By Jasmine Adaickalam (YSS Service Director)
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The passageway towards a goal is never a straightforward one. In human life and journey windy and rough roads, humps and bumps are unavoidable and to be expected. But they serve as tools calling for correction and edification. In the project journey (June 2001 – July 2002) too there were few such difficulties. But these have churned our analytical mind to bring forth the ambrosia of knowledge to plan and implement the next phase of action.
What are some of those and how are we enlightened through these will be shared with you through the following paragraphs. |
Reaching out to youths who fall into high risk labelling is one thing but reaching out to youths with criminal behaviour just seemed to be difficult. Usually they kept themselves away from social programmes, may be for fear of ridicule, negative labelling and uncertainties as to what reception they might get. But this has also proved to be a blessing in disguise as struggles have taught us to reflect and to come to terms with new ideas that we are excited about. (Refer to website article by Dr Denison Jayasooria, “Levels of Intervention in Addressing Crime & Violence among Indian Youths.”) This is where we have learnt to research rather than being simplistic in our conclusions.
Another struggle is to find the balance between administering and implementing the project. Even though the project is over we are still completing the writing and sending of reports, which means no administrative expenditure available from the allocation to finalise the reports and accounts. This means most of the times YSS officers have to double up as administrators and implementers of the project. Again there is a silver lining of hope in this cloud, that being the urgency and the importance of setting a system that will be the smart move in enhancing project administration.
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Working with implementing partners at times has become difficult due todifferent set of expectation and understanding. The implementing partners also vary in terms of project orientation, understanding the project in its totality and socio-economic standing. In some programmes the neighbourhood leaders have been our implementing partners while in others certain Indian Based Organisations (IBOs) have been partners.
Because of their differing orientation, insisting on standard format becomes sometimes little messy. Other times the finance also becomes an issue for they have to advance the money and wait for payment. This at times is tedious as the payment procedure of the ministry is stringent and takes quite a while to be processed. |
Gaining the trust and confidence of battling groups within the neighbourhood is another major hurdle. Even before YSS could ever enter into these neighbourhoods this warring groups exist. Sometimes this is one pertinent reason as to why certain social problems exist on that neighbourhood. Because of this YSS chooses this neighbourhood to implement social programmes but find more struggles along the way keeping to be neutral. Whole lot of manipulation and manoeuvring takes place to vie the undivided attention of YSS. This makes the environment filled with tension and creates hindrances to gain the trust and support of the total neighbourhood as they are already divided.
Another snag in the process of rebuilding neighbourhood is the dearth of suitable facilitators who can communicate to the grassroots at the grassroots with an appropriate social work value system such as human dignity, justice and equality. Good and effective communication depends on identifying with the target group through empathy, compassion, good grasp of the people’s language, their needs, concerns and a presentation skills with a workable knowledge on the cultural and religious sensitivity. When the facilitators lag behind in these above-mentioned areas the communication lines slurred and gaining the confidence of the people becomes complicated.
Whether these are lamented as thorns in the flesh or lauded, as provocation towards correction is the key factor. YSS has taken the latter option to be better equipped in the programme delivery and it is our sure hope that more improvements at the grassroots level will be seen in the next phase of this project. |
