PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988-2001 3 Retrospective community mapping: a tool for community education

Document begins: PLA Notes CD-ROM 1988­2001 3 Retrospective community mapping: a tool for community education Wilbert Z. Sadomba Introduction assistance. In many cases communities have developed a dependency idea that someone When we1 were conducting Community Based else, not them, was responsible for ensuring the Planning (CBP) in Beitbridge, a southern success of the community plans. district in Zimbabwe, there came a request Project design, the next step after needs through the council, from the communities, for identification, therefore was in danger of raising community education. This surprised us as we community hopes and expectations. had assumed that community education was interwoven with the participatory planning that Communities would design projects thinking we were doing. Until now I do not think we that the government or other agencies would were completely wrong. Certainly the process fund whatever they identified as needs. This of participatory planning is, by its very nature, stems from experiences in the past where `shopping lists' were submitted, resulting in educational. So the question was, why this District Development Plans. In forwarding the request for education? list of wants, communities never questioned We were about to embark on project design where the resources would come from or ...