Often I had to struggle over the level of my participation as an outsider. In principle, I was an equal participant with the community group members and therefore my input should have had equal consideration. At the same time, in an attempt to respect the experience of the grassroots organization and to promote the autonomy of the local people in making decisions for themselves, I sometimes refrained from voicing my opinions or ideas. Persons from outside of a given community assisting in the ecotourism project must struggle with this issue and decide how to act to enhance the interests of local people. My experience with this project revealed how long it took to get people interested, to affirm their abilities in implementing the project, and to figure out how to best use people's talents.
Reflection is an important element of that process.
Reflection can include questioning the goals of the project and revising them if necessary, compiling and weighing options available at each stage of the project, evaluating the group process taking place, and considering the implications of taking certain actions. Though our planning process was very time consuming, and I suspect future steps will be equally time consuming, it was an important process that will take people's efforts beyond just implementing a project to develop people's research, analysis, organizational, and leadership capabilities. All community members are not the same and power matters When we speak of community participation, we often think that all community members are the similar in their motivation for involvement or manners in which they can contribute. Through this project, I discovered that only some members of a community were participating while others chose not to participate or were excluded. Among the participants, some people had more power than others did, increasing their input in and control over the project.