The Power of Appreciative Inquiry to Empower the Powerless
M. R. Arulraja
Hyderabad, India
2004, Jul 2
Annotation: This is a report on an AI based training I did for rural women - mostly poor, illiterate and 'Dalits' (or outcastes) - organized into Self Help Groups.
GRAM, a social work organization, working among them for more than two decades, had organised them into groups.
Women had engaged in thrift and credit activities for over a decade in small groups of 15 members. Around the year 2000, they federated their groups into Mutually Aided Cooperative Societies, where they pooled their savings for making collective investments.
But they had difficulty starting business ventures on their own, as they suffered the effects of culturally learnt mental blocks that told them that women can't do business, partcularly when they are illiterate and poor.
I designed questions that helped them to probe their unconscoius minds and discover their achievements so far as members of their groups.
Their discovery surprised them, their organizers and the trainer!
Appeciating their achievements resulted in their entering into business ventures, unprecedented in the history of the State.
Online Resources:
arulraja.com
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