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Section 2
Level II: Gaining understanding & sensitivity: After exploring the critical knowledge and information about a country, the next step is to gain a real sensitivity and understanding for the nature of the people, its culture, and its ways of doing things. This grounding in the traditions and ways of a county’s culture, may help prevent you in coming “from your prospective,” and to think in terms of sustainability and compassion.
- Only when you can see the world through the eyes of the people we are serving, can you begin to gain their trust and prayerfully guide them. You may also find they will influence your thought patterns as you experience the pain, joy, frustrations, limits, and possibilities of their world..
- For your team to understand the cultural ways of the country you’ll be visiting, there are numerous approaches: You may find help in understanding by talking to others who have visited the country, or get a copy of Roger Axtell’s Do’s and Taboos Around the World or Gladson Nwanna’s Do’s and Don’ts Around the World (versions for Africa, Caribbean, Asia, Oceana) (You can hunt down a used copy on www.BookFinder.com .) Have some fun in your small group meeting with the faux pas that could be committed, so you are not practicing on those you wish to bond with. When the people we serve see your respect for them as well as their culture, they know you have cared enough to see their world through their eyes.
- If you want to develop a more advanced understanding of the country, there are several Diagnostic Frameworks that will help you develop this sensitivity and understanding. If you download this short Community Foundations Diagnostic Guide, you will quickly learn how to conduct a brief:
- Historic Analysis
- Cultural Analysis
- Institutional Support Analysis
- Collaborative/Alliance Analysis
- Inevitably there will be other institutions, such as the Peace Corps, missionaries, the World Bank, Oxfam, etc. that will be in the country. Find ways to join forces to multiply your impact.
- Another area to explore is the Corruption Index in the country you are visiting. This will give you an idea of how things get done in that country. Corruption always gets in the way of real business, it disenfranchises the honest people, it demoralizes those who need help most, and it betrays trust. Do not succumb to bribes and extortions, but also do not become “holier than thou.”
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