Restless Development is a youth-led International NGO that places young people at the forefront of and development. In Zambia, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and other stakeholders, we are implementing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), livelihoods and Civic participation awareness raising and capacity building interventions in Schools, Colleges of Education (Teacher Training Colleges) and Communities. Restless Development has a 5 year Memorandum of Understanding (2011-15) with the Ministry of Education, Science and Vocational Training, Early Education implementing best practice youth models of development led by trained young Volunteer Peer Educators (VPEs). Since our intervention s inception in 2004, we have trained and deployed 700 VPEs to implement programme activities. There are 3 billion young people in the world. We can't reach them all on our own. Over the years, we have gained and documented valuable experience in working with and for young people. We know there are many organizations out there that share our views on young people. We believe that if we work together and co-ordinate our efforts, we can have an exponential impact. It is in this quest that through our Building a Stronger Youth Sector Approach, we work with other talented youth-led and youth-serving organizations. We provide technical training and ongoing support that is aimed at resulting in an increase and improvement of their work and that of young people they serve.
HANDS-ON LEARNING PROJECT IMPLEMENTED BY COPPERBELT HEALTH EDUCATION PROGRAMME (CHEP) The Hands on Learning s major aims are to: 1) Improve the access, retention and attainment of OVC affected by HIV in basic education, ultimately providing a route out of poverty; 2) Empower local communities to participate in improving the uptake and quality of education for OVC; and 3) Empower local communities to engage with policy makers, demonstrating effectiveness of community consultation in policy implementation. The HOL project has made significant progress in achieving its intended objectives. Some these are; 1. Strengthening of the CHEP OVC model through the use of SAT; As a result of the SAT process, CHEP has been able to strengthen its OVC model. CHEP s capacity has been built to roll out the Self-Assessment Process and is able to implement the Self-Assessment Tool. CHEP has also taken ownership of the process and ensured that all the stages of the SAT have been adhered to including building the capacity of the local stakeholders to be able to lead on the process as well as conducting interface events with the decision makers; e.g. the MP Champion events and Councilors event. 2. Demonstrating the importance of mutual accountability in the work-involvement of Ward Councillors and young people. The project which was led by young people has empowered local communities to participate in improving the uptake and quality of education for OVC through engagement with decision makers and policy makers. The Ward Councilors that were trained at the beginning of the SAT process have started leading the process without the help of CHEP, demonstrating ownership and sustainability of the SAT process. The project has also demonstrated the importance of mutual accountability in the work-involvement of Ward Councilors and young people. 3. Professional development for young people-interns, A4A, A4Cs; Twenty eight advocates for change were trained over the three year period of implementation. During this same period, we managed to engage seven Advocates for Action from our alumni to be placed at CHEP as interns. This opportunity provided the interns with experience and facilitated their professional development. The interns were further supported to develop their careers further. Out of the seven interns that were placed at CHEP, two of them have been taken on board as full time members of staff at CHEP. This has strengthened the continuous in-house support given to CHEP on the SAT Process. In addition our twelve Advocates for Action have also been involved in supporting and mentoring the A4Cs including sharing best practices from the Youth Led Accountability Model implemented in Central Province. The Advocates for Action as well as the Interns from Restless Development who were placed at CHEP have also been able to mentor the Advocates for Change from CHEP. The Peer to Peer mentorship has increased the capacity of the Advocates for Change to be able to build their confidence as well as engage with their local leaders effectively In order to successfully achieve the above objectives, CHEP partnered with us to enable them mainstream social accountability methodologies in their work. Recognised as a key part of Community Self-Assessment Process, our youth-led social accountability methodologies employ tools used to monitor, track and assess government s (National and Local) provision of services in the communities. The process also helps communities monitor policy implementation and increase their engagement with decision makers. The learning, lessons and successes shared in this resource have been collected over a three year period from the capacity building work that we implemented targeting CHEP with regarding the use of our Community Self- Assessment Process during their implementation the Hands on Learning Project.
