1. García, M (2016) Contributions of participatory research

SAVE OFFLINE

CONTRIBUTIONS OF PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH TO BUILD UP NEW WAYS OF RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE ACADEMY AND COMMUNITIES ON THER RURAL DRINKING WATER AND SANITATION MANAGEMENT Mariela García Vargas “The interpretation of our reality through patterns not of our own, serves only to making us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever lonelier.” Gabriel García Márquez (1982) “The Solitude of Latin America”

1. Introduction In the 1980s, universities were concentrated on a type of teaching where the main aim was the transmission of content. Research was mainly carried out in laboratories and extension work was mainly carried out in the form of continuing education courses and the sale of consultancy services. Especially in the faculties of engineering, the extension was the space to carry out consultancy for companies or for state bodies. The establishment of full-scale projects, where the technological developments achieved at the university come into contact with people, to help improve their quality of life, has not been part of the agenda of these faculties. As Levin and Greenwood (2008) have underlined, we have turned universities into "mass teaching institutions or as contract research shops for governments and the private sector". At the time, the Faculty of Engineering at Universidad del Valle, Colombia, like most other faculties, was focused on artefacts, in a context where a technical approach predominated, with a high valuation of conventional water treatment technologies, based on the use of chemicals and without any contact with the end-user communities. It was precisely in this environment that the Institute for Research and Development on Water Supply, Environmental Sanitation and Water Resource Conservation-Cinara was created. It is an interdisciplinary organization that develops inter-institutional work with rural and peripheral urban communities, seeking to respond to social problems related to water supply and environmental sanitation. When looking back at the concepts that helped the structuring of the Institute's approach and work methodology, becomes central to highlight the People-centred Development Vision (Freire, 1984; Cernea, 1995; Max-Neef, 1993), and the participatory research methodologies. In the case of Cinara, the approaches of the Participatory Action Research- PAR, promoted in Colombia by Fals Borda (1978, 1987, 2006), and the Participatory Rural Appraisal-PRA, proposed by Chambers (1992, 1993, 1995, 2006) from the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, England, were fundamental. These approaches have had a wide impact on the epistemological, methodological and organisational conception of the Institute, as well as on the development of technological innovations and the teaching practice carried out at the Institute. Fals Borda (2010: 206-207) considered that "PAR methodology is integral, i.e., it is not only a research method, nor only a way of reaching grassroots groups, adults, nor only a form of political action. It is a combination of these three forms of procedure”. Colombian universities generally lacked this integrative vision in the 1980s. They were immersed in a positivist paradigm, which still

predominates in many places, thus, the contact with communities and with the solution of concrete problems was almost non-existent. The PAR had the irreverence to talk about “own science” (Fals, 1987), when universities were basically dedicated to repeating/reproducing the texts produced in Europe and the United States. Taking up Gramsci (1976), it promoted an organic intellectual committed to transforming his own reality as opposed to the vision of the professional who knows everything and must teach the ignorant community. Furthermore, relying on Freire (1969, 1982), it claimed local knowledge and promoted the dialogue of knowledges. These approaches have been fundamental in building and strengthening new relationships between academia and communities. This document provides a brief account of the emergence of Cinara as an academic institution oriented towards the development of eco-technologies for the treatment of drinking water and the improvement of sanitation conditions. A transformation in the conception of projects, in the vision of professional practice and in the practice of community management of rural water was proposed. This was based on the direct contact with communities and the approaches of participatory research, together with some other approaches such as the gender perspective, constructivism and critical pedagogy. 2. The formation of the Cinara Institute The United Nations report (2011) recorded that Latin America had already met the Millennium Development Goals for drinking water. However, as the same report shows, coverage in rural areas is lower than in urban areas, and within the latter there is always a large difference between the formal and informal city. In Colombia, the difference between cities and rural areas in terms of access to public water and sanitation services has historically been asymmetrical, and for this reason, in the mid-1980s, a group of sanitary engineers was formed within the Fluid Mechanics Department at the Engineering Faculty in Universidad del Valle, they were oriented to carry out research into improving drinking water quality. The first international project of this group was on the application of slow sand filtration technology to water treatment for human consumption in small rural communities.1 This project allowed the group to come into contact with an unaware reality: the rural world. It allowed them to set a new path, because these professionals had been trained to work as engineers for the city. It was necessary to look for technological solutions that were reliable but easy to operate and maintain by communities in rural areas and on the urban periphery.2 In order to work with slow sand filtration, the group had to undertake research into complementary treatments (i.e., gravel filtration and dynamic filtration) because the slow sand filters were easily clogged, given the high levels of sediment/turbidity that are transported by the Colombian rivers during the rainy season. The appropriation and adaptation of existing international knowledge on slow sand filtration, ongoing research on gravel/coarse filtration, together with dialogue with community system’s operators and the systematisation of the work 1

