DELES' training is a process methodology informed and influenced by the Paulo Freiran principles of the Psycho-Social-Method otherwise known as the key principles of Community centred development education:

• That education is never neutral,


• That dialogue is crucial in every aspect of participatory learning,


• That what is relevant for the learners becomes the content of the learning,


• That the facilitator use a problem-posing method,


• That there is a constant cycle of action-reflection-action-reflection,


• The aim is radical transformation in personal lives, in Community, in the environment and in the whole of Society. - (cf: Training for transformation Book 1, page 16-23).

Paulo Freire's Work on Critical Awareness

Freire is certainly one of the seminal thinkers of our time. The DELES programme is rooted in his insights into:

• The different levels of consciousness


• The direct link between emotion and motivation to act


• The importance of having the participants themselves choose the content of their education rather than having 'experts' develop curricula for them, and


• The fact that all real liberation and development must rise from the grassroots up. Transformation is not something that one person can do for somebody else.

DELES builds its approach or method on Paulo Freire's work on critical awareness often referred to as 'Psycho-Social-Method' (PSM). It is an approach that provides us with both a philosophy of education and development and a very practical method of:

• getting groups actively involved participatively and experientially;


• breaking through apathy, and


• developing a critical awareness of the causes of problems. It is a method that emphasizes the need for change that draws attention to the necessity of understanding root causes that is primarily an action-reflection-action process that may likely challenge existing structures. It is inter-disciplinary in approach.