HOW TO USE THIS RESOURCE This guide has been designed to showcase our work on the Self-Assessment Process Tool for organizations that want to replicate the model. Restless Development has worked with partnering organizations that have adopted the SAT process and this guide will, in detail, explain the process, the challenges faced and the successes attained. Restless Development also shares actual activities and experiences utilized, which you will find in grey text boxes with the heading; How we did it.
2.1. What is the community self-assessment tool? The self-assessment tool is a community-based participatory monitoring tool used for various functions such as planning, monitoring, performance evaluation of services, social auditing (the process whereby an organization can account for and report on its social performance and improve that performance.) It is an exciting way of increasing accountability, transparency and participation (elements of good governance) between service users and providers. Accountability: This is the obligation/ duty to answer or justify decisions and action Mutual accountability is a process whereby two or more parties hold one another responsible for delivering on their commitments Participation: Involvement of people in development process Transparency: Availability of information to the general public and clarity about regulations and decisions Brings together service users and service providers to jointly analyses issues underlying service delivery problems and find ways of t Leads communities and partners to rights-based approach without actually discussing any rights per say. It is a strong tool for empowerment
2.2. Step 1 - Identify issues from the community Identify the need to conduct the process e.g. to find out how services are being experienced by service users and involve them in planning and decision making processes. Identify the service to be assess Conduct Community Power Mapping. This process helps you to determine the individuals and groups in your community who are affected by the issue and who can influence your target Some groups and individuals may be affected by the issue but do not have much influence over the target. Others might have a lot of influence over the target but are not directly impacted by the issue. Brainstorm all of the individuals and groups in your community who are influential and are directly impacted by the campaign issue.
Develop a social map, locating where important institutions are, such as government offices, schools, and clinics. Develop a check list of service providers available in the community 2.3. Step 2 - Develop the tool Develop self-assessment tools based on the identified need. Make sure that the tools are simple and straightforward for the community young people to administer Pre-test the tools before the community young people are trained on how to use them Select the most appropriate tool and make adjustments as necessary
Train the selected young people from the communities on how to administer the tool Pre-test the tool again now with the trained young people Make further adjustments to the tool based on the pre-test Split the community youth groups comprising of between 15 to 20 members into three groups Form self-assessment groups that are representative of both in- and out-of-school youth Assign one or two people as group leaders Assign sites where the self-assessment will be conducted, such as the local health centres Once the assessment has been conducted, allow the young people to compile the findings and list issues in order of priority in form of the report Have the young people cluster the findings into similar themes so that they can be addressed systematically Findings from the assessments conducted should be publicly shared with the key gate keepers, service providers and the service users for enhancing transparency and accountability Allow for an open and participatory discussion and questions for clarity. Ensure that personal attacks are avoided, explaining the objective of the process. Once the findings are presented, encourage the champions to push forward for implementation of the needed services in the community Trained young people from the communities to follow up on the implementation of identified issues
Organize review meetings to follow up with the local leaders on where they are with implementing the agreed actions Repeat self-assessment process (evaluation and re-planning) to assess if there has been any improvement from implementing the action plan
Building of accountability structures in Communities Key to the success of any Youth led Accountability work is the need to invest in the local structures and stakeholders. Once they own the process, they are able to create their own accountability structures and truck the systems. The HOL project enabled the communities to build their accountability structures. The local Ward Committees who were trained at the beginning of the project have now owned the SAT process. They have been able to identify the OVC and an issue surrounding them through the SAT, demonstrating that capacity has been built within these structures to lead on accountability work. Engaging Young people to lead on Accountability Work The SAT process has been led by young people, thereby demonstrating the effectiveness of using young people in Accountability work. The young people were able to bridge the gap between community members and decision makers there by enabling dialogue between the communities and decision makers as well as creating linkages. It has thus been learned that young people are a great resource in the successful implementation of any Youth Led Accountability Work. Dealing with other challenges that emerge from the SAT process The SAT process when conducted thoroughly, brings to the fore other issues beyond the scope of focus for the specific intervention. This becomes challenging as the advocacy issues can seem to be many unless carefully prioritized, referred and taken on step by step. After conducting the SAT, three original wards hosted review and planning meetings to discuss the welfare of OVC who had already been referred for education help. All wards found that they were also expected to deal with major problems outside of education which emerged from the self-assessment tool and this was challenging given the limited time and resources that they had. The Ward committee members were however, able to hold to account other stakeholders on what their role was in dealing with such type of challenges. Building partnerships in delivering a common advocacy agenda For any advocacy agenda to be successfully implemented there is need for organizations to partner with other like-minded organizations that have experience in engaging with policy makers on advocacy issues. During the implementation of the HOL CHEP found it challenging to engage with the policy makers at the national level as they were doing it for the first time. Learning from what has worked well in areas where we had implemented the similar advocacy activities; Restless Development built CHEP s capacity to be able to lead on their advocacy issues in partnership with other organizations focusing on OVC.
