Strategic Questions for cleaning up the Ganges

I'm from Idaho. It doesn't generally occur to a girl from Idaho to think of playing a part in cleaning up the Ganges River. But a friend from India, Dr V B Mishra - a hydraulic engineer and a Hindu religious leader - asked me to help him clean up the river. I had no experience cleaning up rivers. I know nothing about sewage. What I did know about was how to build a strategy for social change. That, it seemed, was what Dr Mishra and his group needed.

When I went to India, I used Strategic Questioning to help people form their own opinions of what should be done to clean their sacred river. I began by building a series of questions, starting with how they saw the problem themselves. 'What do you see when you look at the river?' 'How do you explain the situation with the river to your children?'

Then I would ask, 'What would you like to do to clean the river?'.

One 13-year-old suggested that he and his friends would like to 'get some sticks and go up and down the river and persuade people not to toilet on the river.' I did not evaluate this idea but passed it on to the foundation members. They recognised the seeds of a great idea in the one the young man offered. Thus the idea of the home guard was born. For five years, a team (of adults) equipped with sticks walked the city's river front or travelled the river in a boat. Their task was to discourage citizens from acts disrespectful to the river - defecating, washing with soap, and dumping animal carcasses into the river.

Everyone was also asked a question about the preparation of children for river-cleaning work. One suggestion was for a children's poster contest - 'We'll hang the winning posters up at a large musical event. The adults will see what the children see and be embarrassed'. Every year since then five hundred to eight hundred young people have gathered on the banks of the Ganges for poster-making competitions.

The Strategic Questioning process outlined above is detailed in Fran Peavey's book B Life's Grace ($14-95 from New Society Publishers, 4527 Springfield Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19143, USA, tel 800 333 9093).