Days before the New Year: not a good time for a meeting

New Iranian year starts with the “spring”. That is a good sign for a country of four seasons like Iran where “spring” as a season is a time for flowers to flourish, for trees to boast of their attractive and colorful blossoms, and for the sky to rain on mountains, deserts and plains (we call it "spring rain" or "baran bahari"). For families, the days ending to the New Year is a time for a full-fledged cleaning as we call it in Iran “khaneh tekani”. All family members have to participate in such a tedious work. Families may rush to bazaars to buy new clothes and shoes, suits or other new things; With the new year to start, everything can become new and fresh (I hope people do not fall into a culture of consumerism and try to use and reuse those things are still usable). The municipality cleans towns and cities (not every year, of course). In certain communities, people come together to clean the community too. Also it is the time for planting young saplings. Many environmental NGOs plan sapling-planting programmes starting from two weeks before the New Year when the cold weather gradually finishes.

With all these events and ceremonies, there is always another expectation: this is a time for evaluation. This is a good idea and I really welcome that. However, in practice, the story is different. Why? Because, nobody has enough time for a group meeting. People in villages are busy with their own local activities for the New Year; some people are thinking to have trips to other places; and as I explained many people are involved in pre-Norouz activities; therefore it could be an over-expectation from the members of a group to have meeting before the New Year. As a facilitator, even me, I have always been busy before the New Year and then I could not be in a community or in a village to facilitate a meeting. There is not even a good time for evaluation workshops. Therefore, my suggestion, based on my experience, is to forget all about a meeting before the New Year.

Norouz creates a time of refreshing, and while we take distance from all our group activities, it can be an appropriate time to think about new things, creative ideas and effective changes in the group. All group members may be requested to think about these issues, and the first meeting after the new year, could be a meeting of brain storming about such ideas.

However, when a “year” ends, there is a tendency to produce “annual reports” or "evaluation meetings" and as I told, such reports or meetings are really necessary. This will help to the scale-up of the community empowerment. But they should not be done during the days of “Norouz-busy-time”. The framework could be designed months before, and the information and data to be collected beforehand. Even an evaluation meeting is necessary to be held by the group one month before the year ends. 

In certain cases, where it seems required to have a meeting before the new year, then "facilitating a diachronic meeting" could be a good choice. The facilitator has to dedicate much time for contacting the group members without holding a meeting. The feedback and comments are transferred to the members of the group while it seems a dialogue is on-going. The facilitator has to be much talented to go through this time-consuming process. However, the output may be existing. This is exactly like discussions under a message or an image in the facebook. Those online put their message while others may become online afterwards and read the discussion and give their comments. There might be some synchronized inputs but mostly people contact each other in a diachronic way. In a diachronic process, there is no need for a meeting, while the facilitator tries to manage the interaction.

At the end of this short comment, I would like to say: Happy New Iranian Year 1392.

Go in search of your people, Love them; Learn from them...

Today, I was surfing in the Internet trying to find more about the notion of "neighborhood", I found this famous Chinese proverb. I have seen it in many places - in the newsletters, in offices of NGOs, and in trainers' training slides on community-building:

Old Chinese Verse:

Go in search of your people,

Love Them; Learn from Them;

Plan with Them; Serve Them.

Begin with what they have;

Build on what They know.

But of the best leaders,

when their task is accomplished,

and their work is done,

The people all remark:

"We have done it ourselves."

A leader is not the owner of the whole work, but these are the community members who own the input, the process, and the output. It's their right to decide, and it is with them to say: okay we know what to do; and when they do it, they are the real owners. 

I searched the web to find out who has said these Chinese words : I found it: Lao Tse, but I am not sure. However, when I went after Lao Tse, I found this wiki page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laozi; it seems he is an inspiring philosopher. Also I found the following picture : 

Photo：Lao Tzu's "Go in search of your people" drawn by David Werner
courtesy of "http://blog.livedoor.jp/share_jp/archives/51265344.html"

I was trying to see if Lao Tse has been a leader of his own time or not. The only thing I found was from Wiki on his life (taken from Morgan, Diane (2001). The best guide to eastern philosophy and religion (1st ed. ed.). Los Angeles, Calif.: Renaissance Books): 

Lao Tzu was born in the village of Chu Jen in the Kingdom of Ch'u. (He may have been born sometime in the sixth century B.C.E. [Before the Common Era]. Traditionally, he is said to have lived at the same time as Confucius, but recent scholars place him about two centuries later.) Lao Tzu spent most of his life as an archivist in the library of the Zhou Dynasty court, a boring job that gave him lots of time to think. He quit when he saw things were getting corrupt, and then went into exile. Lao Tzu became disturbed by the corruption he saw everywhere around him and decided to take the easy way out- literally, and leave the country. He traveled west on a water buffalo to reach the great desert. At the westernmost gate, a guard who recognized him, demanded that he write down his teachings, unrecorded until this point. The collected teachings became the Tao Te Ching.

