CDRA Lets Go!

​…an organisation closing and a call for contributions to a final
CDRA publication on developmental practice

​from Farid Esack, CDRA Chairperson
Yes, dearest friends, fellow travellers, co-sojourners, practitioners, after 33 years we have  decided to let go!

Since 2012, our director Nomvula Dlamini, with a small group of associates, have been holding the core of an increasingly dispersed CDRA while looking for an organizational form appropriate for the times. Since reluctantly accepting Nomvula’s resignation at the end of last year, the Board, in consultation with the remaining practitioners, has reflected on its role in holding up the CDRA’s concerted attempts to find a new form. While there is still important work being done by those who have been holding the core, it is clear that the work inspired and supported by the CDRA increasingly lies widely spread and held in the web of relationships spun out of the organization over the past thirty years.

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AN INVITATION TO CONTRIBUTE TO A
PUBLICATION :

A gathering of community; a process of reflection; a publication on practice.​

In the coming year, and as its last public organisational  activity, CDRA will host a process that supports reflection on the context that gave birth to and called it forth for three decades, the practice that emerged and the practices and organisations that it contributed to, as well as CDRA itself. This will result in a publication (online and in hard copy) that shares the outcomes of these reflections and in so doing, offers a contemporary perspective on the condition of organisation today.
Practitioners and colleagues who have been in some way reached by CDRA or touched by its work, or who, in some way, might consider themselves part of the broader CDRA community, are invited to submit proposals for their contribution to this publication.

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Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation & Learning courses 2019
"Learning & Staying Alive To Change"

This course is about demystifying PMEL as a technical exercise - done to satisfy donor needs – so that it can be better understood, appreciated and used. We promote learning orientated M&E because we believe that if M&E contributes to organisational learning and adaptation you will produce better and more sustainable impact. By attending this course, you will gain greater clarity on what learning- oriented PMEL may look like for your organisation and how this could be implemented.

Dates for 2019 are as follows:

Harare, Zimbabwe              13-17 May
Jo’burg, South Africa         3-7 June
Nairobi, Kenya                  15-19 July 
Cape Town, South Africa      14-18 Oct

For more information and to register, have a look at under the "courses" tab of our website.

The Truth of the Work:
Theories of Change in a Changing World

by Doug Reeler and Rubert Van Blerk,
the Community Development Resource Association

Following a series of learning sessions with practitioners from various organisations in Cape Town we wrote this reflection on the use and practice of "Theory of Change" being demanded by donors, and the problems and possibilities practitioners are experiencing.
The writing touches on:
  • Why have theory? 
  • Ways of understanding theory and implications for practice 
  • Building theory beyond empiricism 
  • Participation and complexity 
  • Principles of life, values and principles of action 
  • Theory and imagination 
  • Consciousness and humanity 
  • Theory: models or archetypes 
  • Theory and impact

Download the article 
CDRA's latest Annual Report

Our  Annual Reports   give an account of our strategic alliances,  partners and programme collaborators, of the assignments we implemented,  achievements, lessons learned and challenges we continue to face.

​Annual Report 2017-2018

Previous reports:
Annual Report 2013-2014
Annual Report 2014-2015
Annual Report 2015-2016
Download from our Writings - numerous articles on the practice of social change and development

​Hire the CDRA Workshop venue

The Latest Barefoot Guide

Barefoot Guide 5:
Mission Inclusion

Stories and Practices of building
​a world where all belong

By The Fifth Barefoot Guide
​Writer’s Collective

Click here to download the guide for free!

Now in   Kiswahili  and   French
Everyone agrees that inclusion is hard, that reaching the poorest and most marginalised is difficult. The layers and reinforcing cycles of exclusion defy the conventional development project approach. Something else, something qualitatively different is needed.

Many organisations, large and small, are tackling the deep challenges of exclusion and coming up with creative, innovative and workable solutions that are putting into practice the policies and strategies that everyone is talking about.

​This Barefoot Guide, written by 34 practitioners from 16 different countries on all continents makes many of these successful approaches and solutions more visible.

                 Go to the Download page