Action research

Working with Tanzanians can bring some unexpected challenges (even for other Tanzanians). We were really surprised with our team at how many of our methods, supposedly tested and tried in Tanzania with disabled teachers, simply failed to bring results.

Why? I guess there are many factors. One is the very poor education of these countryside teachers that are absolutely not used to analytical thinking, or 'consequence-brings-result thinking' which is so very familiar to us. Another one is the culture of being polite, which in Tanzanian terms means that if I ask you a question, you will tell me an answer you believe I want to hear. Third reason is that people are used only to very traditional, formal and strict kind of workshops, where the facilitator teaches and they only need to listen. We really got into some mess! For example...

Hard at work?

It all started with the introduction round, where we wanted our disabled teachers, whome we trained to become activists for human rights, to find out interesting facts about eachother. So we asked them for one thing they really like in their lives. Seems simple enough, right? We, the facilitators, demonstrated first, and the participants followed...

Me: I like walking in nature and chocolate.
Facilitator 1: I like swimming and dancing in the clubs.
Facilitator 2: I like my children and family celebrations.
Participant 1: I like fighting for human rights.
Participant 2: I like fighting for human rights.
Participant 3: I like fighting for human rights.
.
.
.
Participant 15: I like fighting for human rights.

There goes our participatory approach :)

Really, we tried our best to include the participants as equal partners and we didn't give up, although at times it seemed like the participants are suspecting us of playing some kind of evil trick on them :)

We are the champions! The survivors of the first ICD Action Research,  from left to right Angela, Issa and Grace.