Respect

At first it felt like a lot of jargon when we spelt out ViDAL philosophy. By the time we got familiar with the rural lifestyles and people we realised we were actually speaking sense, and that aspects like respect are embedded in their verbal and non-verbal communications of feelings. It became clear that ViDAL philosophical perspective does fit in well with the feelings of the people in the villages except that we needed to convert it into a non-negotiable practice stream. Way back in 2001 December, when Pingali Rajeswari was on conducting needs assessment in villages for COW project, she had a meeting with the villagers in Parvathapur village. It was a long drawn meeting engaging people and asking so many questions of this and that with information that was rolling out rapidly. After a good two hours meeting tea and biscuits were offered to the people and one women sitting behind softly commented, “for talking so long, they give tea and biscuits”, a subtle expression indicating that it was a very unfair way of give and take. Those small words with deep emotion remained in the mind of people in ViDAL and an effort to reduce formal meetings followed. We try not to engage in meetings unless we were sure of not only of intentions but also our actions. Similarly it was observed that people in the village find it strange that we take pictures. They say that they too are human beings just like you and me. Though they smile out of humility when foreigners take pictures they don’t really enjoy them being captured in the frames without a reason or purpose. Now, we ask their permission to take pictures if we have to (that too for any specific purpose) and conduct meetings only if it very important. We speak to people in their homes individually to understand their challenges and needs.