Fostering community research
'Doing with' not 'doing for' is the mandate under which her community-based organisation operates, says Anna Pinto, of the Centre for Organisation, Research and Education (CORE).
Anna, sponsored by SPEaR as a keynote speaker at the recent 10th Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Wellington, is Secretary and Programme Director of CORE, an indigenous peoples' policy research and advocacy organisation based in the north-east of India.
The organisation deals with a range of issues, from human rights violations to abuse of law by security forces, to health, education, children's rights, and women's rights issues. It is one of about 12 community-based organisations accredited to the United Nations as an expert organisation on indigenous issues.
Although CORE started 20 years ago, it remains a small, community-based and locally grounded organisation. Anna told the Bulletin it was important to stay small. "Otherwise it is not possible to keep within a human scale and framework. We ensure we keep close to where we come from and stick to what we know. We have only two hands, and we know where our feet are - that way, our heads can't be too far away."
But working on the ground demands a certain breadth. "We can't say we'll look at education only, and if you have a health issue, take it next door - we are the next door," Anna explains. "One of the gifts of this, though, is that we are able to look at situations holistically rather than as discrete and separate parts."
CORE employs between 11 and 15 people, with between 200 and 300 volunteers working on projects. The longest any project would last would be three years, and it always includes a component of research and documentation, an advocacy component and a training and capacity building component. The terms of engagement are decided in consultation with the target group, and an exit strategy and exit date are also set at the beginning of the project. "We foster independence. We don't want a group to come back for a second time for the same thing. In 20 years, we've never repeated a project."
The approach to research is not traditional. "We are very clear that we are not objective. Our job, when we research, is to reflect the views, opinions, position and aspirations of the subject group. We assist them to discover information for themselves, and we assist them to present the information in the way they decide and choose."
The organisation trains a self-selected group in basic research and documentation techniques. "We work with them to develop a research framework, the questions to be asked, how many people to be interviewed, developing the questionnaire, setting the time frames - everything. We then work with them to analyse and interpret the data and to present it. The data belongs to them. We hold it in trust. We share the data only if they ask that it be shared."
One of the challenges is to alter the attitudes of researchers, academics, and policy makers about validity and authenticity of the information gained.
As an example of how the organisation works, Anna cites a project done several years ago with a group of young people involved in commercial sex. "We became involved because, through a kinship relationship, we were asked to. That's how we work - we will only get involved if we are invited to."
One of the outcomes was that the young people were trained in sexual and reproductive health and sexual rights, with several going on to do further research or policy work.
"But that was not our aim. I have nothing to do with that initial group now. I cannot take credit for what they are doing today. Whoever is involved in the pilot becomes the trainer and they take it from there. We stick to our mandate of not 'doing for' but 'doing with'. We taught them how they can learn more if they want to.
"The ripples move outwards, and people become stones in their own right in their own ponds. We have no control and we do not want it. We are very small and that's the way it ought to be. We are information brokers. That's our job," Anna says.
