Dry-zone and the fellows

Last week the entire course went to the dry-zone area in the middle of Myanmar.

After a 12 hour bumpy bus ride we arrived to the quiet countryside, where we stayed for the next 3 days. During these days we experienced the small communities, local people and different cultures. In this post we are going to share about our meeting with the fellows, who are the local volunteers of the area devoting their lives to improve and develop their villages.

The fellows are villagers who participated in the fellowship-program, facilitated by Actionaid. In this program the fellows are being empowered by the tools ActionAid provides, as well as learning how to empower the rest of the community. When working to change and improve a community it is important to know where power comes from and how to use it.

There is the power within (yourself), the power with (with others), the power to act and the power over (others).

For the fellows it is very important to have power within, because they will be facing a lot of challenges in their work to improve the living standards of the community.

The power within have to overcome all of the personal obstacles and resistance from the family, neighbors, friends and so on. According to most of the fellows, building trust to the local community is the hardest task they face. In some cases it can take 5 years even gaining their respect. Both because the community has to believe on the fellows intentions for the greater good, but also because they need to risk and invest some of their energy for the course.

They also need the power with, in order to work together with the villagers, not forcing solutions on them. Only by working together as a unit, they will be able to accomplish their goals, as no man can change the systems alone.

Very importantly, they also need the power to act upon their ideas and hopes for the future, otherwise nothing will change. The fellows need the contacts and social respect to reach not only the other citizens, but also the authorities on a higher level.

The fellows main tool for achieving the different kinds of power as described above, comes from the training given by ActionAid and is called the Villagebook. The villagebook gives some tools for problem solving and village planning. The fellows create the villagebook together with the rest of the community. It contains important information about the village, the problems they are facing and how to solve them. Making them aware of the common problems they are all sharing, and thereby helping them to come up with a joint solution.

To sum up, our meeting with the fellows showed a real life example of both the theory we have learned in the sessions, and also how ActionAids programs work in practice.

A very inspiring experience!

Why GCC?

Some might think we are crazy for attending to this four month-course in global citizenship. Who chooses to leave their comfortable home with family, friends and the usual surroundings that you know and love?

WE DID!

Off course, there’s a lot of motivations to why we are here!

First of all, you need to have the courage to take a risk by stepping out of your monotonous life and experience yourself in a whole new light. When you are living in and learning about a new culture you are challenged in the way you think, the way you act and the way you feel. 

But these challenges are a good thing because it will bring you closer to who you are as a person. You will learn how to make a change and participate in your own way. So, don’t hold back because of your fears and don’t be scared to take the risk. 

You will be able to contribute, participate and overcome your personal challenges.

Another great motivation for this course, was the opportunity to not only attend a folk high school-programme but also combine it with travelling. This is a great possibility to experience new cultures on a more personal level. 

That is why we are here, all of us.

Even though the course only contains participants from Myanmar and Denmark it’s more about cultural exchange in a global perspective, which was also a big motivation of this course.

The opportunity to learn more about cultures, historical backgrounds and citizenship both globally as well as local. To gain new knowledge about acting as a global citizen and understanding the different traditions and social norms every culture have. 

This will give us a better opportunity to understand and respect other peoples way of thinking, living and their behaviour. But at the same time it will also give us a better perspective of ourself and our own culture, which we can only obtain by the meeting of other people and other cultures.

Sometimes, when seeing the injustice and unfairness of the world you want to act, but don’t know how. This course will help us to act.