The International Project for the Application of Slow Sand Filtration was coordinated by the International Water and Sanitation Centre, IRC, based in the Netherlands. The third phase (1984-1986) of this project was carried out in India and Colombia. 2 80% of the municipalities in Latin America have less than 5,000 inhabitants.

carried out in the field in real scale projects, gave rise to the FiME technology,3 multi-stage filtration. This technological alternative offers excellent conditions for use by rural communities due to its reliability and ease of operation and maintenance, all at affordable costs. This engineering group found out that water supply and sanitation systems were in the hands of communities in the urban periphery and rural areas. Therefore, they had to come into contact with the organisations that were responsible for providing those water and sanitation services. This led them to face situations that were difficult to understand, such as those same leaders who had been opened to collaboration along the process were the same ones who prevented others in the community from joining and participating in the project. This was because people identified those leaders with a political party that was not favoured by most local people. However, the engineer’s group did not detect this situation at the time. So, it became clear that contact and work with communities were a little more complex than just offering technologies. There was not much knowledge on how to work with people in the Engineering Training curriculum and this fact led to recognise the need to recruit and work jointly with social sciences professionals. However, interdisciplinarity does not occur as a result of just bringing people from different disciplines together. First of all, it is important to recognise that it is a process that does not take place in a linear form. It involves strong discussions within the team, the generation of a common language, the recognition of different knowledges and the creation of a method that allows them to interact with communities as a team. Professional training, which considers academic knowledge as the only source of valid knowledge, is one of the greatest barriers to working with communities in a peer shape. An event to illustrate this very well occurred in the first years of work with the engineers from the Regional Committee of Coffee Growers, who were in charge of the construction of treatment plants for drinking water in the coffee zone of Valle del Cauca. When one of the schoolteachers argued on what he considered to be the cause of the problem in the local water supply system, the engineer from the Coffee Growers Committee in charge of the visit asked him: "Who is the engineer here, you or me?” The teacher replied: "Of course, you are the engineer" and the engineer replied: "Then let me, I am the one who knows". After this, the teacher made no further comment. This encounter revealed a reality that cannot be ignored, local knowledge is very often worthless for professional training. However, in another situation, both engineers and social scientists were left speechless when, in raising the importance of drinking water to communities, people responded that they had always drunk the local water and were healthy. This response was unexpected for those who believe that "professionals know and communities learn", and therefore expected straightforward receptivity from them. Hence, this gap shows the importance of having contact with action research. Since Lewin's pioneering work, action research has proposed that the researcher should no longer be a passive observer but should be involved in the solution of the problems. As Greenwood and Levin (1998) put it, this orientation "involves the co-generation of new information and analysis together with actions aimed at transforming the situation". It is a process in which practical solutions and new knowledge are co-created, i.e., it does not separate theory and practice. 3

In 2005, FiME technology was listed as one of the top ten Colombian inventions, that have contributed to the world heritage of large-scale solutions, by the Semana magazine, one of the most read and influential publications in Colombia.

