By Shweta Hegde
Development Practice Segment (DPS) is an opportunity work at the grassroots level to organize the community. During our earlier fieldwork segments, we focused on information collection, interpretation, and analysis. However, as the segment’s title implies, DPS is action oriented. Here, we have started our actual work!
Initially in the village, some people said to me, “You are looking like a sales girl. We will not purchase anything”. Several of them said, “You people have cheated us. Do not come again to our village. If we will get angry, we do not what we will do.”
At the end, though, the reception was, “You are just like our daughter. Do not go so far to Tamil Nadu. At least stay in Karnataka and meet us frequently.”
At first, people had a negative impression on the Kalanjiam due to some misperceptions, but the region co-ordinator Mr. H. C. Gowda gave me the opportunity to face this challenge and I successfully fulfilled it.
I was able to initiate a new cluster and I formed six groups in the same area. For this, I followed several strategies, and ultimately learned that working at the grassroots level requires a lot of patience.
The following video illustrates my journey during DPS 1 in the Tumkur region of Karnataka.
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