The Nature Of Participation

Genuine participation requires the stronger partner to relinquish some of its power. For example, all too often NGOs have the tendency to dictate to their partners what should happen and what agenda they should adopt. This quite natural desire to promote a course of action or an activity that one believes is right, leads to the disempowerment of the community.

Participation also depends on the provision of information where appropriate. Decisions cannot be made without the basic facts at hand. The information, however, must be useable.

This points to the need to avoid jargon. While we may be equipped to understand legal or development language, people in the community may not be familiar with terms that we instantly recognize. This is not to say that we need to over-simplify but it is easy to change complicated terms to ones that can be understood by everyone, regardless of their level of education.