Technology of Participation

I have never forgotten the first time I saw Technology of Participation in action, at a workshop in northern Canada. The facilitator asked us to write our ideas on small cards and then sorted them on the wall in such a way that it made sense of - and included - all of the ideas of everyone in the group. This way of including everyone, and making a coherent whole of all of our individual contributions in such a short time, seemed magic. So when I came back from election observation in Bosnia in 1996, I looked for ToP training (which is a trademark of the Institute of Cultural Affairs). Over the next few years, I took various ToP courses, including the focused conversation, workshop, team, and community development intensive workshops, deliverded by ICA Canada.

When I was asked to work on the Community Revitalization through Democratic Action project in Western Serbia in 2001 as the Community Mobilization and Development Specialist, I asked Jo Nelson of ICA Canada if she knew of any local trainers who were using ToP methods. She gave me the name of Slavica Bradvic, who was working with Bospo in Tuzla, Bosnia. We met in Belgrade in November 2001, and in December, Slavica and Dina came to Valjevo to deliver ToP training to the Community Mobilization Team.

That developed into a wonderful working relationship, and over the next 18 months, Slavica and Dina provided ToP training to the talented facilitators who we called CRDA Community Facilitators, members of the 60 CRDA community committees and our specialized womens', youth, and Roma cluster committees. The training was delivered in Serbian, using Serbian language materials. While there was sometimes some initial skepticism about whether such methods would work in Serbia, all of the participants seemed to find the ToP methods very helpful in terms of communication, brainstorming, organization, and project development. Some used them in other activities as well because they found the methods so helpful.

Community committees used ToP techniques to help them develop and manage the variety of CRDA projects. Our CM team and CRDA community facilitators used the ToP methods in the quarterly Social Planning Meetings that brought together people from the education, health, and social services sectors in the 13 municipalities we worked in. Roma communities, seeing that these methods got attention from municipal officials, asked us to organize specific ToP training for members of their communities, and Dragan Nikolic of Sabac, who took part in the very first ToP training for Community Committees, became a co-facilitator of the workshops in 2002 and 2003. I believe that somewhere between 200 and 300 people in Western Serbia communities took part in ToP training sessions between 2001 and 2003, and I was happy to hear recently that some communities are still using these methods.

Here are some pictures taken during 2001 and 2002 during some of our workshop sessions.

Participants in the first ToP training for members of Community Committees (above) and CRDA community facilitators (right), held in Valjevo in December 2002. In the picture on the right, Brankica Jeremic of Uzice is reporting back to the group on the discussions held in their small group.

 CRDA community facilitators living in Valjevo and Sabac (above), and Uzice (right).

Participants at a youth workshop in Valjevo convened by our NGO partner in Valjevo, and at a consultation session with Roma community participants.

In the fall of 2001, when I was asked to organize a strategic planning session for the entire CRDA Western Serbia team, held in Divcibare, I was thrilled that Jon Jenkins of the Netherlands (who has been involved with ICA since its start) was able to facilitate the session. Jon later facilitated a review and planning exercise for both our CRDA community facilitators and the Community Mobilization team, held at Zlatibor.

Jon Jenkins facilitating the first CRDA staff planning retreat, Divcibare October 2001.

For many participants, this was their first introduction to ToP methods.

I would be very happy to hear if anyone else has used ToP methods elsewhere in Serbia.

Rosemary Cairns

Uzice

July 2007