Introduction: A history of Training for Transformation

Anne Hope and Sally Timmel

The Training for Transformation (TfT) philosophy and approach to community development grew out of a number of value systems and fields of study. Much of the original work was written by Anne Hope and Sally Timmel, who wrote clearly on the topics discussed. The reason the TfT books have been as popular as they have been might be that they were written in accessible English. In this brief history, we summarize: the content, or the 'why' and 'what' that form the basis of TfT; the historical context in which this approach was developed; how this approach was put into practice, both on a strategic level and practically on a local level by the authors; and how the learning from initial programmes was put into practice.

The roots of Training for Transformation: spiritual, intellectual, and experiential

The taproot of Training for Transformation's (TfT's) approach to development comes from the authors' own spiritual search. Anne Hope came from a South African urban background with rich international experience of Roman Catholic social teaching. Sally Timmel came from a small town in the United States, with her Lutheran Church formation extended by Protestant influences at college, the Peace Corps in Ethiopia, and the student YWCA.

Living out one's faith 'in the world', responding to the cries of those on the margins, drew both Anne and Sally to a common cause, and their bond within the International Grail cemented the partnership.

The Grail is an international ecumenical women's movement that began in 1921 in Holland. It was a strong Catholic women's movement in Europe before World War II but was driven underground by the Nazi regime. After the war, it transformed itself into an international Catholic women's movement responding to urgent human needs in over 25 countries. The Grail set up girls' schools, hospitals, clinics, training centres, and community development programmes with local women. In the 1960s, the Grail was involved in processes leading to the transformation of the Catholic church in Vatican II. Many theologians at that time were instrumental in opening up the Catholic church to active engagement in society and to dialogue with other Christian faiths. The Grail had been experimenting with different types of religious ritual, and now opened its membership to include other women, especially Protestant women, seeking a spiritual community. New programmes began.

Anne had been involved in the Grail since 1954. She taught for four years in a girls' high school in a rural village in Uganda and became involved in adult education. She was inspired by Julius Nyerere's vision of education for teenagers and adults, which had the potential to transform the lives of rural communities. She had strong bonds with members of the Grail in Portugal who had worked with Paulo Freire in communities of farmers and fishermen in Brazil and Portugal. She was convinced that his approach could be effective in Africa, and she began to adapt it with Steve Biko for training the leadership of the black South African Student Organisation (SASO).

Sources of inspiration

During our years in Kenya (1973 to 1980), we started the DELTA (Development Education and Leadership Teams in Action) programme there, became interested in the struggles of people throughout the countries of the South to gain political and economic independence and to overcome poverty. We read voraciously, including the new West African literature that was banned in South Africa. We based many discussions on the films of Ousmane Sembène, such as Xala, and on Souheil Ben-Barka's A Thousand and One Hands and Jean-Louis Bertucelli's Ramparts of Clay. We met Ngugi wa Thiong'o, a Kenyan, and worked with Ngugi wa Mirii, who produced Ngugi's political plays in the villages around Limuru. All facilitators attended a performance of Okot p'Bitek's play Song of Lawino at the university. It was one of the first literary works to challenge the cultural cost of the current model of development.

Julius Nyerere was president of Tanzania during this period and we continued to watch developments there. Nyerere was a creative thinker and a statesman. He recognized that the policies of dominant development organizations were failing to deal with problems and often made them worse, contributing to the impoverishment of the countries of the South. He was a clear thinker and developed an increasingly sharp analysis. He was constantly searching to find effective solutions, constantly thinking, constantly learning.

Unlike most development thinkers who were working in the offices of their organizations or in academia, Nyerere had the authority as president of Tanzania to put his ideas into practice. The disadvantage of this was that, if any of his ideas did not work, it was obvious, whereas most ineffective ideas remained hidden in the pages of books.

We read a lot about India and China, including Han Suyin's family history – The Crippled Tree, A Mortal Flower, and Birdless Summer – and her three-volume history of Mao Tse Tung and biography of Zhou Enlai. We were fascinated by William Hinton's account of the transformation of village life after 1949 in Fanshen, and by Joshua Horn's account of the transformation of village health services by the 'barefoot' doctors in Away with All Pests.