 If this is from Lao Tse, he had to have experiences in empowerment of people, something that has been ignored in his life. Maybe he had been in search of his people when he left the country... 

Participation is not a "dream" !

Today, I had a very hard discussion on community-based facilitation. The person, who was challenging me, told me that community-based facilitation is not possible by the time there is a strong centralized system. Without a democratic political system, you cannot talk about facilitation. A decentralized system is needed; democratic institutions are needed; an active civil society is a must; and then you need people with a culture of group activities, active listening and cooperation. When such things do not exist, you cannot even talk about “facilitation”. Since the system will stop you, the institutions and civil society are not there to support you, and people are not cooperative. Without all these, how you can facilitate a group at local level.

That was a very hard question; in response, I raised so many arguments. Here, I refer to one of them and I will try to add my other points in the coming posts. People in Iran have had a strong culture of cooperation and participation. It cannot be denied; during the history, you can easily find many traditional models of participation in villages and even in towns. For instance “Varehgari” is a form of traditional participation. Goats were milked altogether (during milking season) and given to one person or one family (whose turn was to be given the milk). In this way, the person or the family could have enough milk to use or to make cheese or yoghurt. There were certain rules and regulations to manage the process. Also, it has had other functions too; a research paper published in “Ensanshenasi Journal” (Anthropology, vol. 2, No. 4, pages 243-255) in 2003 shows that such tradition has been like a “cooperative” for economizing the process of livestock livelihood. The author claims that this tradition is still being used in certain villages.

There are other forms of cooperation at rural level and some of them are still on-going. When I was working in Freydounkenar, Damgahdari was another form of cooperation and local participation. In Damgahdari, rice cultivators come together to create a secure place for migrant birds to hunt a percentage of the coming birds in Fall and Winter; of course, our project was to work with damgah owners to decrease their hunting and to see if they can use such a cooperation for bird-watching rather than hunting them.  In Ezbaran, and Sorkhroud (in Freydounkenar – near Babolsar), it is more than 300 years that they are doing that. Without a group activity, it is not possible to create such a damgah.

Also, other traditions in villages such as marriage or even mourning were done (and are being carried out) with cooperation, which I think, it needs more research. Parts of this culture still exist in towns too. In fact, I said that "participation" is not a "dream". It was a part of our culture (which was somehow weakened by modernization policies) and still it is there... 

A life style far from the real environment

I had a chance to visit a village near Nahavand (in Hamedan Province in Iran) called Tavaneh. To my surprise, it was a village of people who give more considerations to their life inside the house. There were not so many trees outside the houses, while the village was located in a very special place (enough water, good weather especially for walnut trees). I was really astonished. Why? Most of the villagers, I was told, were construction workers in Tehran where they have possibly learnt to have good houses. In one house, I saw that the yard was from cement, and I said to myself: why shouldn't there be a green space inside the house. When I asked the householder whether you have a hen and rooster, I was told that these animals are not clean ones. "We have to put time to clean the house". A teacher from the local school told me that people are forgetting their local games and children do not play local games; Most of the students take nap in the school, since they sit awake to watch TV. Cement, TV, and sleeping are taking the place of green trees, hens and roosters, and local games.

I talked to some people and warned them that the life style they are following here in nature contradicts the environment they are living in. They have to come together and think more about their future. Personally I do not like such life. I know that there are people in that village that agree with me and they do not love that too.

For such a village, where poverty is not the real risk, but the life style is threatening the collective life, the best would be village gatherings every now and then. The best would be a series of gatherings by the village council. I am sure that the council can take the initiative and hold constructive meetings with people. They can build a green village, if they would like.

I met an old lady from that village with high potentials in weaving. I was astonished why such old lady cannot act as a teacher for younger women to train them on how they can weave beautiful gelims. I am sure they can  do it, if such training can be organized.

And the last thing is the tourists, especially eco-tourists who can come to the village (which somehow will help to the economy of the village too) and find certain attractions. I think such attractions can be defined. When you look at the village from a further distance, you can easily find out that this village is located in a very special place - then why don't the village residents focus on their attractions! 