The access of communities to technical knowledge is facilitated and their self-confidence is strengthened when the voice of them (both men and women) and their knowledge are retrieved. The contact with Freire's work (1969) was very important to structuring an interdisciplinary method of working with communities. Thus, his conception that people are not empty vessels, that they have knowledge and are able to describe, analyse and transform their own reality by themselves. Freire proposed awareness as the basis of the educational process and freedom as the goal of this process. In this way knowledge and empowerment are inextricably connected. Both the PAR and the Participatory Rural Appraisal proposed self-diagnosis as the starting point for any project carried out with communities, insisting that local people know their situation and have alternatives for solving their problems. They also gave great importance to the return of information as a key element to interaction between communities and academics. This interaction leads to mutual learning, so that without much difficulty the communities end up mastering the technical knowledge, to the point that an engineer from a governmental institution amazed by this process’ achievements, complained: "…what I do not tolerate is, those ladies, technical drawings on hand, asking questions about the distribution networks". This is because technical knowledge has generally been considered an exclusive domain of people with academic background, but mostly men. The structure of our University was made up of Faculties, split further into departments and specific domains, with professors dedicated to disciplinary teaching and consultancy. Therefore, there was no place to interdisciplinary and inter-institutional work, and much less for work oriented towards community empowerment. Hence, first in 1989 the Interregional Centre for Water Supply and Sanitation-Cinara, was created. As a result of the emergence of the National System of Science and Technology in Colombia, Cinara was transformed, in 1995, into a Research and Development Institute. At the beginning of the 1990s, Cinara developed "The National Programme for Technology Transfer in the Water and Sanitation Sector in Colombia", supported by the Netherlands government. The Institute began to work in eight regions of Colombia and ever since has kept the interaction with different regions in the country and with other Latin American countries. The technological and methodological developments that have taken place at the Institute have also proved to be useful for different regions and geographies.

3. New approaches that emerged from practice A transformed vision of projects has emerged from the joint work amongst academics, governmental and non-governmental institutions and communities, as well as on the role of professionals and the scope of community management. The projects became spaces for team learning, changing the mechanics of activities implementation and for processes of continuous discovery. This means an essential transformation of professionals who work with the communities so that they assume an active role of facilitators of such processes. The communities, beyond doing a good management in their settings, also begun to consider how to collaborate with others and in this way Partnership processes also emerged. An example of the latter is the constitution of a second-level entity called The Association of Community Water Supply and Sanitation Services Organization in Colombia-AQUACOL. This is an alternative to the isolation in which community management of water supply and sanitation systems has been maintained. In addition, this Association has established Community Learning Centres-CLCs with its members to

provide knowledge to community peers and institutions (both governmental and nongovernmental) interested in learning about community-based water management. Each of these developments is presented below. 3.1

Projects as a space for team learning

The concept of people-centred development and the practice of participatory research generated an epistemological change at the Institute, which led to a radical transformation in the methodology being applied in the water and sanitation sector in Colombia. The work being done in this sector was focused on results that were equivalent to the construction of infrastructure. Community participation was understood to mean the involvement of men in the construction process by digging trenches to bury pipes and groundworks, whilst women were up to preparing food for those doing the digging. The training was concentrated on teaching the water boards to collect the water rates, but the management of the resources was controlled by the sanitation staff belonging to Municipal Health Secretariats, who also guided what should be done with the resources. This approach favoured quantitative research and the implementation of surveys oriented to measure the impact of the water project on health. Sanitation was largely neglected and for the rural area mainly oriented towards the construction of latrines. In addition to the surveys, the work with communities consisted mainly of meetings where professionals spoke all the time and people "listened". The projects were only seen as tasks checklists accomplishment. The PAR, with its emphasis on recovering the local history, the history of the organisations and the execution of self-diagnosis, as a starting point, made possible to understand the diversity of rural life. This allowed to uncover the very different forms of income generation, cultural practices, knowledge and perceptions of problems that coexist in countryside communities, and even within a single community. There are also different limitations in the use of technology, different gender relationships towards water management, diverse forms of communication and meeting places and, in particular, it allowed for the identification of local problems and their prioritisation by communities themselves. The visual techniques used by PRA allowed for the participation of all people, regardless of their level of schooling, and allowed them to analyse the local situation in simple yet agile and meaningful ways. The interaction with communities led to finding out that only when they are concerned with water quality, they also start caring about not wasting it. In other words, they started caring about quantity, and became interested in micro-metering as a way of controlling misuse and leakages. In contrast to this process, engineering programmes conventionally teach that construction of water supply systems has to be conditioned to the upfront acceptance of micro-metering. Technological options are traditionally chosen by institutions without consulting the end-user communities. In the participatory approach, once water or sanitation has been identified as a priority problem, different technological options are presented so that the community can decide what is the most convenient option for its context. This activity, depending on the type of community, involves visiting other communities to learn about their experiences (this is done when there is no reference to the proposed options) so that an informed decision fed-back from practice and not just theory can be made. The community participates next at the design stage of the technical solution and monitors the construction process.

