TESTIMONIALS
The Dialogue facilitated me to live through ages, starting from primitive to pre-colonial to post-independence and beyond. It helped me to have a bird's eye view of the whole scenario, and develop a new perspective on development discourse. The program has a power to change lives.
Habeebul Rahiman, Assistant Professor, Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi
My notions of scale, sustainability and impact were continuously challenged throughout the Dialogue. I could see that my interpretation of these words were very limited due to influences of education and the development sector on myself. To me, now it seems that they are not things that could be achieved in isolation, but they are integral part of something very fundamental and transformational. State and market in their conventional sense cannot achieve the intended impact. Our traditional communities, in some ways, got it right. Their inter-dependency on each other was more trust-based and less transactional. Hence, there systems were sustainable, scalable and impactful in truest sense. I realized that I need to understand the traditional systems better to ensure that I do not end up disrupting the good in it.
Divish, Delhi
The dialogue made me realize that as development professionals, now-a-days, we are approaching the issues in rural sector by using the same systems that created the problems at first place. Hence, our approach may not be very helpful in long run.
Manvendra Singh, NGO Professional, Uttrakhand
Rural people may be satisfied in their own lives but we urbans think of their development strategies in order to satisfy our own vested interests. Education is one such example. People learn when they are in need. Education simply means facing a problem and solving it. When we propagate our way of solving the problem, it is where our vested interest lie. The biggest thing I learned in this dialogue is the concept of natural harmony.
Jatin Garg, Assitant Manager at Center for Civil Society, Delhi
Fortunately or unfortunately, I have always engaged with the themes of rural development only theoretically and a bit of fieldwork. But, never in the form that was introduced here. A process of self-reflection and realization is, now I realize, an integral part of development (Society and Self).
The past five days were a contact source and series of shocks and realizations that one always restricts to one’s own minds and thoughts. The conversations gave rise to further questions and doubts which were generally met with a void while engaging with self.
Thank you for designing this brilliant dialogue and awesome execution of it. It is one of an experience, which I didn’t even imagine and went beyond my expectations. Rural Development is not just about the ‘other’, but ‘us’ and most importantly ‘self’.
Kartikeya Jain, Student from Ambedkar University, Delhi
The dialogue helped me to understand many aspects of development in these five days which I could never think of. It paved a way to think beyond what we see today by relating both traditional and modern societies. As described in the concept note, the dialogue did help me to learn and unlearn and change my perspective to look into rural development. It was not only a learning learning but it also left an impact on me. Thank you for proving me this opportunity.
Papari Saikia, Working with Human Rights Commission, New Delhi