We followed Mahatma Gandhi's role in the early struggle against apartheid in South Africa and then the Salt March in India, which are still models for the world. We read Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre's book, Freedom at Midnight, about the last years of the British Raj in India and the devastating violence in the Punjab and Bengal as India and Pakistan were separated from one another at independence. This brought to life the roles played by Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah and Mountbatten. We discussed The Jewel in the Crown series, and E.M. Forster's A Passage to India, and used the Gandhi film as a starting point for group discussion. The presence of Xavier Manjooran, Johnny Khanna, and Vally de Sousa, three Indian Jesuits who spent months with the DELTA programme, meant that the Indian experience was included in the search for policies and practices that could contribute to the well-being of the poor. Perhaps most challenging of all were the insights of Walter Rodney in How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Frantz Fanon in The Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks. It became clear to us that South Africa was a microcosm of the wider world. What White South Africa was doing to Black South Africa was reflected on a larger scale in what the rich industrialized world was doing to the countries of the South.

Conviction that transformation is possible

With Paulo Freire coming from Brazil, and the Grail an international movement, the strongest external influence on the training programmes came from Latin America, especially Brazil – initially from Freire, but later from Ivan Illich and Dom Helder Camara. We frequently used a slide show, initiated by Cardinal Arns and Ana Flora Anderson, called The Journey of a People; this was about the changes the Basic Christian Communities had brought about in the archdiocese of São Paulo. Two films made by an Irish film company, Radharc, provided inspiration for the DELTA participants. One film, New Day in Brazil, was about Basic Christian Communities and showed lay people, nuns, and priests involved in the struggles of the poor. They risked their lives in the face of national state security dictatorships. The other film, These Men are Dangerous, was about the prophetic stand taken by bishops such as Dom Helder Camara and Bishop Casaldáliga in direct challenge to unjust government policies. Dom Helder Camara's challenge at the church's Vatican II Council in Rome to make 'an option for the poor' is still an inspiration to many. There was a poster around at the time with Dom Helder's smiling face, saying:

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are poor, they call me a communist.

In many ways, it was Brazil and liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutiérrez, Marcel Casters, Leonardo Boff, Jon Sobrino, and Ernesto Cardinale that kept alive the hope and conviction that transformation is possible, that 'the way things are is not the only way that they can be'.

The hope can be captured in the following quotation:

Some people see things as they are, and they ask 'Why?' But others see them as they never yet have been, and they ask 'Why not?'

It is interesting that once again in 2012, Brazil has become a symbol of hope for all those who believe that a different world is possible. The city of Porto Alegre demonstrated how municipal leadership can transform a modern city into a humane environment for its citizens. It was the birthplace of the World Social Forum, which involves thousands of people from all over the world searching for alternative political, economic, and social structures. During his eight years as president of Brazil, Lula, a former trade unionist, introduced policies that have drawn 30 million people in his country out of poverty. Despite the protests, arising partly because the poor began to hope that 'life could be different', there is much we can learn from Brazil.

What forms Training for Transformation?

TfT is often associated with Paulo Freire's work. This Brazilian educator struck a chord in the minds of many practitioners in the fields of adult education and community development when his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, was published. Freire's work and life have been documented extensively. He studied law and found that the law was written for the wealthy and the powerful. He read extensively on the structures that set up local and global economies and systems of government. He was influenced by Antonio Gramsci and Frantz Fanon. Through trial and error, he developed an approach to adult education that, in Portuguese, is called 'conscientization'.

Freire's key principles of conscientization (or transformation) include the following:

• The human vocation to transform our world is based on the hope that it is possible to change our world into a more just society. Freire emphasized that the aim of education was radical transformation towards justice. Radical means going to the roots. To transform society, he suggests that we need to tap into deeper values of co-operation, justice, and concern for the common good. These values are at the base of almost all faiths, and it is a challenge to all of us to live out these values. This is why transformative education is essentially a spiritual process.

• Education must be relevant, based on generative themes that move a community to take action and claim their own power. Most education systems have been set up around what the elite in the society thought was relevant. But who decides what is relevant in a particular community or sector of our society? Freire recognized that emotions play a crucial role in transformation. By starting with the generative (or life-giving) themes of a community, people move from apathy to energy. Emotions are linked to motivation.

