Grassroot Researchers Training Program

Abstract

Control of information and data has created a new brand of elitism even among groups avowedly geared toward authentic human development. The peasants and workers actually engaged in the front line of the production efforts are most often unaware of the external forces that affect their very lives and livelihood. Subjected to these influences, not only beyond their control, but apparently also beyond their knowledge and thus outside their under-standing and comprehension, their action for liberation often times become localized and parochial, and therefore ineffective in the long run. It has been the practice that political "agitators", "conscientizers" or those engaged in awareness building among the peasants and workers are external agents, most often than not - they are intellectuals, students people alien to the workers' and peasants' milieu, yet knowledgeable of the mechanics and structures of those forces that control the lives and the productive efforts of the peasants and workers.