About time I wrote about work....

The other week I attended one of the introductory workshops put on by my organisation. The workshops gather disabled members of the community, together with their families and caregivers, and start the process of improving their lives. They form community self-help groups which, supported by a field officer, are encouraged to demand rights to better housing, mobility, training etc. This can eventually lead to disabled people getting jobs, getting micro-finance, starting businesses - and to increased respect within their families and social standing in their communities. Quite a powerful process.
I found myself comparing the workshop with the planning sessions I run for small exporters. So, in place of the Marriot or the Hilton, picture a bare and scruffy breezeblock outhouse in the grounds of a Buddhist temple. No bottles of sparkly mineral water – if you’re thirsty there’s a tap in the yard. Around 70 impoverished and disabled people and their families gather on ancient child-sized chairs or sit on the ground. And lunch (and let’s face it, this is what many of them are here for), is a newspaper packet of cold curry and rice delivered in a 3-wheeler from the local take-away.
Yet there are remarkable similarities with our exporters’ workshops. There is a clear process which the delegates are asked to engage with. It is highly participative and over the course of the day, a lively team of field officer offer the delegates a personal challenge: in their case to move from incapacity to: “Hey, I can actually do something about my life!”