stories vs reports
The story below and the report to the right make the same point. Reports get stuck in the filing cabinet. Stories get stuck in the mind.
the story
Bangladesh is a really impressive place... in a positive sense. I was in a village last year working in water and sanitation. We were trying to promote the use of improved latrines, but could not produce concrete slabs and rings locally for a low cost. Somebody told me to visit the latrines of a lady in the village, so I went along and said:
‘Can I see your latrines?’
She had made a latrine out of a clay pot with the bottom cut off. Then with a potter from the area she developed a small local production of bottomless pots, and they became the latrines. Ingenious.
A few weeks later I was in another village and saw a hand pump; it was broken, just a small piece missing. So I said to the villagers, “Why don’t you repair your pump?” And they said:
‘Oh, we just wait for another donor to bring a new pump.’
So I said:
‘Why don’t you visit the lady in the village over there? She finds ways of getting things done for herself.’
Raw material from a jumpstart story told by Jacques Mader, a participant in a storytelling workshop we ran for staff and partners of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in Bern, December 2004.