At the time, conventional chemical treatment (i.e., coagulation, flocculation, sedimentation and filtration stages) was the only option brought to communities, regardless of the raw water quality or the community capacity to pay. Thus, the full-scale development of MSF technology, brought about an easy-to-use alternative to rural communities, along with affordable operation and maintenance costs. Nonetheless, this is not either a universal recipe that works everywhere. For instance, high levels of true colour in raw water along with scarce land hinder the application of this technology. On the other hand, very recent research developments have opened the application of MSF to treat groundwater sources with high iron and manganese concentrations. In addition, and depending on the raw water quality, the number and type of treatment stages for an MSF treatment plant are to be defined. A fundamental change in the implementation of the project cycle was to take into account, at all stages, that communities teach and professionals learn. The implementation of socio-educational sessions on topics of interest for the development of the project and the strengthening of the community's capacities is also planned in a participatory manner. Each workshop begins with the recognition of the participants, so that later, the local knowledge about the specific issue is expressed through artistic expression (i.e., painting, modelling, music, acting) and/or role-playing and the elaboration of diagrams of various types. Subsequently, the necessary technological, organisational or methodological contributions are made and, finally, a reflective synthesis is constructed in which lessons and gaps are identified to be addressed in further workshops. It is a process of learning by doing, experimenting and reflecting on what has been done, so that progress is made in transforming the asymmetry of power, because communities appropriate the logic of technology and external staff understand their limitations in developing their work if there is not strong local community participation. The following phrase attributed to Lewin, based on the ideas of the pragmatic philosopher John Dewey, "…the best way to understand something is to try to change it…" illustrates well how the chain action-reflection-action makes up for a continuum transformation process that generates cultural renovation. In such process, the involvement of different social groups that make up for the communities is sought, placing special interest in the participation of women, who always fetch water in places where there are no water supply systems. However, they are left out when decisions are made about technological options to solve the problem. A group of "community leaders" is integrated with local people who are interested in the local research processes and in the materialisation of decisions taken collectively. Decisions upon the development of the project are agreed with them, but the whole community is linked through workshops. The workshops are guided by the logic of the project's implementation and allow new leaders to be detected. A community management organisation for water supply is strengthened or created when it does not exist, and new leaders that emerged in the process are involved in right away. In the process of implementing the learning project, academic, institutional and community knowledges are discussed in order to generate sustainable projects managed by communities. Therefore, special emphasis is placed on strengthening the capacity to carry out community monitoring of the construction process, organizing the administrative body, and strengthening community leadership. In other words, conditions are created so that community management of the water supply system is strengthened, get autonomy and the capacity to interact with

governmental and non-governmental organizations. Such interaction ought to be horizontal in a peer-like fashion, where specific support is requested when needed. Currently, there is a wide variety of full-scale projects located in different cultural, geographical and socio-economic areas of Colombia, and many of them have been in successful operation for more than twenty years, demonstrating that there have been transformations in the communities involved in these participatory processes. Communities generally take action in other areas of their local reality after carrying out a water or sanitation learning project. In terms of the governmental institutions involved in these processes, achievements are more at the level of the officials involved, and changes in the institutional culture are much slower but still possible. 3.2 Institutional actors as process facilitators According to De Schutten and Yopo (1983) the term agricultural extension was "originated in the United States to "extend" the knowledge of Centres of Agricultural Studies and bring scientific advances to the field". The figure of the rural extensionist or "external agent" (generally men), refers to the person who puts the farmer in contact with the knowledge developed in those centres and therefore was in charge of the technological diffusion. In the vision of development, spread by modernization theorists, the work of the external agent consisted in transforming traditional society into a modern one by adopting new values, devices and conceptual references, without any consideration for "traditional" practices and imaginaries. In analysing the role of the extensionist, Freire (1984: 23) is concerned that he has assumed a position of "propagandist" of certain practices or techniques instead of problematising the peasants´ situation "their concrete, objective, real situation, so that by capturing it critically, they also act on it". It was precisely to overcome this view that the figure of the facilitator emerged, as a person who embodies an attitude opposed to that of the traditional teacher, "knowledge holder". The facilitator must be open to listening and willing to learn and understand. Those who put forward this proposal were linked to the "people-centred development" approach. In this sense, Chambers (1993) raises the need to train a new type of professionals linked to Development. These professionals have to be able to put 'the last ones' (the poor and weak) at the centre of their work, so that they can set priorities and become managers of their own development. Complementarily, the knowledge of the poor and weak must be valued by professionals, who leave their role as teachers to become students. This concept of the facilitator fights against the paternalism and welfarism (top-down process) that had characterised the implementation of development projects. In his book Freedom to learn, the American psychologist Carl Rogers (1975), founder of humanist psychology, had proposed that in today's changing world, the educator must become a facilitator, who supports his or her students to develop their own thinking, critical and creative capacities. Rogers and Freiberg (1996) highlighted authenticity, appreciation, acceptance, trust and empathic understanding as the key qualities of the facilitator. For his part, Freire (1971), in his critique of banking education, outlined what a liberating education should be. It should really lead to empowerment based on his criticism of the view of the teacher as the only one who knows, thinks, regulates and acts towards a passive student in whom information is only deposited.

