I am because you are

In a previous blogpost I reflected on how African values shape my practice of Evaluation.

This week I attended a seminar during which Gertjan Van Stam shared some provocative views on development in Africa. I started reading his book 'Placemark'. I love the way he gives voice to rural Africa. I find it interesting that this Dutch Engineer manages to give voice to Africa in a way that I can relate with.

His beautifully written take on Ubuntu:

I am, because You are

Is it possible that people in rural areas of Africa can connect with people in urban areas around the world?

That one can walk into a scene and meet someone who walks into the same scene, even if it is geographically separated?

That we explore and connect rural and urban worlds worldwide without anyone being forced into cultural suicide?

That we meet around the globe and relate, embrace, love, and build meaningful relationships?

That we find ways to be of significance and support to each other and together shuffle poverty and disease into the abyss?

That we encourage each other to withstand drunkenness and drugs, bullying, self harm, and greed?

That we share spiritual nutrition to deal with wealth, loss, alienation and pain in this generation?

That we unite through social networks, overcoming divides and separations?

That we share ancient, tested, and new resources, opportunities, visions, and dreams that lead to knowledge, understanding and wisdom?

That we collaborate to discuss, and engineer tools, taking into account the integral health of all systems?

That together, South and North, build capacity, mutual accountability, and progress, for justice and fairness?

That I am, because You are?

21st Century Skills of Rural African Teachers and Learners

I’m evaluating a project that aims to build the 21^st century skills of rural African teachers and learners. Until recently I did not even know what people meant when they used the phrase 21^st Century skills, but I have been enlightened and must now find a way to measure it for our evaluation. 

It seems I’m not the only one struggling with the problem of having to measure something very broad - There are a range of resources available that wrangle with the idea of defining and measuring 21^st Century Skills – Some of the resources I found particularly useful include:

http://www.p21.org/about-us/p21-framework

http://atc21s.org/index.php/about/what-are-21st-century-skills/

http://21stcenturyskillsbook.com/

Everything I read, however, seems to have the focus on a context that is not rural and not African. Perhaps there is scope for our project to contribute to the general discussion on 21st Century Skills by adapting the definitions and measures specifically for our context? Perhaps this is an opportunity to develop an example of African Made, African Owned Evaluation?

My plans for AfrEA 2014 conference

I'm off to Cameroon on Sunday for a week of networking, learning and sharing at the 2014 AfrEA conference in Yaondé. I love seeing bits of my continent. If internet access is available I'll try to tweet from @benitaW.

I am facilitating a workshop on Tuesday together with the wise Jim Rugh and the efficient Marie Gervais to share a bit about a VOPE toolkit EvalPartners is developing. ( A VOPE is an evaluation association or society... voluntary organization for professional evaluation)

Workshop title:Establishing and strengthening VOPEs: testing and applying the EvalPartners Institutional Capacity Toolkit

Abstract: One of the EvalPartners initiatives, responding to requests received from leaders of many VOPEs (Voluntary Organizations for Professional Evaluation), is to develop a toolkit which provides guidance to those who wish to form even informal VOPEs, and leaders of existing VOPEs who seek guidance on strengthening their organization’s capacities.  During this workshop participants will be introduced to the many subjects addressed in the VOPE Institutional Capacity Toolkit, and asked to test the tools as they determine how they could help them apply such resources in strengthening their own VOPEs.

The workshop will be very interactive with lots of exploring, engaging, and evaluating of the toolkit resources. Participants should not come to this workshop expecting that they will sit still for more than 30 minutes at a time. We'll use a combination of learning stations and fishbowls as the workshop methodology.  I'm really looking forward to it!

Eventually the toolkit will be made available online. Follow @vopetoolkit on twitter for more news about developments.

I served on the boards of both AfrEA and SAMEA so I hope that the resources that the Toolkit task force and their marvellous team of collaborators put together in the toolkit will be of use to colleagues across the continent who are still founding or strengthening their VOPEs. It is hard and sometimes thankless work to serve on a VOPE board, and if this toolkit can make someone's life a little easier with examples, tools and advice, I would count this as a worthy effort.

I expect that the workshop will be a good opportunity to get some Feedback to guide us in the completion of the work.

Working Rigorously with Stories - Impact Story Tool

I've had some people email me about a paper I presented at the 2013 SAMEA conference. This paper introduces a tool for collecting and rigorously analysing impact stories that could be used as part of an evaluation. The full paper with the tool can be accessed here. The abstract is presented below:

 Beneficiary stories are an easily collected data source, but without specific information in the story, it may be impossible to attribute the mentioned changes to an intervention or to verify that the change actually occurred. Approaches such as Appreciative Inquiry and the Most Significant Change Technique have been developed in response to the need to work more rigorously with this potentially rich form of data. The “Impact Story Tool” is yet another attempt to make the most of rich qualitative data and was developed and tested in the context of a few programme evaluations conducted by Feedback RA.

The tool consists of a story collection template and an evaluation rubric that allows for the story to be captured, verified and analysed. Project participants are encouraged to share examples of changes in skills, knowledge, attitudes, motivations, individual behaviours or organizational practice. The tool encourages respondents to think about the degree to which the evaluated programme contributed towards the mentioned change, and also asks for the details of another person that may be able to verify the reported change. The analyst collects the story, verifies the story and then codes the story using a rubric. When a number of stories are collected in this way, they are then analysed together with other evaluation data. It may illuminate which parts of a specific intervention are most frequently credited with contributing towards a change.

Besides introducing the tool as it was used in three different evaluations, the usefulness of this tool and possible drawbacks are discussed.

 (The picture above is of a character known as "Benny Bookworm" from a South African TV show called "Wielie Walie" which I watched as a child)

Reflection: Thanks Tom Grayson

So since I started a stroll down memory lane, I thought I'd share this too. In 2002 I decided I wanted to be an evaluator. I was working at an evaluation company, and I decided to start my own consultancy, so I was getting great practical exposure.  But I really did not have a good academic grounding in the theory and literature surrounding Evaluation. This was back in the day when there weren't MOOCS and webinars... so I had to READ to get my education.

During my studies I had read Cook and Campbell, and somehow I also stumbled upon Guba and Lincoln. I was introduced to Utilization Focused Evaluation.  In 2004 I got Rossi, Lipsey and Freeman for a going away present from Khulisa, and I read any evaluation journal articles I could lay my hands on.

Its after reading something that Tom Grayson (from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) wrote in a journal article about teaching evaluation, that I decided to email him. I asked him for some reading material that will give me a good basis in Evaluation. He responded by sending me a package of course reading materials via post... This was such an unexpected gesture of goodwill. Above is a little handwritten note that he sent with the material.
 
So Tom, thanks a lot. And this is me letting you know about my adventures in evaluation!