[Ailist] AI summit with the illiterate people

[Malcolm Odell]

Good point, Dawn!
We captured ours simply by having local facilitators take down the 
stories in their personal notebooks, not using any flip charts or 
anything written that they could see, or that may intimidate them... 
and compiled them into small booklets.... we also were able to video 
a few.. and put selected ones together into short video collections...
Tricia Lustig's work with Plan also reflects an excellent process... 
and all the drawing of pictures was done without using any words.... 
that's 'taboo' because then the illiterate ones feel shy about 
participating... Drawing pictures puts everyone on the same level... 
and when they do draw pictures, they are the ones to keep the 
pictures; no one should take their pictures away... maybe capture 
them in photos, but leave them in the villages.
A most important point that she makes is that we don't allow them to 
try and write their stories... keep the busy literate people in the 
village from trying to do that... because that can make them feel 
self-conscious....
Mac

At 4:19 PM -0500 3/22/09, Dawn  Dole wrote:
>Hello PR,
>
>I see you are getting quite a few responses to your question from 
>people who have worked in situations similar to yours all 
>encouraging.
>
>  What is the overall purpose of gathering data through Appreciative 
>Interviews? Is one of your questions concerning how you will capture 
>and take back the interview data and stories and dreams to the group 
>back in the city who will be working with the data to write a new 
>constitution for the country? I think that is the bigger question. 
>Of course in the villages you can have everyone interview each other 
>and share and dream and explore together in dialogue. But, how will 
>you take all of this richness back to the bigger planning group for 
>the country?
>
>How have others dealt with this question?
>
>--
>Dawn Dole
>coopdole at windstream.net (new email)
>
>---- Parashu <parashu at wlink.com.np> wrote:
>
>=============
>Dear All,
>Namaste from Nepal !
>I need to do summits (with a certain purpose of research) with the 
>people of rural parts of Nepal where most of the people are 
>illiterate . I have to interview as many people as I can and the 
>best way to do is to do the summits (I think). Even in summit, there 
>can be very few people who can interview others. Does anybody have 
>any experience of doing summits with such people? Or is there any 
>references/books/articles regarding this subject? Do you know if the 
>book "The Appreciative Inquiry Summit"(By Jim Ludema and .......) 
>available in the internet? We don't have any books of AI in our 
>market.
>parashurt at gmail.com
>parashu at wlink.com.np
>
>Appreciatively
>
>Parashu Ram Timalsina (PR)
>Secretary General
>Nepal Appreciative Inquiry National Network (NAINN)
>977-1-5529844 (R)
>977-98510-19145 (Cell)
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-- 
Malcolm J. Odell, Jr., MS, PhD
Community Development Advisor
AFRICARE
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