• Dialogue is crucial in every aspect of participatory learning, and in the whole process of transformation. For years, traditional educational, development, and public policies have relied on 'experts' or a 'person who knows'. The consultants, experts, and teachers come from their own context and limited experiences. On a great many issues, the so-called 'experts' have been wrong, with profound consequences. An example is that, from the 1990s to 2008, mainstream economists convinced most global leaders that they could rely on growth to create jobs that would trickle down to the poor. The economic recession that followed has led to greater global poverty and political upheavals. Freire's emphasis on dialogue recognized that both 'social' knowledge – that we all have – and 'scientific' knowledge – that 'experts' may have – need to be blended together to arrive at 'transformative' knowledge.

• Freire believed that 'problem-posing' rather than 'banking' education was needed to change the dynamics of learning. Traditional education strives to pour knowledge into the heads of the learners (who are seen as empty vessels). Freire called this 'banking' education and believed it needed to be turned upside down, starting with a common search for the causes of the problems that concern a community and helping them to search for solutions.

• The cycle of reflection and action (or praxis) is central. Freire believed in the ongoing process of community transformation. Nobody has all the answers to most problems, so facilitators and learners are involved in a common search. Classes are seen as 'learning circles', and programmes are 'learning organizations'. Sustainable change requires ongoing reflection and evaluation as events and circumstances change. New facts, more research, and ongoing dialogue with communities add to the knowledge within those communities.

• No education is neutral. This is a critical component of Freire's thinking. Does education 'domesticate' people to fit obediently into the roles required of them by the dominant culture, or does it enable them to claim their rights and responsibilities? To what extent do our programmes liberate people to be critical, creative, free, active, and responsible members of their society?

One of the key elements of this approach is to continually ask 'Why?' We saw how effectively this was used by David Werner in his book Where There is No Doctor. Werner showed how asking 'But why?', 'But why?', 'But why?' helped to unlock insights into the structures that hold people in poverty. Thelma Awori, one of the co-founders of TfT and later Deputy Director of UNIFEM (the United Nations Development Fund for Women) and Assistant Secretary-General and Director of the Africa Bureau of the UN Development Programme, translated this 'But why?' approach as 'What is the thing behind the thing, that is the thing?'

Freire developed this methodology working with the Movement for Basic Education in Brazil. This was a massive literacy programme with a new approach that enabled thousands of 'learners' to become activists. Using generative themes from communities and asking why their situation was as it was, and planning actions together, groups were mobilized to start thinking and acting for themselves. The literacy aspect of his work is fascinating in itself (for more on this, see his Education for Critical Consciousness, 1973).

Early in 1969 we heard that Paulo Freire was to spend part of the following year in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We had heard of his work of conscientization both through Colin Collins, a radical young Catholic priest who had already started trying to adapt his methodology with African Catholic teachers in South Africa, and also through Grail members who had been working with Freire in Brazil and Portugal.

Freire had been invited to Boston by a progressive group called International Development and Social Change, started by Denis Goulet and Jim Lamb. Jim's wife, Joann, was in the Grail and Anne had known her since the 1950s. We had read Pedagogy of the Oppressed and had been excited by it, so we were delighted when we were invited to join the study groups they were starting.

Inclusion and participatory methodologies

We met when we enrolled in the Adult Education Department at Boston University in 1969 and in the Human Relations Center. This centre had been started by Ken Benne, a warm, wise man who had turned leadership training upside down, by focusing not primarily on theory and content but on the process of interactions in a group. An understanding of these processes, and skill in working effectively with them, had been developed in the National Training Laboratories, to which the Boston Human Relations Center was directly connected. The Episcopal church had applied its methodology to the training of both clergy and laity to build open and loving Christian communities committed to justice and peace. This was the origin of the experiential courses initiated by Christian Education and Leadership Training (CELT) in South Africa.

Anne remembers Ken saying in one of his sessions, when the issue of sexism had come up after wrestling with racism: 'Once the women's movement really gets going, the cultural changes it will unleash will make all these other cultural changes look like child's play!' This was in 1969, the early days of what was later referred to as the second wave of feminism. It was astonishing for those times. We began to see a clear connection between the work of Freire and that of Ken Benne.