This is second phase of DHAN Foundation’s Development Apprenticeship Programme (DAP)

Enabling Poor Communities calls for enabling individuals and institutions for self-governance to address poverty. It is a complex process involving the interplay of social, political and economic forces. It is our belief that competent and caring people like you can accelerate this process and make it more humane, especially for the poor, if you work among the people in villages in a sustained way.

For someone seriously considering a career in grassroots development action, the first three months of the Associateship provides space, experience and guidance to appreciate the conditions of living and the broad content and pace of work in villages and to assess the opportunities and constraints of a life in grassroots work, your alternative career choices, responsibilities towards and expectations of family and friends. This also served the purpose of ensuring that more of the people who join us stay and fit our requirements.

Newcomers to this field have not had the opportunity to pick up practical skills and to develop the breadth of perspective and sensitivity needed by effective development workers. This Development Apprenticeship Programme will give you opportunities for exploring yourself resulting in clarity of your life mission, concretising your values and consciously striving to bring changes in your pursuits. These can only be acquired through guided practice in the field, and continual reflection on one's experience. Secondly, joining grassroots work, especially in rural areas, is a challenging task and demands your conscious effort to apply development principles and transforms from explorer to Development Professional. This calls for the ability to swim against the social current, and to bear the hardship and drudgery by choice. Thirdly, this will give you an opportunity to explore the unexplored areas of the programme resulting in value additions to the theme. Finally, this phase sets the environment to practice DHAN Foundation values and become a permanent member of the DHAN Foundation family.

You are expected to spend 80% of your time during the apprenticeship period in the field, with the community to enhance your rootedness and facilitate your learning from the community, less than 20% of the time you would spend for writing reports, attending various HRD events at the location, region, programme and HRD level, to reflect on the practical experiences and try to learn from other peer members.