Case studies: Documentation of case studies is an excellent way of demonstrating best practice aimed at Influencing Policy change in a positive way. Through case studies, readers and users of development information are able to understand better how specific interventions can create results; particularly in cases where measuring outcomes is not easy. Documentation: Keeping all the documentation is key to the success of any community assessment process. This documentation can be by way of taking photos, minutes for meetings (with community members, decision makers, community leaders and other stakeholders) and keeping the actual assessment tools used. All of this helps provide a range of evidence which helps speed up getting the desired responses or actions. The range of evidence also acts as a good platform for sharing information to stakeholders on the status of the community. Power Mapping Identifying and presenting all power structures in the community in an organised way enables the SAT process to engage a number of stake holders on different issues that emerge. The power mapping exercise can be text-based or it can use tables, flow charts or graphics to represent the different components or interactions that take place among community structures. This exercise can also identify gaps, duplication, strengths and opportunities that exist within these structures as well as inform decision making such as resource allocation (or reallocation), setting goals and tracking change.
Empowering local communities to participate in improving the uptake and quality of education for OVC through community partnerships and engagement with decision makers Figure 1 the Chimwemwe ward committee chairman through the child national policy document Figure 2 The Chimwemwe Ward chairman showing proof that he has the child national policy document.. THE CHALLENGE With an estimated 2.5 million children orphaned in Zambia, The issue of orphans and vulnerable children remains one of the biggest challenges. Despite widespread Policies, conferences and talks on Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) and Education; the issue of Education still remains a social service that is not accessed by all. The degree of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) crisis continues to demand innovative and practical ways of scaling up action by all stakeholders. Restless Development is a youth-led development agency which places young people at the forefront of change and development. In Zambia, we train young people as volunteer peer educators who we place in different communities, schools and colleges to lead on awareness raising and advocating on youth issues. INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE OR GETTING INVOLVED? Email: info@restlessdevelopment.org THE INITIATIVE Chimwemwe Ward is situated in Kitwe town. It has an estimated population of over 20, 000 people. One of the many challenges that the Ward is experiencing is the growing number of Orphans and Vulnerable Children. Copper Belt Health Education Programme (CHEP) has been working in this Community with a focus on supporting OVC. With technical support from Restless Development, CHEP has been able to introduce the Self Assessment Tool to the Wards as well as raising awareness on the Policies that directly affect Children. This has been led by the Advocates for Change who act as a link between the Community and the Stakeholders. The A4Cs have been able to also train the Ward members on rolling out the SAT. THE RESULT Following the training of Ward members on how to roll out the Self-Assessment Tool, Wards have developed Ward committees which have been able to lead on the SAT process. Mr.Malama Clement, the Chairperson for Chimwemwe Ward Committee, has been able to provide his community with information on the provisions of the Child Policy and how the community can take advantage of these provisions to demand for services that favor OVC. As a result of raising this type of awareness 500 OVC were identified and some have now been put on sponsorship. The Ward Committee led by Mr. Malama was able to participate in decision making at Community level and as such the Community also managed to hold a Councilors event which led to the clinic being upgraded. Visit our website: http://www.restlessdevelopment
LESSON 1: POLICY AWARENESS Facilitator: Restless Development/ Child Policy Specialist Target: Advocates for Change Duration: 2 hours. Overall aim To build a broader understanding of the Child Policy Objectives To build the knowledge levels of Participants on what the Child Policy is all about and its contents with a specific focus on Orphans and Vulnerable Children. To ensure learners understand their role in holding government to account on delivering upon the policies. To highlight clearly specific areas that this project will be aiming to address with regards to C h i l d P o l i c y. Learning outcomes By the end of the session participants should be: Aware of the existence of the Child Policy Clearly understand what their role is in ensuring the successful implementation of the policy s deliverables within their communities. NB: Facilitators are advised to devise at their discretion appropriate warmers and energizers to make the session interactive. Content Introduction 20mins Begin the session by asking participants to define what a policy is. A policy is typically defined as a principal or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. Ask participants to share any of the policies they are aware of and if they have participated in the formulation