Participatory Pages

The tool

Within a community setup, there are many institutional interactions, which have a direct bearing on a community’s economic state. Institutions, in this particular case, is used on its broader sense to include all groups within the community including state, civil society, community groups, religious groups and so on which have an influence on resource allocation and services within the community. Most of community’s efforts to improve their state (livelihood) are driven by institutions either within or from without the community. The institutions in this case should include any organized groups of community members for a specific purpose, religious and cultural groupings within the community, external organizations that interact in one way or another with the community e.t.c.

How to implement

The various organizations are listed and through discussion with the community, ranked in order of importance according to the community’s opinion. Based on this ranking circles of relative sizes are cut out of manilla paper or drawn on a chalkboard. Through further discussion with the community, this are place near or far from a larger circle representing the community.

Notes

The size of circles indicates the impact of the organization as perceived by the community. The bigger the circles, the grater the impact.
Nearness to the center of the community circle indicates relative level of interaction (relationship) between the community and the particular organization.
If the circles is situated on the edge of the community circle the interaction is very limited.
A large circles outside the circle symbolizes a great impact but poor relationship between the community and the organization.
Institutions have other inter-relations between themselves are indicated by overlaps between the circless.

The institutional interaction chart is a graphic representation of the community’s networking efforts aimed at creating a better life. The institutional interaction chart, otherwise referred to as Venn diagram (due to it’s likeness to its geometry counterpart), is a circular diagram modelled on the ground/paper, which shows the way the community works together with other groupings. It represents the community perception of impact, need and attitudes towards such groups. The institutional interaction chart is in reality a map of a community’s networking efforts.