Chambers (2007) emphasises that the main components of PAR are behaviours, attitudes, methods and sharing. Some of the attitudes he highlights are: "facilitate", "sit down, listen and learn, that is, do not dominate", "ask them", "embrace error and learn from it", "shut up!.. Keep quiet. Welcome and tolerate the silence". Freire (1984: 53) made it clear that in vertical relations an oppressed consciousness is constituted, which makes the oppressed subjects appear "unsure of themselves”; that is without the right to say their word, and only with the duty to listening and obeying. It was indeed in the execution of Cinara's work that much of the success was found as a result of the personal transformations of the teams working with the rural communities in these processes. The attitudes that were expressed with people belonging to communities (i.e., respect, trust building, listening, etc.) were fundamental to the creation of symmetrical relationships of dialogue, where communities could express their thoughts, feelings, opinions and needs. It also became evident that when projects were carried out with other institutions without paying attention to this aspect, the same results were not obtained, and it became gradually essential to think about the figure of facilitators for social development processes. Based on Cinara's experience, the facilitator should have, in higher or lower dosages, some of the features listed below as desirable, but it cannot be forgotten that the institutional environment in which he or she operates has a great influence on her/him. The facilitator is first and foremost a person with a great awareness of his/her strengths and weaknesses, capable of putting him/herself in the shoes of others and skilled to awakening the potentialities/capacities of others in such a way that they strengthen their autonomy to make decisions and take further action. This is why a facilitator needs to develop conditions so that the thoughts and feelings of the participants can be expressed without pressure of any kind, without inducing responses, because only when there is freedom of thought and speech, new paths or different paths can be generated. For this to happens it is essential to build trust amongst participants, so that they can freely express their opinions. A facilitator must also have a work ethics that will avoid him/her from imposing his/her opinions and leads to collaboration with participants for building a shared vision. The facilitator must also have a clear understanding of the socio-economic, cultural and political context in which the project is taking place, its objectives and expected outputs, but at the same time, be open and flexible to changing course at any time, when he or she considers that conditions call for it. A facilitator should establish horizontal relationships. Establishing such relationships is not easy, since there are many interfering factors, such as professional, economic, social, political, or agerelated status that make participants to keep distant. The great skills of the facilitator lie in overcoming these barriers and generating a friendly environment where differences are respected. Another basic characteristic of the facilitator is that he/she should strengthen the development of emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1996; Goleman et al., 2003) of participants: self-knowledge, self-

