We started the project by organizing a coordination group, consisting of three important members : VVOB in my person, Liesbeth Roolvink (the educational specialist of UNICEF), and Henri Ori (the minister‘s advisor of MINOV). From the very beginning, in June 2007 until the final publication of the book in May 2009, we met on a weekly basis, using collaborative practices based on the philosophical stance, which I described in the previous chapter 5 Collaborative and dialogic approaches. We focused on the other and the otherness, seeing the uniqueness, acknowledging the special importance of careful thinking, listening and questioning.
This stance encouraged a more equivalent contribution and full participation of all involved and it reflected – as Anderson explains in her work – a way of being with people that lead us into strong relationships and potentially life-long friendships. It is important to mention especially the participation of the Ministry of Education (MINOV), because the whole idea was to construct Suriname‘s vision of primary education based
on local history and knowledge, not just on the foreign experts – the European white people‘s knowledge.
Henri Ori was able to constantly inform and motivate the people of the Ministry, including the Minister of Education, to support this project. His participation was also of great importance to mediate in the many difficult situations in which power play took place. One example of this power play was the politicians‘
influence, which did not always occur in appreciative ways. Due to lack of expertise and knowledge (brain drain63), and also lack of sufficiently skilled people within the Ministry of Education, open space was allowed for the project. Fortunately, VVOB and UNICEF had strong relationships within the Ministry of Education, and these relationships had been based on mutual understanding for years. Not being competent of creating actions themselves, but giving space to those who could, meant in this project that we were free to experiment by constructing different conceptual and non-conceptual performances. I will come back later to this theme.
The question arises, How did we do this? How did we create the conditions to work together in a fluid way, instead of scrambling to define who is in charge or who is smarter? Well, this didn't occur magically. As mentioned, the positive stance of the coordination group was to create the best environment that we could, using the best we could get from ourselves and others, and sharing this in an appreciative way. We were always clear in our on-going communication in what we wanted to achieve (shared goal) and how we wanted to do this. This communication should be seen as a constantly meandering process, in which we looked for ways to inform all participants on a strict basis. Furthermore, within the coordination group we used each member’s specific expertise and knowledge. Differences were communicated, and based on our shared ideas and expertise we could spread our responsibilities among the three of us. Time schedule differences, due to our busy other work activities, were easily solved and accepted. Making a book was new for all of us, and we experienced this as a challenging adventure. This collaborative stance produced a growing shared meaning and trust within the coordination group. In our approach, we knew we needed others to achieve our end goal. Here we used our networks. For example, when we needed facilitators for the district workshops, we selected facilitators whom we had seen working throughout the country.
Sometimes they were recommended by others who had seen them working. Our criteria for these facilitators were: an open, constructive stance towards others, being expert in dealing with groups, and being relational oriented. After the selection, we shared our ideas using Appreciated Inquiry methods. We wanted our ideas also to be presented in the appreciative stance to others. We communicated, face-to-face or by e-mail, often, to be sure that these facilitators would understand the way we wanted to work. Using this positive stance, a process started, of building relations between the facilitators and the coordination group, like building bridges. The coordination group and facilitators started to act in congruent ways, based on this positive approach.
The coordination group was always open for people's feedback, always offering moments to reflect and evaluate. The feedback of others was always appreciated, and was used to make the process and content better. What appeared was that these facilitators had lots of expertise and understanding about the local histories. They knew how to approach the people in the districts. Some of them already had built strong relationships within the districts. In a way, using their feedback strengthened and improved the workshop sessions, and thereby strengthened the relationship with the coordination group.
Selecting new key persons, who knew others and had broad networks, helped to invite new participants we didn't know, but who appeared to be very helpful and important for the process. When problems occurred, we could use others‘ experiences or knowledge to solve them, and often invited them to solve problems
63 Due to local circumstances like low salaries for highly educated people, or local wars in the 80s an important part of the highly educated people left the country. This is why it is called brain drain.
together with us. In analysing this, I see that we often used people who had Suriname experience, knew the local context and history very well, and had their own network of connections. These key persons also brought in their own networks during the process. It happened in natural, spontaneous ways.
The coordination group assumed the importance of others’ voices to make the process succeed, and our own enthusiasm and passion worked like a little fire...just enough to ignite other inner flames to join, to go on together in this process. It is like tapping from the inner source.
We were very clear to the participants at all levels, that we would use previous work done in Suriname.
We honored the cultural construction by appreciating the developments which had already taken place. It was important to express this. We explained that we did not start the process from level zero, but that we wanted to use the good things which already were developed, such as official documents, pacts between other countries, experiences from local educational pilot projects, lessons learnt, and ideas and expertise from locals. We showed that we appreciated this local knowledge. It‘s here where we see some of the principles of Appreciative Inquiry. The relationship between the coordinating group and the Minister of Education and Director of Education was strongly positive, based on years of positive collaboration.
Trust seems to be an important by-product within this process. Trust must not be seen as situated in the individual, as though it is a commodity that can be given or taken, or as if it is static, or an entity. To the post modernist (social constructionist), trust is a relational, achieved, meaning. Trust, in the social constructionist view, happens in the process of on-going, or relating of people, it‘s a by-product of relationship. It means, being open to other‘s stories and critiques, being seen and listened to, by others, not criticized, judged or analysed by others, in a context in which people feel safe to open their hearts, to talk, and to share. Trust replaced discussions about right or wrong, battles about who wins this game, and power play. Dialoging with others made each voice as important as the others. Helping people to understand other points of views as equally important, prevented these power plays. The decrease of these power plays and the increase in trust among participants, led to a reduction in attitudes such as: I am better than the other, or right versus wrong, or, I want to express only my ideas because they are the best.
The coordination group was skilful in handling all these experiences and different views of participants, and stimulated active listening, without criticism. This gave room for language practices, such as dialogues, to share openly about hope and dreams, but also to speak about current problems within Suriname education and society. These dialogues were important because they broke down the hierarchical positions of participants within the system. We were always very conscious about the importance of putting people in relation, and tried to strengthen the growing relationships by ongoing communication within the appreciative stance.