Just a report: traditional knowledge

I lost the first lecture of the second day of the forum at PICC by the Malaysia Science Academy and it was a loss. I was late and could not listen to Dr Martin Abraham, a knowledgeable leader in the field of community-based empowerment. The second talk was about Orang Asli's traditional knowledge by Dr Colin Nicholas, who is the founder and the coordinator of the Center for Orang Asli Concerns (COAC) based in Subang Jaya in Malaysia. He said that the knowledge they are using, is related to their subsistence, well-being, culture and identity, especially when it comes to medical plants, living in nature and artistic works (Orang Asli heritage). The whole knowledge is collectively owned, transmitted orally, mixed with rituals and cultural values. There are plenty of evidence to prove that "it is the knowledge" that can be considered sustainable. Reference to many books published; also reference to the Semai way of conflict resolution and the ancient wisdom (how they understand environment) transmitted orally through story-telling (reference to a book of Orang Asli animal story). What is not working is the imposition of western paradigms on their culture and power structure. As the lecturer mentioned, there seems to be a great difference between the way Orang Asli looks at the forest and the way the Western-supported attitude towards the forest. For Orang Asli, the forest is the center of the world. Also there is a challenge of the state's rights to the forests versus Orang Asli's ownership of the forest. If their habitat is touched or they are moved to another place or their life is negatively influence, depression would govern on their life. The lecturer referred to a series of threats such as policies of development and globalization.

The third lecture was presented by Margarita Naming from Sarawak Biodiversity Center about the role of local communities in conservation of useful plants. She explained about the traditional knowledge and as an activity to preserve the knowledge, she referred to community gardens, as an interesting and useful method to empower communities in Sarawak in conservation of biodiversity. The first stage is to talk about the traditional knowledge and its importance. The second is a workshop in the village to set the vision and mission. The third would be to choose methods to document the traditional knowledge. Also, people in the community are trained how to create a community garden (where they can learn more about the plants) - through in-situ conservation (there was a show case in the powerpoint slides about a garden in Long Iman in Mulu) - this creates additional income for community too through tourists visiting the community garden. However, there are challenges: traditional knowledge is fast disappearing; it is mostly orally transmitted; people in communities are highly protective of their knowledge and not willing to give it to others or next generation; at the same time, the younger generation is not interested to continue with the traditional knowledge; there is a low priority in documenting, with no monetary benefits, decreased community livelihood, and more important plant resources are depleting. In total, the programme seems to be effective, since communities under this programme, become more aware of the importance of documenting and conserving their traditional knowledge as their heritage before it is lost with the passing of the older generation.

In the Panel, there was a discussion about an action plan. Following are the points raised that I thought they were important:

Dr Colin Nicholas:
mindsets of the policy-makers have to change; words are beautiful but not understood by the people; the key to maintaining traditional knowledge is to recognize the right of the local people to their own knowledge; they do not want to be moved to another place, since it is their own traditional land;

Dr Martin Abraham:
Policies are important: Once it has been done for oil (nationalizing) why not for trees;
Mainstreaming TK is necessary; students in schools have to learn about TK;
In communities, there is no "I", there is only "we", everything is collective; they have collective rights too;

Dr Rita Manurung:
Political environment is very important in this regard (since the policies come from there)
Sarawak Biodiversity Center has been established by a government ordinance. The government feels that the communities should maintain their own traditional knowledge and that's what we have been doing during the past decade. We have encouraged communities to do so; a very recent activity, has been establishing community gardens; A data base has been set up under SBC's Traditional Knowledge Documentation Programme (the only systematic collection of traditional knowledge).

NGOs
- Mainstream the biodiversity in all sectors (more important than traditional knowledge) (it has been mentioned in action plans)
- Pressure of modernizing is tempting for communities
- Why we don't have one law for all states in Malaysia? Malaysia should guarantee indigenous people's right

Participants:

• Our local communities have more things than only traditional knowledge; do not commercialize them; it is a culture that has to be preserved. 
• Young generation is not interested; it seems that they do not care even to go to school; what would be an appropriate attitude regarding such reluctance.
• A personal experience: children do not talk in the language; they do not practice the traditional knowledge; new religion aspects; good spirits have become bad spirits; 
• Funding much needed 

There were some other discussions at the end that I am not adding here. Sorry for late publication. This report should be read with the first part of the report (that is about the first day of the seminar) and has been posted before this one.