awareness, self-esteem are key aspects to be addressed, as well as the creation of values such as solidarity and equity, so essential for community work. As Freire (2004: 54) pointed out: "Listening, in the sense discussed here, means the permanent disposition of the listener subject for the opening to the talk of the other, his/her gestures, and his/her differences". Learning how to listen is a key aspect because only when people know what the other thinks, feels and does, only then they are able to work together. Knowing how to listen leads to understanding the different logics operating within the execution of a project and to accepting that only by understanding diversity there will be an effective process of communication. The great success of a facilitator comes from being able to promote dialogue, because data, information and knowledge are in all participants, and they do not just come from the texts or theories in which they have been trained. The use of an easy-to-understand language by all participants is a key element for effective communication, as it is the ability to use rhetorical figures such as metaphors, analogies, story-telling and narratives to better portray thoughts and ideas. All things considered, the facilitator is mostly a simple person, without having the pretension of holding the truth, and who carries out permanent systematisation of the learning processes. Thus, the recording and analysis of daily events with their contingencies is one of their sources of learning. Finally, it is noteworthy to highlight that even a person with many of the above-mentioned qualities will have many difficulties in getting people to participate, if he/she does not have an authentic commitment to the people with whom he/she works. Likewise, if the process does not stir and awake the commitment of all participants there will be a little chance of success.

3.3 Community partnerships as an alternative to the isolation of community management of rural water supply In order to keep the achievements made in the learning projects, it is key to generate wider organizational structures that facilitate the exchange of knowledge between communities. The existence of sustainable but isolated experiences does not allow for scaling up community water management. It also leaves the communities in the hands of eventual external support, which does not always arrive free of interests. In Colombia the administrative decentralisation process carried out in 1987, placed water supply and sanitation provision as the responsibility of mayors. However, up to date many local governments still lack clear support mechanisms and tools for rural community organisations, and for the proper investments of national transfer4 resources or royalties, that are mainly focussed on the urban centres of municipalities. Correspondingly, rural communities are facing a decrease in water supply due to deforestation, poor production practices, climate change, illicit crops, pollution and land grabbing. Based on the context already described some rural communities that worked with Cinara and few other independent communities undertook a three-year training process that allowed them to create their own Association or Partnership. This is the so-called Association of Community Water 4

Law 715 of 2001 makes compulsory to invest 41% of the national transfer resources of general use in the specific drinking water and sanitation sector.

Supply and Sanitation Services Organizations in Colombia-AQUACOL, which was legalised in 2001. This is a non-for-profit organisation made up of 33 community organisations (28 belonging to rural areas and 5 to sub-urban areas) representing 112 communities in the regions of Cauca and Valle del Cauca, respectively. Nowadays, it is estimated that 70.000 people benefit from the work of the Association. AQUACOL's objectives are aimed at strengthening community water management:  



Contributing to improve the provision of water and sanitation services offered by different community organizations. To provide advice and training in administrative, organisational, technical, financial, monitoring and quality control aspects of the services. To achieve economies of scale between the different organisations in order to carry out activities aimed at improving the quality of the service, training in operation and maintenance, chlorine dosage, micro-metering, accounting management, project implementation and resources management. Influencing environmental and public service policies.

The current Colombian public services’ legislation is mainly oriented towards large urban water utilities; therefore, it is inadequate for small rural providers. This has led to the formulation of regulations that ignore the reality of this sort of water and sanitation services provider. As a result of this, several community organisations are not legally registered, and this hinders them from receiving economic resources, donations or external support. Governmental entities related to water resource management (i.e., Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, Ministry of Housing, City and Territory, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Ministry of Health, Regional Environmental Authorities, Superintendency of Public Services, Water Regulatory Commission, and local governments) work in an uncoordinated manner. Therefore, an Association like AQUACOL offers continuous support to its partners/members but also sets up bridges for dialogue with these national and regional entities in order to point out the problems and hurdles faced by Community Management of Water Supply and Sanitation. In the long term this process can also be analysed and understood as a struggle for the recognition of community-based water supply and sanitation management. The latter opens a wider field of research for this process in the political arena with the socio-ecological justice dimension at the heart of it. The Colombian Superintendency of Public Services has the obligation to monitor the quality of public service provision. Its main function is the control of all water and sanitation service providers in the country. This governmental institution has designed control instruments aimed at large urban water utilities, but whose diligence was made compulsory for all types of service providers regardless their size and complexity. This is causing many difficulties to community management in rural areas. In fact, the Superintendent's Office, working in coordination with AQUACOL and other entities such as UNICEF Colombia, the Health Secretariat of Caldas Region, and Cinara Institute, developed a Single Rural Information System-SRIS, that despite all of its shortcomings, makes rural community service providers visible and tries to take their specific conditions into consideration. This SRIS process also supported the creation of an IT platform that carries out tasks such as invoicing and payment registration for the community providers. Second-level community organisations are being formed in different regions of the country and at present there is an ongoing process of creating a National Confederation; all of these initiatives by following examples like AQUACOL.

