Initial reflections on the past year’s work…

Well, I’m back in the UK and it’s been quite a year.  I have had the opportunity to carry out my work and research in/with Seva Mandir across a range of programmes, processes, contexts, issues, scales, and so on. I have engaged with diverse theoretical perspectives and an endless stream of questions emerging from my [...]

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getting back on track

After my more than 3 months in England, replete with my first term at IDS and some quality time with my family, I’m now back at Seva Mandir, Udaipur.
Without losing time I’ve pretty much dived into work, trying to make sense of what I might be able to do now that I’m back. So far [...]

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What I’ve been doing

The way that can be described is not the absolute way…
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What we’re about

All we propose, in return, is that you care for each other, help each other, treat each other with respect and dignity, work and play together and take your future and your children’s future into your own hands and do your best to make existence into the most wholesome, meaningful experience possible for everyone.
Get it?

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conversations, presencing, change and more

A while back I had been talking about social objects – the things that give us a reason to be in a relationship with others – and how they are critical elements in the process of social transformation. Now there’s a kind of magic that takes place in that fuzzy area where we interact around [...]

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Women, unity, gifts and spirituality: the foundation for women led community development in Delwara

In the small multi-caste town of Delwara, a women’s group has been formed. This group is a platform for women to come together on a common platform across all kinds of traditional divides – caste, religion, class, etc. – to become agents of their own destiny. This morning, I spent a few hours with the [...]

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the complan: where am i now?

An interesting time to write: I’m really supposed to be converting the last 6 months of dialogue, head-scratching, getting tired and worked up, writing on flip-charts, making presentations and so on into a single document that will: (a) communicate to donors what it is that Seva Mandir is planning to do for the next 3 [...]

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vehicles for social objects

The last few posts on social objects have been gradually bringing a bit of clarity on how these social objects fit into the work that Seva Mandir and, I suppose, other organisations like it are involved in. This post is concerned with what, presumably can also be thought of as a social object: the [...]

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A new line of inquiry: social objects as medium for change

I have been thinking about social objects (a la Hugh of gaping void) for a while now – particularly in the context of the kind of work that Seva Mandir is involved in – i.e. ‘community development’.
“The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each other, as opposed to [...]

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Some positive feedback on the 6th CP process

Another pleasing outcome of today’s ‘last’ meeting for the 6th CP process has been the positive feedback on the overall process received by the team (which includes me). It was good to hear people voicing many of the points that I had mentioned in an earlier post based on my own observations. I guess it [...]

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