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Introduction to Development in ActionWho are we?
Development in Action (DiA) is a development non-governmental organisation (NGO) runby young people for young people. Its main objective is to promote global citizenship byimproving the understanding of development issues and encouraging greater engagementin them amongst young people in the UK.DiA sprang from a gap year scheme in which student volunteers taught English in villageschools in Western Madhya Pradesh, India. The organiser was retiring, but the localcommunities in India and the participating volunteers all felt it would be a pity for thisvaluable experience to stop. In February 1992, while still in India, the volunteers andenthusiastic locals began to plan a new scheme to continue the link. Sitting by the openfire after an evening meal in one of the villages, one of the locals came up with the name ‘Development in Action'.We have since grown, through the work of volunteers in the UK, to become a registeredcharity that not only continues to send students to India, but also raises funds forprojects responding to the needs of young people in the local communities. We believethat ‘development', whether in Europe or India, is about ‘empowerment' - buildingpeople's capacities - and has to originate from the people themselves. We are constantlylearning and re-evaluating what we do in the light of this.
Objectives of Development in Action
DiA was founded in 1992 and registered as a charity in 1994 to promote awareness of development issues to young people in the UK, providing hands-on developmentopportunities for volunteers in India while forwarding the development of young people inIndia. DiA won the national prize of Youth Clubs UK for "International Awareness", andreceived an award from Lord Westminster at St. James' Palace, November 1995.
Aims of Volunteer Programme
The Volunteer programme aims to provide a structured approach to developmenteducation for young people by means of pre-placement training, orientation in India, self assessment and monitoring, a Newsletter in which to express views and publish research,systematic debriefings and opportunities to get involved with the running of theorganisation throughout. In India, volunteers are given the opportunity to broaden theireducation by working with a variety of Indian organisations. Activities includeadministrative and office work, child-care, teaching, work with women's groups, work onenvironmental projects, working with elderly and disabled people and more.The Volunteer Programme seeks to encourage more young people to travel and spendconstructive time learning and working in a development environment, and equally itresponds to the growing demand for development work-experience for those interested ineventually taking up further studies or a career in development work. As a voluntaryorganisation, DiA fundamentally believes that tying development awareness to work-experience is an innovative way to bridge north-south divides and invest in our commonfuture. A volunteer who has spent time working in a developing country can have animpressive impact on his or her home environment for years to come.In practical terms, the recruitment and promotion of the Volunteer Programme in itself raises the profile of development issues, encompassing a wide cross-section of society,
 
sharing the knowledge and experiences that volunteers gain through talks in schools andworkplaces, open days and recruitment days where participatory methods including roleplays, games, group discussions and displays are used.The Volunteer programme aims to provide a structured approach to developmenteducation for young people by means of pre-placement training, orientation in India, self assessment and monitoring, a Newsletter in which to express views and publishresearch, systematic debriefings and opportunities to get involved with the running of theorganisation throughout. In India, volunteers are given the opportunity to broaden theireducation by working with a variety of Indian organisations. Activities includeadministrative and assistance work, child-care, teaching, nursing, work in hospitals,health centres, children's homes and more.
Youth As A Target In Development Education
Young people as a social group have at least one common characteristic: they will beginand continue to make decisions and choices, on a daily basis, that will impact on theirenvironment locally and globally. Some young people will have more choice than othersand it is important that these choices are made in an informed way. As a 'youth-for-youth' organisation, DiA believes that investing in the process of encouragingengagement in global issues is vital to ensure a sustainable future for both the UK andother countries.As a "youth for youth" NGO, DiA believes that this target group requires substantialinvestment in order to capitalise on existing initiatives sustaining them from generation togeneration.
Student Action India
As a Rajiv Gandhi scholar I spent my summer working as a Student Action Indiavolunteer in Bangalore, Karnataka. The aim of SAI is to promote understanding betweenyoung people in India and the UK, and to offer some assistance to the Indian partner organisations.A previous visit to India had enticed me to return for a longer period to see a differentside of Indian life. Having worked in an orphanage for 6 months in Malaysia during mygap year, I was keen to further my experience of working in a developing country. As a pre-clinical medical student, I wanted to see first hand how a grass-root level of community development could help lay the foundation for better health and reducedmortality. Four volunteers, including myself, were placed for 8 weeks with a Non-Governmental Organisation called DEEDS (Development Education Society) based inBangalore. DEEDS' principle aim is to prevent child labour and rehabilitate existingworking children, of which there are currently 73 million in India.DEEDS works with 4 main ideals in mind: Ignorance should be wiped out; Health should be preserved; Economic poverty should be eliminated; People must be empowered -solidarity for success.It has projects in 4 of the 76 slums in Bangalore. Parents cannot afford to send youngchildren to school and elder siblings are forced to drop out in order to earn an income for 
 
the family. Work is irregular and very poorly paid which reinforces the cycle of povertyand child labour. Non Formal Education centres exist for working children who haveeither dropped out of school to work, or have never attended school. There they learnKannada (the local language) and English, as well as recreational activities with a view to being reintroduced to mainstream education. The classes are held either in the morning or afternoon to allow the children to go to work during the day if absolutely necessary.Parents must still partly fund their child's education as part of their own empowermentand capacity building. DEEDS works hard to avoid giving `hand outs' but aims todevelop people's own capabilities.I worked 5 days a week, teaching in three centres in the slums with another volunteer andworking in the DEEDS office. Facilities at the schools were basic but what they lacked inequipment the children made up for with their enthusiasm to learn! At Ashokpuram andSatyanagar we started the day with an English lesson for formal school children beforetheir classes began. The lessons tended to focus on conversational English as well asvocabulary and a little grammar. After the English lesson, we would take the NFEchildren for a couple of hours. Our aim was to stimulate their interest in learning and givethem the opportunity to think for themselves. It took some time to adjust to the bare wallsand straw mat floors of the NFE centres, the lack of chairs, desks and the dim lightingfrom a single window. In the third slum, Ashokpuram, NFE was held outside insomeone's back yard with a sheet of black paper taped to the wall, posing as a blackboard!The children at the centres were aged from about 4 to 12 years old. We would often splitthe class and teach some basic English to the older children, and do songs, drawing andABC with the little ones. Some of the children were lively and outgoing, whereas otherssat in silence, oblivious to what was going on around them. Although they were learningKannada, most spoke Tamil as they were from families who had emigrated to Bangalorefrom Tamil Nadu. The children were so used to rote learning that they would copyeverything I put on the blackboard and repeat everything I said to the extend of repeating"Sit down!" if I asked them to sit! Once I gave them paper and crayons and free reign todraw what they pleased. Ten minutes later most were sitting with a blank page waiting for me to tell them what to draw! However, as time passed they began to use their imagination and it
 ______________________________________________________________________________________  _____________ This note was prepared by Swarnim Wagle and Parmesh Shah of the Participation and Civic EngagementGroup in TheWorld Bank as a case study input on “Participatory Approaches in Budgeting and Public ExpenditureManagement” for theAction Learning Program on “Participatory approaches at the Macro level”. Further details and documentsrelated to thisAction Learning Program are available at www.worldbank.org/participation
The views expressed in this note are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the World Bank.
Note No. 72 March 2003
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