In this meeting, we had some members of the Village Council came to discuss the survey and formulate questions for the survey.
I had been anticipating for this meeting from the week before the scheduled meeting. Reading on the best practices for Participatory Mapping, imagining a crowd of residents all actively engaged in the formulation of questions and having in-depth discussions of how to make the survey and mapping a success and that all three subject areas were amply covered with well crafted questions.
There was a definite shift of expectations and reality.
In reality, there were five persons during the entirety of the meeting (most would be discouraged). We did have in-depth discussions of the survey and the issues that the community faced. The focused initially on the social issues - initially, they said they had nothing for the community to come together and socialize. Then they started to speak of the activities that the community would do when they came together. That they had special communal events for Carnival, Independence Day and after Christmas.
The conversation moved to recreational activities they would like to see continue and expanded upon. Then they spoke about what they would like to see in the community, with some prompting of what they think can achieve in the relative short term.
We formulated questions based on our discussion that we had. We were able to create relevant questions which they felt the community would be interested in finding out as well.
Lesson learnt: Never be discouraged by the numbers it is the quality that counts.
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