Primary Environment Care

UNICEF realised that only way to make development programmes work was to link them up with the people concerned - the community - witrh the people’s need. To enable them to express these they need to be empowered through awareness and acceptance by the donors, the implementors and by stengthening their organisational and insitutional capacity. They have to be consulted before plans are finalised trying to find out if this is what they need; how it will help them; if it can be maintained by them and involve them; and if it will make the best use of available natural resources. Irt must suit their culture, their traditional values and improve their lifestyles and help improve their overall condition.

To achieve this a lot of discussion, training of various groups - both benefactors and beneficiaries - is necessary. They will need to access new technologies and techniques, become socially more awake and aware of what benefits they can ask for and get. Two groups that need special attention are women and children. Each group can be trained to serve their common needs without compromising their inherited wisdom of generation. The facilitators who link donors and communities must be sensitised to the different way of life and values so that neither harms the delicate relationship between them. Once must be collected and analysed to build on achievements and to avoid future pitfalls. They must be continuous monitoring by the people themselves and by all those who have contributed to the programmes.

This information must then be carefully documented and fed to the various regional offices that are concerned with these programmes.

IRED International through its office in Colombo will be an important centre to gather and disseminate the information received to any of its a hundred offices in 70 countries across the globe. This information can be sifted and stored and made available to any one in the network that wants it.

IRED’s Information Documentation and Research (IDRC)thus has a crucial and vital role to play in the continued development of the people who need their assistance throughout the world.