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Searching for new ways to work together

Cantera brings popular education to Haida Gwaii

by Astrid Green

"Go across the plaza and turn right. You'll find a green house; kitty corner from this green house, hang a left and you'll find Cantera, the Centre for Popular Education and Communication." The directions are simple enough, but if your travel budget is as small as mine, you won't be going to Managua, Nicaragua in the near future. For people in my situation, Global Links hosted the second Popular Education and Community Organizing Workshop on November 2 and 3, 1996, in Skidegate. Montserrat Fernandez from Cantera, Ana Torres from Tools for Peace, and Sam DiGregor from Queen Charlotte City guided 22 people through two exciting days of learning. You may have already felt the effects of popular education in some of the Islands' community groups. If not, you may soon meet someone trained in this form of working together.
A workshop participant suggested that not everything that is popular is necessarily desirable. One form of behaviour may be popular among some people, but denigrating to others. Keeping in mind this caveat, let's look at Cantera's definition of popular education as:

"...a holistic, integrated form of education that is at once born from and responsible for the raising of people's consciousness of the strength of their communities in action. It is called popular because it comes form the populace, out of the needs and experience of the people themselves."

Paolo Freire has been credited with establishing the founding principles of popular education. His method has been used in literacy campaigns starting in the late 50's in Brazil, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries. Freire saw education as a dialogical process between the individual, his or her environment, other individuals and groups of people. One of his works is aptly titled Education for a Critical Consciousness, another one Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Starting with the experience of the campesino (farmer), literacy campaigns needed to deal with the reality of that person. Beyond a mere building of reading skills, Freire insisted on a process of questioning and critical reflection on what we assume to be our reality­p;engaging in a dialogue.

The workshop goal for participants was to recognize our role as agents of change and the contributions of popular education to community organizing.
We started by compiling our significant life events', the story of how we got here into a composite diagram. We then looked at our individual dreams and expressed them in words or pictures. Whether we chose our individual dreams as representing a personal need or whether we saw them more as community related, a vision perhaps, there are always elements of the very personal and the global that will be part of community action. We compared this insight with the specific workshop objectives which were:
What struck me about this exercise was how respectful this form of organizing is to individuals. No one member is seen as more correct or more apt than the next person when it comes to identifying needs.
In another exercise we were asked to deal with concepts such as power, community organizing, leadership, culture, democracy, alliances, etc. Groups of people were given parts of these words on cardboard and asked to find other groups with the corresponding portions of the words.
The symbolism of this exercise did not go unnoticed: we had broken concepts and we made them whole; we put the puzzle together as a group.
We then brainstormed on these terms. Brainstorming is a powerful tool, and can yield good results. Unfortunately we are sometimes too caught up in the end product, so that we don't allow for enough process time. Sometimes there is the temptation to editorialize comments, to put them into a package, and people may have become quite used to somebody assuming this role. Those interpretations put on the thoughts of someone else are most often limiting to the group.
During this workshop there were isolated instances where individuals felt they should 'assist' others and we needed to resolve the ensuing conflicts. Perhaps it will take a while to shake some learnt behaviour within groups. (Conflict resolution was the topic of a workshop given by Arny and Amy Mindell at Skidegate following the pop ed workshop.)

A DANGEROUS CROSSING
We had fun with a game called A Dangerous Crossing. I won't describe this exercise as you may wish to take the workshop but it was a goal orientated game. What I found very useful was the observation guide for discussion. With some modification it can be part of an evaluation of community activity:
PROCESS VS PRODUCT
We discussed the process and product dilemma. In some cases timing is crucial. Should process be sacrificed to time constraints? The members of ICSI, the Islands Community Stabilization Initiative, found themselves in a situation of having to work out a compromise within a short time frame. Would the Memorandum of Understanding have become a reality without a deadline? What reality were people dealing with? Is hindsight always golden, or do we sometimes reconstruct history to fit our needs at that particular moment? These questions may well be put to other community groups and there are no easy answers.
The entire popular education workshop was summarized by one of our groups as a spiral moving from individual experiences to which we add new information and theory toward a community realization. Through practising skills and strategizing for action we arrived at a deeper analysis.
A compilation of workshop materials, called a memoria, is to be produced by workshop participants and will be available in the near future as a record of the event.
THIS WAY OR THAT
Participants who work in hierarchical organizations found it a particular challenge to incorporate these skills into their work life and educational activities. Hierarchies are not built on the assumption that individual experiences are equal, even when it comes to educational processes. Sharing knowledge and resources is not always part of an organization's actual way of operating, although at some level it may be seen as desirable. Implementing even a small change, such as the room layout toward a circle from a lecture style setup, may take time. Decision making structures may be another hurdle. How far an organization will go with looking at a more egalitarian way of operating depends on a number of factors.
Following the workshop there was an opportunity to find out about the situation in Nicaragua.
In the 80s, the Sandinista government had placed a great emphasis on social as well as economic development, in the 90s with an increasing emphasis on privatization by the Chamorro government, initial gains of the revolution have been halted.

NICARAGUA TODAY
There are 4.2 million people in Nicaragua, about 50% live in Managua, the capital. 70% of the population live under the poverty line. One million children don't go to school. 36% of adolescents don't make it though highschool. Infant mortality is at 53 per thousand. 27% of prison inmates are between 15 and 19 years of age. There is now 60% unemployment. There has been a marked decline in literacy and people in rural areas have lost their literacy skills .
In answer to a question of what we can do to support the work of Cantera in Nicaragua, Montserrat stated that more important than any material aid is the work of each individual with respect to their own home community. To deal with our own developmental issues and bring about change is the greatest gift of solidarity.

A training guide by Denise Nadeau called
Counting our Victories: Popular Education and Organizing,
is available from
Repeal the Deal Productions ,
707 - 12th St. New Westminster,B.C.,
V3M 4J7.

Fax: 604-522-8975

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