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A Positive
Vision of Nepal
Most Nepalese and Nepal observers would agree that Nepal
faces an unprecedented challenge-to transform society
and make far-reaching constitutional, legal, social,
political, economic, and administrative reforms that
international experience shows are the single most important
response to a national-wide Maoist insurgency. Facing
this challenge, most people seem to feel helpless and
hopeless-frustrated and depressed at their apparent
incapacity to influence anything, distrusting of others,
and despairing about the prospects for positive change
and peace. Many have become de-sensitized and traumatized
by the violent conflict.
Conventional development teaches us to look for solutions
by analyzing problems and their causes. Yet, focusing
on problems, and asking questions about what's wrong,
tends to reveal more problems. What is hard in a problem-focused
approach is to raise one's energy above the negativity
and frustration of dealing endlessly with problems,
to a higher, positive, more inspiring level. So, is
there an alternative way forward? Indeed, since the
early nineties, an unconventional approach has been
gaining ground globally, and in Nepal in an expanding
network of NGOs, community groups, and government agencies.
Popularly known as "Appreciative Inquiry"
(AI), it has been found a powerful tool in transforming
communities, programs, and especially large organizations.
Using the appreciative and analytical AI method, people
systematically discover "best practice" success
stories-what happened, how, and why. From that higher-level
reality, participants develop shared visions, or dreams,
for the future, and design and implement strategies
for reaching those visions based on replicating the
lessons of success. In the words of AI's founder, Professor
David Cooperrider, AI liberates the "positive,
life-giving core" in human society and, in so doing,
unloks people's transformational energy and capacity
to shape and co-construct new realities.
IMAGINE Nepal is an initiative of Nepalese AL practitioners
inspired by other "IMAGINE" movements in the
world. Its vision is one in which Nepalis rediscover
the full positive potential of their "life-giving
core", and unite to transform Nepal into a socially
equitable, peaceful, and prosperious country in which
Nepalese of every caste, ethnicity, and district participate
and share with mutual trust, respect, and appreciation,
equal rights, and equitable livelihood opportunity.
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