Appropriate Technology - a key ingredient
E.F. Schumacher is perhaps most widely known for pioneering the concept of Intermediate Technology. ‘Small is Beautiful’ contains Schumacher’s own summary of the concept, which is often also referred to as Appropriate Technology.
The central tenet of appropriate technology is that a technology should be designed to fit into and be compatible with its local setting… (Mark Roseland, as quoted in Small is Beautiful).
How do we deal with Appropriate Knowledge?
The creation and delivery of appropriate knowledge is part of Jeevika Trust’s mission. This means human-scale, low-cost, environmentally-friendly, people-centred solutions to village problems. For example, in the context of social housing, building a low-cost, locally-resourced house with interlocking, mortar-free soil blocks is an appropriate 'technology', while engaging the community to take ownership of the process may be called an appropriate 'methodology'.
Jeevika Trust treats the research, selection, optimization, dissemination and application of appropriate knowledge as an important ingredient in its approach to rural development.
Like Schumacher, we believe that a ‘gift of knowledge’ is infinitely preferable to a gift of material things, mainly because ‘without a genuine effort of appropriation on the part of the recipient there is no gift’. The gift of material goods makes people dependent, but the gift of knowledge makes them free.
