back to the blog

More than a year has elapsed since I was last active in the general blogosphere. But now I am back with the intention of taking it all a bit more seriously.

The last year has given me the chance to work directly with the citizens of a small town called Delwara, working alongside them to strengthen local self-governance mechanisms and promote community leadership. The experience has proved fascinating and deeply enriching for me, enabling me to bridge some part of the giant theory-practice divide. Living and working amongst real people really brings one down to earth and puts one directly in touch with oneself (at least it did so for me!). It has all proved hugely demanding and hugely rewarding.


I have also been involved, though less actively, in an action research process to improve low performance pre-school centres in remote, predominantly tribal villages. This has also served to be a rich source of learning for me and, hopefully, the rest of the practitioners working on the project.

Right now, I am involved in the mother project - which is really what I had wanted to be doing all along - namely: working on organisational change in Seva Mandir. All of my reading and experience over the last four and a half years is now being called upon to be put into action as I help the organisation engage with itself and figure out how best it can bring about the change that it believes in.

All of these experiences have been pointing me at a common insight: I am not in control of anything. I am part of a whole series of ongoing processes that have their own life force. I can merely tend to them, nurture them, enrich them at the 'margins', respecting what they are deep down and striving to create conditions which encourage their best potential to emerge. This brings me back to the quote by Gareth Morgan from my last blog posting more than a year back, which remains as relevant as ever, I believe, to anyone seriously engaged in social change work.

May we all grow together in joy and wisdom!