Our Development Process
Outreach International’s approach to poverty-related issues in the field is to facilitate a process that allows people to ultimately help themselves. This method is called the Participatory Human Development Process™ (PHDP). It is an empowering process of consciousness-raising and problem-solving that places those being affected at the center of their own development. Within the process, PHDP mobilizes people to comprehend, act and resolve their identified issues/problems through a series of steps. These steps equip people with the necessary knowledge, skills and appropriate values and attitudes to act and manage their own development. This process aims to break the “culture of silence.”

The Participatory Human Development Process is flexible and can be adapted to a wide range of settings. Many aspects of this process are utilized by other organizations in the field. PHDP is not a highly scientific methodology. What perhaps may be one of its greatest values is its overall simplistic nature. The comprehensive steps of utilizing this process possess a flow that allows for a series of progression. True to its adaptability, however, more than one step can be taking place at any given time.    
As a problem-solving methodology this process mobilizes people to act and solve their identified issues/ problems. It has proven itself to be an effective method of resolving problems or issues such as the lack of basic public services, land rights, lack of basic necessities (food, clean water, shelter, clothes) and so on.

As a consciousness-raising (educational) methodology it equips people with the necessary knowledge, skills and appropriate values and attitudes to act and manage their own development.

As an empowerment/organizing process, it catalyzes the emergence of alternative structures and systems (cooperatives, people''s organizations) which become instruments of the people to effectively and collectively assert, protect and contend for their own interests.

Another distinct characteristic of the Participatory Human Development Process is that it is directed toward an equitable sharing of resources (economic, political, social-cultural) based on the affected group’s mutual efforts.