Capacity-building of young researchers and animators in participatory action research has been one of RIB’s central activities. RIB offers regular introductory, on-the-site workshops on Participatory Action Research (PAR) for students and community workers. It also has provisions for conducting three months experimental PAR projects with marginalized communities for those who wish to practice PAR. Once some experience is gained as animator, then long term involvement in PAR activities through research programs may be feasible.
RIB has a special focus on marginalized communities and therefore many of its capacity building activities are located and addressed at the community level. In the year 2008, RIB started a fellowship to create gender animators among Dalit women, since they were not as forthcoming as the men in their community, due to educational and cultural reasons. The success of this program has led RIB to extend this fellowship to other marginalized communities as well. RIB through action research also develops capacity-building of a pro-people advocacy, where it facilitates the linking of issues of issues at the community-level to authorities and policy-makers at both local and national level. Innovative methods such as Initiative Fairs, interactive theatre, dialogues and people to people exchange are also used as advocacy tools and are often seen as capacity-building techniques.
