Preliminary visit to Majgaon

The focus and design of the workshop was further discussed with Majgaon user groups representatives, in a meeting carried out during a visit to the hamlet, hold on Tuesday 8 October.

The objectives of this meeting were: (i) to get some ideas about what user group members would had been are interested in dealing with during the workshop; and (ii) to define the "who", "where", "when" and "how" of the workshop.

During this meeting, user group representatives fully agreed on the idea that this should had been " a community, not a project workshop". Therefore, it was decided that the event should cover all completed and on-going project sponsored activities, but not be limited to them: autonomous initiatives taken by UGs³ and new activities (even though not covered by project mandate) would had also been considered.

³ Such as, for instance, the commercialisation of compost made by Pragati Women User Group, and the selling of fruit and foder saplings by Nabajgaran User Group.

Participants in the meeting also expressed their interest in taking advantage of the workshop to promote an exchange among different user groups members and with non-participants. Two main topics were considered specially relevant for such a discussion: the changes on-going in the community situation because of user groups action and the strengths and weaknesses of the implementation process.

Decision was therefore made to invite to the workshop also community members who did not participated to 1996 CAP formulation and implementation. In particular, a direct invitation was addressed by user groups representatives (and the workshop team) to the households belonging to the Adwabary low caste minority ethnic group, who, for a number of reasons, were so far only marginally involved in the community development process.

Finally, organisational and logistics aspects of the event were agreed upon. It was decided that the workshop would had took place on the following Thursday and Friday (with the first day essentially devoted to evaluation and the second one to re-planning exercises), from 11.00 am. to 5 p.m. Due to favourable weather conditions, it was suggested to carry-out the event in open air, on a natural terrace located on the top of Majgaon hill (a beautiful place, to which the community seemed to attach a special symbolic value). Participants in the event were estimated in about thirty persons representing as many households. Tea and refreshment would had been offered by the project.