process of any. A government driven policy is called a Public Policy. Declaring government s intentions of what it hopes to achieve for the community/nation. Therefore, because it is in the interest of the public, they have the right to participate in its formulation as well and implementation. Main Body 80mins Conclusion Divide participants into groups to discuss what they know about the C h i l d P o l i c y in general. Present key highlights of the Policy Divide participants into groups to formulate role plays that best describe the current state of Child Policy Provision in their communities. Highlighting the gaps and/or successes. Present clearly the section of the C h i l d P o l i c y. Explain to the participants that they have the mandate to hold government to account for how much of what is contained in the Child Policy had been delivered within their community. Ask participants if they have any questions Using an interactive method, review if the objectives of the session have been met.
17 LESSON 2: POWER MAPPING Facilitator: Restless Development Staff Duration: 2 hours. Overall aim To build a broader understanding of power mapping in advocacy and its contents with a specific focus on policies affecting young people. Objectives To build the knowledge levels of learners on what the power mapping process involves. To ensure learners understand their role in holding government to account on delivering upon the policy using power mapping. To highlight clearly specific areas that the community programmes will be aiming to address with regards to youth participation in the policy process Learning outcomes By the end of the session participants should be: Aware of the policy processes and power maps of influence Clearly understand what their role is in ensuring the successful implementation of the policy s issues affecting youths and within their communities. NB: Facilitators are advised to devise at their discretion appropriate warmers and energizers to make the session interactive. Contents Introduction 20mins Main Body 80mins Introduce topic on power mapping and state the objectives of the session Define : Ask participants to define what is a power map Step 1. Determine your Target Before your Community Power Map session, determine the key decision-maker or makers for your campaign or the person you want to influence this is your target. To do this, answer the question: "Which single individual literally can make the decision or enact the change we want to see?" Step 2: Research your Target Find out your target's personal and professional connections and find information relevant to the current work he/she s involved in. If you have a few potential targets, research all of them to determine who holds the most decision-making power, and who you are most likely to move or influence. You probably know more than you think--brainstorming with Community members can unearth a lot of useful information Select the most critical problem affecting the target group Identify shortcomings that hamper the progress of policy or programme implementation Specify the desired direction required for policy change Step 3. Make an action plan. Establish procedures for coordinating work Define the roles of team members regarding who will do what
Identify alliances or coalitions that can support advocacy and mobilize support for required decisions Identify the target audience (of decision-makers) to whom advocacy will be directed Decide on the arguments and materials required Prepare a timetable for action, schedule of meetings and participate in major events Step 4. Choose the most appropriate advocacy strategy. Use of media (print, broadcast, video Theatrical presentation, stage plays Seminars, training and others Dissemination of ideas through information-education communication (IEC) materials such as pamphlets, posters, billboards, Invitations to representatives of diverse sectors for discussion of relevant issues and concerns about young people Inter-community visits Convention s Street marches Pressure Group Delegation, dialogue, negotiation Divide participants into three groups and let them discuss and brainstorm how a power map at community level would look like and to identify a specific issue under each goal area SRH, civic participation and livelihood and employment. Give participants sample of power map at community level Community Power Map helps you determine the individuals and groups in your community who are affected by the issue and who can influence your target. Some groups and individuals may be affected by the issue but don't have much influence over the target. Others might have a lot of influence over the target but aren't directly impacted by the issue. Start your Community Power Map by brainstorming all the individuals and groups in your community who are influential in your community and are directly impacted by the campaign issue. Here are some examples: Small-business owner Donors Students Parents Teachers People directly impacted by the issue you're working on (e.g., in the healthcare fight, access and treatment of STIs Organizations with political capital (e.g., they helped elect the target)media Outlets Celebrities Elected officials Faculty and administrators at local colleges and universities organizations impacted by the campaign issue Clergy and religious leaders, Churches Parent Teacher Associations and school boards Community and social justice organizations Conclusion Ask participants if they have any questions Using and interactive method, review if the objectives of the session have been met.
