The Development Dynamics Course in Dhulikhel Village resort in Nepal concluded successfully with the active participation of 24 participants from across 9 Countries. The facilitation of 9 resource persons enriched the participants with new knowledge and skills on various aspects of social development approaches.

Fr Paul Moonjely, the Executive Director of Caritas India set the tone of DDC and spoke about Caritas being faith based which makes us different from any other NGOs or VWOs in his inaugural speech.  Understanding the problem and situation and deal with the problem rather than debating it and mystifying it. That’s the whole meaning of incarnation and spiritual ethos.

Catholic Social Teaching and spirituality of development dealt by Fr. Jolly Puthenpura, the Asst. Executive Director of Caritas India highlighted 4 Fundamental Principles of CST and 7 supplementary Principles of CST with relevant Biblical references, 10 new paradigms for the fruitful exercise of the Diakonia Ministry.

The module facilitated by Dr. Haridas V.R, Head, climate change adaptative agriculture and Food Sovereignty aimed at understanding Project Cycle Management (PCM) and Result Based Management (RBM) and Natural Resource Management and Climate Adaptation Approaches. The participants developed skills in the methods of Problem Tree Analysis, Situation Analysis, Logical Framework Analysis, and Climate adaptive approaches.

Community Managed Disaster Risk Reduction (CMDRR) jointly handled by Mr. Manindra Malla, the program Manager of Caritas Nepal and team shared the introduction to disaster management, disaster scenario in South Asia, disaster management terminologies, disaster management cycle, disaster management policy context and structures and good practices of community-based disaster risk reduction. The field exposure in HASERA certified organic farm and Permaculture Learning Centre gave a new experience to the team on improving their leanings on location specific interventions of Sustainable Agriculture, Sustainable Development and Permaculture in an undulating and challenging topography.

Dr. Saju in his sessions made the group to understand the empowerment process such as magic consciousness, naïve consciousness and critical consciousness and shared stages of empowering animation, stages of community mobilisation, envisioning and Social Action.

The module on Participatory Development Communication handled by Mr. Ray Kancharla, Head of Humanitarian division of Save the children focused on different processes and methodologies of communications. According to him, to make communication effective, one should give emphasis to the commonality involved in any interaction.

Fr. Paul shared various aspects of the management of Development Organizations. He said the body of an organization is like a living organism with head as the structure and systems, heart as the vision and mission and strategies as the stomach.

Bishop Lumen Monteiro, the chairman of Caritas India in his session on Peace Building and Conflict Resolution said the basic purpose of the Catholic church is to help bring about the reign of justice, peace and fellowship because every human being is created in the image of God, we are also the children of God, we are reflection of God and hence human life is precious and deserves dignity, which is derived from God.