THE AIMS AND OBJECTIVES OF SERVOL

In the initial stages, the people were very sceptical about the intervention in their lives by these well-meaning strangers, but when they realised that the strangers were very serious in their desire to help people to help themselves they began to co-operate with SERVOL.

Having laid the groundwork, SERVOL's aim now was not simply to work for the underprivileged but to get the underprivileged to work for themselves, to get them out of the stagnation they were in and to help them formulate goals they could realise.

SERVOL was interested in the self-development of people. It was not a welfare organisation nor did it see its explicit task as being the mass transformation of society or the alleviating of the many problems of the poor.

Rather it saw itself as a small but important catalyst for social change which Caribbean society desperately needed. In working with people in all their many and various projects, SERVOL was also searching for new models for development which were capable of being taken up by bigger organisations and implemented on a large scale.

In doing all this, two general principles were used: firstly, in helping a community towards self-development, always begin with what the people say they want. Secondly, help the people to achieve and accomplish only what they can afford to pay for, thus care was taken not to set up elaborate projects which were largely subsidised by outside finance. These might look very impressive but in reality have little to do with true development.

 SERVOL has invented its own jargon to describe its basic philosophy and method of approach. In the gospel according to SERVOL, anyone trying to help disadvantaged people should base his approach on a philosophy of ignorance. Expressed simply, this means that you should never presume that you know the needs of people: ask them what these needs are and what type of help they want. The next step is that of attentive listening. You should listen carefully to what the people tell you, convinced that their voice is the most important element in their own development and you should continue to adopt this listening stance throughout your dialogue with them. What pernicious attitude exists in each one of us that prevents us from offering genuine help to our fellow-man and which attentive listening seeks to eradicate.

It is the attitude of cultural arrogance which tends to make people believe that because they come from a certain country or ethnic background or have benefited from a certain type of education, that this makes them superior to other people. In SERVOL's view, it is only when serious attempt is made to grapple with that problematic attitude that people are entitled to interfere in the lives of others, through a process of respectful intervention. The only way to help another is to do so respectfully, conscious that we both have a lot to learn from dialogue and that we will both emerge richer for the experience.

SERVOL soon became convinced that all its efforts at community development and nation building should be focused on two age groups:

0-5 year old children

13-19 year old adolescents

 

It was clear to the organisation that it should resist the temptation of trying to help everyone in need and that it would best make a positive contribution by concentration on these two age groups. The rationale behind this choice was both philosophical and pragmatic. Everyone agreed that the early years of a child's life and the period at which the adolescent leaves school and prepares to take his place in the world are absolutely critical. Allied to this was the fact that no one in Trinidad, least the Ministry of Education, was doing anything to help these age-groups; so that SERVOL was reasonably confident that these programmes could be set up without stepping on toes of officialdom.

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