242. It is also useful to hold workshops to exchange experiences between communities or territorial areas that have initiated the process or between different neighborhood areas within the same community. It is also useful to analyze how the process is going with all the various participants with the aim of correcting in time any errors that may have been committed and detect weaknesses. This way, the people themselves become trainers, training other people in their community or territorial area.
243. Learning about other successful community experiences from other countries can also be very enriching.
244. An interesting pedagogical initiative could be to hold a series of video screenings in the neighborhood areas with documentaries made by the Centro de Investigaciones “Memoria Popular Latinoamericana” (MEPLA, “Popular Latin American Memory” Centre of Investigations). These documentaries present – in an attractive and pedagogical manner – various successful community experiences from different Latin American countries. Readers can find a concrete proposal for such a series online at http://videosmepla.wordpress.com/.34
245. These educational activities seek to break down the barrier between “those who know” (technical experts, public servants, politicians) and “those who don’t know”.
246. We should not forget however, that no training day could ever teach someone more than what they learn in practice by participating in the planning process.
247. Lastly, we want to point out that an important part of this training initiative should begin before the different participants assume their respective responsibilities.
7) PRIORITIZE ACCORDING ONE’S OWN RESOURCES
248. One of the most important factors for ensuring the success of any decentralized participatory planning process is making sure the participants understand that they should set goals that can be achieved within a short timeframe, using one’s own resources and the active involvement of the largest number of people possible. They should not simply wait for the state or other entities – governmental or otherwise – to assign them funds to begin carrying out tasks. Even if external resources do not arrive, there are many initiatives that can be undertaken immediately.
249. But setting achievable goals implies a new way of diagnosing the situation; one that prioritizes those initiatives that can be implemented with the resources the community, territorial area or municipality has at hand.
250. If the diagnosis is not carried out with this criterion in mind, what tends to happen is that, rather than stimulating participation, people tend to remain passive, waiting for a higher body to resolve their problems, or they become disillusioned with the participatory process because the desired results are not obtained.
251. To give any diagnosis such a focus, the people should know what potentialities and opportunities exist in their surroundings, such as available volunteer labor, and the possibility of using scrap materials, fundraising, and organizing activities that can help raise money, etc. They should also investigate what opportunities a particular industry in the territory could provide in terms of helping them with their activities.
252. By letting our imaginations run free; we might find that we have at our hands an infinite number of resources that we previously had not seen.
253. Prioritizing aspirations that can be implemented with one’s own resources means we can immediately begin executing priority public works, the results will be seen in the short term and, with that, the self-esteem of the people will rise, motivating them to participate with more enthusiasm in future tasks.
254. This prioritizing should not simply be the responsibility of the Planning Team or the Council; we should invite all neighbors to contribute to the diagnosis and provide ideas for solutions or possible alternatives.
255. This criterion is especially important at the community level. Ensuring that a community is capable of finding ways to self-finance all or part of its initial plan is a fundamental condition for the success of the process.
256. Moreover, the community dynamic that is awakened when people realize that problems can be resolved if everyone is willing to contribute their share tends to attract the attention of the state. Often, these communities are the first to benefit from state funds.
257. Readers can see for themselves what we are talking about in the aforementioned documentaries filmed by MEPLA.
258. Where the solution is too costly or complex and therefore out of the reach of the people, the communal, territorial or municipal council should present them as part of the participatory planning process to other government bodies.
5) GENERATING A USEFUL AND ACCURATE DATABASE
259. Another fundamental premise for DPP is the need to generate an accurate and up-to-date database in regards to the aspirations that the people have formulated.35
260. Some readers might be asking why are we restricting the database to a certain number of aspirations rather than talking about a database that covers all aspects of the community, territorial area or municipality.
261. Undoubtedly, the ideal situation would involve the most thorough database possible, but experience shows that often a lot of time is spent on building up a database, delaying the initiation of the planning process when, in fact, much of this data is not needed for coming up with the plan.
262. What sense does it make to investigate existing healthcare infrastructure, available healthcare workers, the most common diseases, how well pharmacies are functioning, the price of medicines, etc., if residents are happy with the healthcare they currently receive and are instead concerned with resolving aspirations to do with unemployment or school absenteeism, for example?
263. Is it not more logical to focus our efforts on obtaining data that can allow us to more deeply analyze these issues, rather than dispersing our efforts trying to build a thorough database, which implies a lot of effort for little short term return?
264. Of course, a basic minimum of general data is required, but we recommend only delving deeper once the most significant aspirations of the population have been collected.
265. In the second volume looking at methodology, readers will find information on what to investigate and how to present the information when trying to compile a thorough database. But, we reiterate, this should not be our starting point or a prerequisite for beginning the planning process. We nevertheless think it handy to have data that can provide us with a more objective vision of our reality, while obtaining more data as needed in order to advance the community planning process.
266. Often, at the different levels of various state institutions or NGOs, we can find particular data, but nowhere is this data organized in a single place, much less at the community level. And this data usually does not tend to refer to social actors, something that for us, with our humanist and pro-participation focus, is central.
267. It can be handy to rely on a group of activists to compile this data.
268. This group of activists should seek the support of people who are knowledgeable in the areas they are investigating (school directors, family doctors, priests, local police officers). They should also visit the offices of local governments and other state entities to find more technical data, such as land use, types of soil, available infrastructure and any other information that could be relevant to studying a particular aspiration. This last activity could be transformed into a popular audit of how these public services handle statistical data.
269. It can also be useful to work with the community in coming up with a map that notes the boundaries of the territory, its roads, its educational institutions, health clinics, workplaces, shopping centers, churches, sports facilities, meeting and recreational spaces (library, cinemas, theatre, Infocenters), green spaces, tourist attractions, etc. This map should include basic demographic data.
270. We know that there are complicated methodologies for coming