This handbook presents the experience of a participatory social learning process that evolved to support individual and community level adaptation to the myriad of stressors affecting rural people. It concludes that it is essential for facilitators to strive for a balance between responsiveness and guidance, achieved through an approach that is open, based on a principle of seeking equality, and one that is fully prepared to follow a path different from the one that may have originally been envisaged. The publication is aimed at NGO practitioners who work with communities and seek to build critical capacities, researchers who are interested in processes of action research, social change and co-learning, and government employees who are mandated to support communities in their efforts to collectively overcome hardships.