problem was a
director who had been with the agency far too long and who was threatened by
new staff and new idea and who resorted to emotional blackmail to maintain
her position. She was a consumate lobbyist and schemer, so left no direct
evidence of her working against new approaches. The result was that the
agency was very good at attracting supporters but when those supporters
reached a position from which they wanted to contribute more, they were
blocked, often subtley. The result was that they soon became alienated from
the agency and left.
...out of the neo-colonialist top-down approach to a facilitative function
of local realities.
I don't think the work of the agencies I am familiar with - they are of
course all Australian agencies - really deserve the neo-colonialist label.
Many of the staff maintain a third-world viewpoint, even some in the large
Australian agencies which have more of a conventional corporate structure.
If there are shortcomings then I believe you would find it to do with the
organisation itself rather than the staff.
...Russ
--------
Attachment
3.4 KBytes
--------