Immersion as a form of apprenticeship at PRADAN (PLA 57)

Immersions can have a huge impact on individual people. While this impact can be powerful and highly intense, it remains limited to those directly involved and to their immediate professional and personal contacts. This section moves us on from the individual perspective to explore how a range of organisations are using immersions for different purposes. This is the first of four articles in this section on staff selection, training and orientation.

Here, staff from PRADAN (Professional Assistance for Development Action) in India write about how they use immersions as part of their recruitment and orientation processes. PRADAN recognises that grassroots community work requires young people to 'swim against the social current' of contemporary India. It offers an apprenticeship programme during which new trainees can reflect on their career choice. The account here includes views from the organisation and also an account of the experiences of one of their recruits, Vishal Jamkar.

Guest editors: Izzy Birch, Raffaella Catani with Robert Chambers.

Participatory Learning and Action (PLA, formerly PLA Notes) is the world's leading series on participatory learning and action approaches and methods. PLA publishes articles on participation aimed at practitioners, researchers, academics and activists. All articles are peer-reviewed by an international editorial board.