3.4 The Emergence of Community Learning Centres-CLCs on Water and Sanitation Perhaps, the Community Learning Centres-CLCs on Water and Sanitation created by AQUACOL are the best expression of PAR approach in the Colombian water sector. These centres are spaces where community organisations with greater experience horizontally share their information and knowledge with other community organisations, that already provide or aim at providing public water and/or sanitation services. This activity is based on their cultural practices and their daily practical work in the management of water resources and sanitation. The mission of CLCs on Water and Sanitation in Colombia is to lead, facilitate and promote the continuous improvement of the self-provision of these public services in rural and marginal urban areas through the socialization of knowledge and the practice of values such as solidarity, fairness, cooperation, responsibility and honesty. This mission is also aimed at keeping a harmonious and less instrumental interaction between human beings and their environment. Community itself, its water supply and sanitation systems, and its micro-catchment areas are the actual learning spaces in this strategy. The community organization in charge of managing these public services creates the conditions for the establishment of the CLC and is responsible for its management. However, the administration of the CLC can be delegated to somebody the organisation's management judges as the most suitable to carry out this function. CLCs have demonstrated that communities are capable of empowering other communities, guiding institutional actions for the rural sector and being a source of accurate information for institutions. In selecting the communities that have become CLCs on Water and Sanitation, the following criteria are taken into account:  The community and its administrator expressed interest in becoming a CLC  Well-functioning of the water supply and/or sanitation system  The financial sustainability of the system was not at risk (i.e., due to high non-payment rates, debts without the capacity to pay, confiscations, etc.)  The administrative body has staff appointed on a full-time basis, for the administration and operation of the system (i.e., secretary, plumber).  The Community and the members of the administrative body will have an open attitude towards visitors and willingness to communicate their knowledge and experience.  The community organisation in charge of the water and/or sanitation system is affiliated/member to AQUACOL. The process of establishing the CLCs has strengthened the leadership of teams of people committed to the well-being of their communities. As one leader pointed out: "…You have been taught that to be a leader is to be your-self, to put your chest out and respond, and to do everything. In this process I have learnt that to be a leader is to share, so that the burden is not so heavy for one. If you have to do everything, ring and walk in the march, you will get exhausted, when you have a team everything is easier…”. CLCs are necessary because knowledge about drinking water and sanitation is not widespread and they facilitate learning in a practical way, which starts with the recovery of local knowledge. In

addition, advisory visits are scheduled to communities that require them and contact is maintained with those communities. The information requests from communities are also channelled to the relevant authorities and feedback is given to AQUACOL based on the experience. 4. Final conclusive remarks Water and sanitation remain a priority for the region, especially in rural areas and even more in indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. Proper sanitation is still largely lacking despite being directly related to human dignity and health. Hence, the need and importance of universities aiming their research at the solution of this problem. However, in order to achieve this, it is essential to change the current paradigm, to move from conventional consultancy to PAR together with the transformations that this change entails. This is urgent because a large part of the investments in this sector continue to be focused on the implementation of technological packages that are not suited to the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the users, because decisions on tech investments are made without community participation. Facing this challenge favours both the strengthening of universities’ capacities and communities, by finding concerted responses that provide better and more sustainable solutions to the many problems on WAT&SAN. Therefore, as Lao Tse said, "…a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step…". By re-reading the PAR pioneers, one feels an enthusiasm that is rare in the Universities we have today. The university as institution has been globally imposed of an economic rationality only oriented towards the search for projects as a source of income. Nonetheless, by working with the approaches proposed by PAR and PRA creates a favourable path for articulating the work of Universities to our countries’ real needs. This is because PAR allows for identifying problems which are a priority for the country's and region's communities and not just work on fields that are appealing for the international academic community. The view and understanding of projects as learning spaces renew and expand knowledge and produce transformations in those who participate in the process. The processes of democratization of water management necessarily require the existence of organized communities with clear knowledge about technology and administrative issues. This in turn allows them to move forward with their initiatives and resist the siege of privatisation that is always looking for revenue opportunities. Thus, community-based organisations united or associated in a second-level organisation can influence policy changes and generate mutual support. The CLCs on Water and Sanitation allow for knowledge management from the grassroots level and make clear demands on the sector's institutions. Therefore, resources of all kinds are optimised, and the autonomy and sustainability of community management is strengthened. These centres are perhaps the best way of implementing the People-Centred Development and PAR approaches. Currently, most Latin American universities have Master’s and Doctoral programmes that were lacking between the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. Thus, the existence of institutes similar to Cinara in the region can greatly enrich the research processes developed in this type of programmes, but at the same time, may yield the reliable and sustainable socio-technical innovations needed for the WAT&SAN sector.