LESSON 3: COMMUNITY SELF ASSESSMENT PROCESS Facilitator: Restless Development Duration: 1 hour. Target: A4Cs Overall aim To introduce participants to the concept of the community self-assessment process and what it hopes to achieve. Objectives To build a clear understanding among the participants of the goal and importance of the community selfassessments. To ensure learners understand the flow of activities they will be involved in and what their roles will be. Learning outcomes By the end of the session participants should be: Clear about community self-assessment process and their role in the process NB: Facilitators are advised to devise at their discretion appropriate warmers and energizers to make the session interactive. Contents Introduction 10mins Main Body 40mins Warmer Introduce the topic and its overall goal Emphasis that self-assessment process is non-political and should be treated as such. Explain that participants should take ownership of the conducting the community self - assessments because it is meant to benefit their community. Ask participants to express their expectations of being part of the community selfassessment process. Explain what is involved in the community self-assessment process and activities in details. Community self-assessment process involves: Training in a d v o c a c y a n d l o b b y i n g s k i l l s, P o l i c y e n g a g e m e n t -National y o u t h p o l i c y focusing on youth and health, youth and entrepreneurship, youth empowerment funds. Power mapping Use of the self-assessment tool and forming of self-assessment committees (composition of self-assessment committees should include: headmen, parents, teachers, health staff, head teachers, community members, in-school youth and out of school youths and Community AIDS Task Force (CAFT) and Rural Development Committees (RDC). Documentation Tikambe (let s talk) events calling different stake holders and decision makers such as the area members of parliament, ward councilors, headmen, chiefs, head teachers, teachers, church leaders, parents, women. youths-in and out of school to dialogue and respond to community issues identified in the self-assessment reports Conclusion Ask participants if they have any questions Using and interactive method, review if the objectives of the session have been met.
LESSON PLAN 4: LOBBYING SKILLS Facilitator: Restless Development Duration: 2 hours. Target: A4Cs Overall aim To build the capacity of participants with lobbying skills with particular focus on holding government to account for improved youth friendly health service provision. Objectives To build the skills of learners in lobbying To ensure learners understand the procedures of lobbying government on policy delivery. Learning outcomes By the end of the session participants should be: Confident of their capacity to lobby government using the correct procedures NB: Facilitators are advised to devise at their discretion appropriate warmers and energizers to make the session interactive. Introduction 20mins Warmer Define lobbying as an act of attempting to influence decisions made by officials in government or other legislators and government actors. A lobbyist is a person who tries to influence legislation on behalf of a special interest. Explain that in the context of this project, participants will have an opportunity to lobby their local MPs on the provision of improved youth friendly health service provision. Hence the need to possesses strong lobbying skills if they are to achieve this process with significant success. Main Body 80mins Divide participants into groups to discuss what lobbying skills they think they will need for this process. After groups present, review the list and make additions ensuring critical skills have been covered. Working within their groups, ask participants to act out the following scenarios; A successful lobbying meeting with their MP highlighting what led to the success. An unsuccessful lobbying meeting with their MP highlighting what led to the failure. Emphasize the need for participants to be well informed and prepared before They can meet their local leaders for a lobbying meeting. Conclusion 20mins Ask participants if they have any questions Using and interactive method, review if the objectives of the session have been met.