Participants in an ActionAid-facilitated immersion spend a minimum of three days and nights staying with a family in a village and living, as far as possible, how that family lives. The idea is that by sharing, however briefly, in the lives of their hosts they will start to understand those lives their richness and their challenges in new ways.
The AAI Immersions programme is designed for development professionals and the staff of aid agencies and governments. It offers a practical learning route to understand poverty in a less structured, more flexible way than the sometimes heavily planned itineraries, meetings or workshops held in capital cities.
These week-long facilitated learning workshops are centred around the individual participant and his or her individual learning needs and outcomes.
The essence of the immersion is that the visitor is not an important person, but a fellow human being. She or he spends nights living in a community, taking part and helping in life, and experiencing and learning as a participant.
ActionAid is offering facilitated immersions on a regular basis, hosted by its country programmes and partners in Africa and Asia.
ActionAids own staff will also take part, as a way of motivating and periodically re-connecting them with the people to whom they are ultimately accountable.
Postponed till further announcement. However, ActionAid facilitated immersions are available in following countries:
Uganda : October 2007
contact: delphine.mugisha@actionaid.org
India : November 2007
contact: damodharam.k@actionaid.org