5. References Cernea, M. (1995). «El conocimiento de las ciencias sociales y las políticas y los proyectos». En: M. Cernea, Primero la gente. Variables sociológicas en el desarrollo rural, pp. 25-65. México: FCE. Chambers, R. 2007 From PRA to PLA and pluralism: practice and theory. Brighton: IDS Working Paper 286. 1995 «Métodos abreviados y participativos a fin de obtener información social para los proyectos». En: M. Cernea, Primero la gente. Variables sociológicas en el desarrollo rural, pp. 587-611. México: FCE. 1993 Challenging the Professions. Frontiers for rural development. London: Intermediate Technology. 1992 Rural Appraisal: rapid, relaxed and participatory. IDS Discussion Paper, 311. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies. De Schutter, A. y B. Yopo. (1983). «Desarrollo y perspectiva de la investigación participativa». En: G. Vejarano (comp.), La investigación participativa en América Latina. Antología, pp. [42-68]. Pátzcuaro, Michoacán, México: Centro Regional de Educación de Adultos y Alfabetización Funcional para América Latina. Disponible en: http://www.crefal.edu.mx/crefal25/images/publicaciones/retablos_papel/retablo_pa pel10.pdf Fals Borda, O. 2010 «La investigación-acción participativa: política y epistemología». En: O. Fals Borda, Antología. Bogotá: Editorial Universidad Nacional de Colombia. 2006 «Participatory (Action) Research in Social Theory: Origins and Challenges». In: P. Reason and H. Bradbury (eds.), Handbook of Action Research: Concise Paperback Edition, pp. 2737. London: SAGE Publications. 1987 Ciencia propia y colonialismo intelectual: los nuevos rumbos. Bogotá: Carlos Valencia. 1978 El problema de cómo investigar la realidad para transformarla: por la praxis. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo. Freire, P. 2004 Pedagogía de la autonomía. Sao Paulo: Paz e Terra. 1984 ¿Extensión o comunicación? La concientización en el medio rural. México: Siglo XXI. 1982 «Creating alternative research methods: Learning to do it by doing it». In: H. Budd, A. Gillette and T. Rajesh (eds.), Creating knowledge: a monopoly? Participatory Research in Development, pp. 29-37. Toronto y New Delhi: International Council for Adult Education y Society for Participatory Research in Asia. 1969 Pedagogía del oprimido. Montevideo: Tierra Nueva. Goleman, D. 1996 La inteligencia emocional. Buenos Aires: Javier Vergara. Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R. y A. McKee 2003 El líder resonante crea más. Plaza & Janes. Gramsci, A. (1976). La formación política de los intelectuales (de cuadernos de la cárcel). Bogotá: América Latina.

Greenwood, D. and M. Levin 2008 «The Future of Universities: Action Research and the Transformation of Higher Education». In: P. Reason and H. Bradbury (eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Action Research. Participative Inquiry and Practice, pp. 211-226. London: SAGE Publications. 1998 Introduction to Action Research. Social Research for Social Change. London: SAGE Publications. Hegel, G. W. F. (1974). Ciencia de la Lógica. Tomo II. Buenos Aires: Solar y Hachette. Max-Neef, M., Elizalde, A. y M. Hopenhayn. (1993) Desarrollo a escala humana: conceptos, aplicaciones y algunas reflexiones. Montevideo: Nordan. Rogers, C. y H. J. Freiberg.(1996). Libertad y creatividad en la educación. Barcelona: Paidós Educador.