Embracing Practices of  Inclusion

by MCNV, Global Initiative on Psychiatry and World Granny.

Stories of how people in Georgia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Vietnam made inclusive development happen in their societies. This book of case studies and grounded theory was written by community leaders, local authority staff and NGO practitioners from five countries, all involved in the Transition in the East Alliance programme, over five years. It contains significant experiences and lessons about the practice of inclusive development for a wide range of excluded or marginalised groups, useful for policy-makers, programme designers, local authorities, development practitioners and community leaders alike.

​Download the Book (PDF 12mb)
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Videos

​Tiny Flower's Shop and Cafe -  how a disabled woman was supported to establish and grow a successful business in Vietnam.
View/Download - YouTube

HIV Self-help groups in Vietnam
View/Download on YouTube

Training Guides

Training guide community-based participatory video

Training guide in community-based theatre 

Training guide in community-based photo-voice

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About the Book

This book and resources are offered as a contribution towards developing good policy and practice to enable the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve their promised results. We wish to share these stories with people who were not involved in the programme, as an inspirational and instructive guide, to support their work in enabling inclusive development to happen.

You will find real practices here, not idealised recipes. It is about the highs and lows and the struggles we had, whether these were victories and joys or disappointments and defeats. We describe, understand and explain what actually happens when conscious, integrated and coordinated efforts are made to tackle one of the toughest social problems we face as humanity, where significant groups of people suffer the indignity and hardship of social exclusion, ill-health and poverty amidst the rising prosperity and well- being of society around them.

We reveal the diversity and complexity of the drivers of exclusion and the absolute necessity of all involved in inclusion programmes to approach the work with an open, learning attitude. It is about our attempts as community leaders and practitioners and staff of NGOs and local government to jointly unlock the positive forces for change and unblock healthy human development.

Who wrote the book? 
The authors who contributed to this book were involved in a consciously integrated and multi-actor programme on inclusion that ran from 2011 until mid-2016 in many communities and local government localities in five countries: Georgia, Laos, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan and Vietnam.

It was coordinated by ‘the Transition in the East Alliance’ (TEA) of three Dutch NGOs - MCNV, Global Initiative on Psychiatry, and World Granny.
 
How did we write it? 
In mid-2015, the practitioners working on the programme in three of the project countries made a tentative selection of case stories and films they would like to document.  Several writing workshops (or “writeshops” as we call them), were then conducted, where practitioners, community leaders, civil society and local government  members  and  staff  came together to surface and analyse their experiences together and to write case studies with helpful learnings to share with the world in an accessible way.