The core assumption of NRSP’s philosophy is that there is a tremendous willingness amongst the people to help themselves. However, people cannot harness this willingness on their own. There is a need to mobilize it. To achieve this, a support mechanism is required that can ensure the provision of social guidance to the people. Social guidance initiates a process wherein the communities learn to organize into socially viable groups, enhance their skills, expand their collective and individual resource base and optimally utilize their available resources. Experience has taught NRSP that in the process of social guidance, the availability of an honest local level activist is vital.
The idea behind the process of social guidance is to find out what people really want to do themselves and to assess whether whatever they want to do is possible while keeping in view the resource constraints. If it seems that the identified activity is practical, then NRSP assists the community in arranging the desired resources which may be credit, technical assistance, or specialized skill training for overcoming those constraints.