Traditional Knowledge and Local Communities in favor of Biodiversity

Today (22 Nov. 2012), I attended a very exciting forum on "Conservation of Fauna and Flora" - the role of traditional knowledge and local communities" which was held by the Malaysian Academy of Science in PICC (Putrajaya). There were many presentations, but there were only three papers presented in the event that I liked very much. That's why I tried to give a very short report of these three papers in my blog. I do not know whether they can be found in the internet, but I am sure there exists certain clues for those who are interested to find out more about the role of traditional knowledge and local communities in protection of the environment.

The first paper that was presented by Professor Indraneil Das from the Institute of Biodiversity and Environmental Conservation (UMS) was really informative, trying to picture how people in local communities have been involved in protection of environment through mythologies, belief systems and religion. An example is Pulong Tau National Park, Gunung Murud in Sarawak. He emphasized that the participation of the people has to be incorporated in the management plans. However, he concluded that "pragmatic conservation policies" are highly required to be considered and scientific data and regulations are needed too. Neither top-bottom nor bottom-up, linkages are more important.

Another lecturer from Penang, Dr Zulfigar Yasin, talked about the role of traditional knowledge and local communities in the conservation of coral reefs in Malaysia. He showed one slide which showed a Google satellite picture taken in the night from Malaysia that people mostly lived near the sea, and he added that most of the traditions in Malaysia are somehow related to sea. He also referred to the point that the names given to the reefs - are not new for people, since people know the reefs since years ago. He also mentioned that the people do not "compartize" the knowledge of the sea - it is a practical knowledge they use in their own life. Then he analyzed the threats to coral reefs.

The third contribution was presented by Dr Chang Yu Shyun who talked about the macrofungi used by Orang Asli for food, medicine, charms or other uses. This is important to remind that the Orang Asli communities in Malaysia use the natural resources in the forests for various purposes. She said the knowledge on mushrooms, while invaluable, are transmitted orally. She said that the researchers used a pictorial guide in visiting the villages of Orang Asli (only five tribes) - and the people told them about the mushrooms. The collected data have been categorized and studied. She showed pictures of the mushrooms and beliefs of the tribes regarding the mushrooms and their related uses. To my point of view, the research was highly important since it studies in details the local traditional knowledge on mushrooms. As it was included in the recommendations of the research, it has to be extended to other sub-tribes, especially in Sabah and Sarawak. Among the conclusions, there were issues which are important to look into, such as: "urbanization", "lack of interest of younger generation", "no replacement of knowledgeable elders", "loss of forest areas", "migration to urban areas", and "increased use of modern medicine". The researcher concludes that such use of mushrooms facilitates conservation. The results have been published in the book: Common Edible Mushrooms of Orang Asli Communities in Peninsular Malaysia written by Lee Su See, Chang Yu Shyun and Noraswati Mohd. Nor Rashid, published by Forestry Research Institute Malaysia, Kepong in 2006.

Community Dialogue, a book review

Some months ago, Parvin Pakzadmanesh and Mostafa Pakdelnejad and me (Saeid Nouri Neshat) edited a book in Farsi entitled: "Hamandishi Mahlehee va Jayegah aan dar modiriat mahaleh" (or Community Dialogue and its role in Community Management). The book was published in Tehran by Jameeshensasan publication.

The book has four chapters. The first chapter starts with the concept of dialogue in Iranian culture and continues with the concept of mahaleh (or community) with an aim to show how important is the role that "dialogue" can play in a community. It also studies, in brief, local management in communities that was prevalent in the past in Iran. From there, it reviews how the new structure of communities works in Tehran and suggests that "dialogue" has to be revived in communities. It also defines other necessary concepts such as "facilitator", "community researcher" and "community dialogue". The chapter moves further and tries to show that a dialogue can result in actions and therefore, defines "action plan" as a major result of such interactions at local level.

The second chapter is a conceptual framework. It uses an approach of local development based on "the symbolic interaction" and tries to show that citizens in a city could be neighbors that are responsible for their communities.

The third chapter studies the process of "community dialogue" project implemented by the Tehran Municipality (Research Center) in Tehran. It analyzes the data collected from the dialogues facilitated in 1388 (2009-2010) and 1389 (2010-2011) and proves how effective community dialogues have been organized in Tehran.

The fourth chapter is like a suggested framework for an effective dialogue within a community. Any facilitator or community member needs this part, if they are going to be engaged in a dialogue with certain positive results.  It has many useful points regarding facilitation, training and empowerment, participation, sincerity, trust, decision-making, citizenship, community management, neighborhood councils, differences among communities, special groups in need, special issues in communities, women's participation and involvement, practicality, monitoring and evaluation.

The book has been published in Farsi, and I am thinking to translate the book in English, since I think any community worker needs to read the book.