Working with the rural poor
International conference

Organised by the International Task Force, the third INTAF world conference 1995 for the Rural Poor (INTAF) on 15-17 July at Brent Town Hall, Wembly, London

Working with the rural poor London conference

A World Conference on the theme of 'Empowering the Rural Poor' held recently in Brent in London, brought together, many grass-roots development workers who live and work among the rural poor. INTAF was set up as a pressure group some six years ago, as the result of an international seminar 'Working with the rural poor' held in India. It seeks to promote the interests of the neglected and ignored rural poor who make a substantial majority in Third World Countries and who include 70% women. INTAF strives to give a voice to these people on international forums

Mukat Singh, a grass-roots voluntary development worker from India who was elected Convenor of INTAF for a third term, opened the conference. "Poverty is neither hereditary nor divine. It is made intentionally by the rich for the poor. Education, culture, art, media, diplomacy, trade and aid all create and maintain poverty." This was INTAF's third world conference and the first to be held in London. Keynote speakers included Dr John Batten, a former director of the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction based in Manila who is currently director of ACTION-AID. He highlighted education as the key to development and emphasized that it is the people themselves who are the driving force for any lasting change. He spoke of his experiences of working with a rural community in the Philippines when he had to relearn and re-educate himself He therefore questioned the wisdom of education and technology that rich industrialised countries are imposing on the poor of the South in the name of helping and empowering them. Nicholas Hildyard, the editor of the Ecologist re-iterated this by suggesting that, in the name of empowerment, the poor are actually, being dis-empowered.

Another keynote speaker, Ken Ritchie, UK Director of Intermediate Technology spoke about the importance and choice of technology. He felt that these determined "the extent to which communities are empowered" as well as "the extent to which they can be entrapped in economic dependence".

Gramodaya Degree College & Research Institute

Other speakers included David Ould of Anti-Slavery International, Nirj Joseph Deva, a Conservative M.P., C.B.Pandey, chairman of Bharat Parishad, a Pressure Group in India, Chief T.K. Sasraku II, president of the Environmental Preservation and Development Network, Ghana, Parasbhai Director of a Tribal Women Project in Orissa in India, Fatima Muriel Donawa, a former government minister in Trinidad and Tobago, Kapoor Chandaria, chairman of ANNARDE Foundation, Peter Kempadoo, Director of SARDEO, a grass-root development project in Zimbabwe, Neville Trotz, Director of Commonwealth Science Council and former professor at the University of Guyana and Tony Graham, area co-ordinator of Christian Aid UK. The conference ended on a very positive note, with delegates able to return to their villages and projects refreshed and strengthened, conscious that they were not alone in their concerns or in their work and promising to develop and maintain the links of friendship that they had established for the ultimate benefit of the world's rural poor.

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