Reflections from the window - project evaluations

As one of the last steps of the summer program with AMIGOS (and any good project methodology), we took some time to evaluate how the program went. We had some interesting conversations among the staff team as to how to implement the evaluations, in addition to the topics discussed within the evaluations.

We used a participatory evaluation method, which succinctly, means to involve participants in the evaluation process. For AMIGOS, this meant to get the opinions of people from all aspects of involvement with the program: host families, youth group members who worked with our volunteers, partnering agency contacts, to even community members who weren't involved with the program much.

The evaluation process looked different based on the different levels at which we evaluated

• At the community level, supervisors might have coordinated a town meeting to evaluate the project in a group with community members. In some communities, a town meeting wasn't feasible; these supervisors might have conducted multiple interviews with various community members and key players, or even distributed surveys to community members.
• At the partnering agency level, directors and supervisors met with PLAN contacts that we had worked with. We evaluated how the summer went: successes, challenges, suggestions. Based on the AMIGOS mission statement, what did we do well? what difficulties did we encounter? what suggestions do we have for next year?

One of the interesting topics of discussion when we were planning out our evaluation methodologies was whether the presence of our youth volunteers (who had been living and working in the communities) would affect the responses in the evaluation. While communities might be more reticient to discuss the challenges of their volunteers when the vols are right there, there was also the consideration of how to teach or pass along knowledge about the evaluation process to volunteers. None of our project supervisors (responsible for directly overseeing volunteers in the communities) had ever done a participatory evaluation before, either because the eval process was different when they were a volunteer, or more likely, that the participatory evaluation had always been conducted post-volunteer departure from the communities.

Here's an interesting document on involving youth in the participatory evaluation process published by the Program for Youth and Community at the University of Michigan.

In the end, we came to a consensus on a two-part participatory evaluation. First, that there would be some sort of participatory evaluation in all communities while the volunteers were still there. In general, this was the meaty evaluation step, although in some communities supervisors encountered challenges that prevented them from doing a thorough evaluation at this point. Next, supervisors returned to each community after volunteers left the country in order to check that everything was indeed OK with the volunteers and to complete the participatory evaluation process as needed.

The final step of the evaluation process was to complete the documentation on these evaluations. We created a number of documents based on the multi-faceted evaluation process:

• Community-specific evaluation summaries - for next year's staff to review and learn from at the beginning of the summer
• Partnering Agency evaluation matrix - based on the notes from three different partnering agency evaluation meetings we held (with the three PLAN offices with which we worked)
• Final Evaluation documents - we created one in Spanish and a summary in English that narrated our evaluation of the project. I focused on the key issues we had encountered throughout the summer, as well as common threads from all of our participatory evaluation encounters. These documents also included a more quantitative component that enumerated all of the projects we worked on this summer (# of hours of children's camps, # of murals painted, etc.)

What have your experiences been on evaluations of projects? Self-evaluations?

Taino Art Workshop Update

An update on the Taino art workshop project that I have been working on this summer. (read previous posting here) The project is to build a workshop space in one of the rural Dominican communities for practicing and teaching the Taino-style sculpture that they do:

After some significant roadblocks, we purchased materials and started construction on the workshop!

Since I last wrote, we discovered some challenges to community mobilization and support for the project. When we went out to visit, expecting a ground-breaking ceremony, the preparatory work that we expected to be completed was not done yet. There had been some challenges with the maestro (the main expert on the project) in completing the work in a timely manner, as well as with the local youth to rally community support to keep this project going.

It didn't look good. With the short time frame that we have for the AMIGOS projects, we had to look at how we could best get the community on board with a youth-based project, and to understand that the project was not just for the few youth leading the project organization.

PLAN and the AMIGOS project director went out to this community the next evening for a meeting, and there were some amazing turnaround results!

• The community members committed to getting the preparatory work and materials completed within 5 days
• They appointed an adult leader/laison for the project

We delivered the materials a few days later, just before the end of the summer AMIGOS volunteer program. It was a lot of fun to get the materials from a ferreteria (hardware store) and deliver them in a huge truck out to this community. El Capa is a bit difficult to get to -- you have to cross a river -- so it was quite a different perspective travelling in a vehicle that I knew wouldn't get stuck or have any trouble in the river.


After the end of the AMIGOS project this summer, I went back to El Capa to check on the progress of the art workshop construction. The construction was moving along, and below you can see the posts and wire set up in preparation for pouring concrete walls. The group of adults monitoring the project has been active and working closely with the youth members on making sure the project progresses, and resolving issues that had come up. It was also good to see the community, and also say goodbye to some of the great people I met there. Here are some photos from the visit:

Overall, it has been a positive experience in seeing a community come together for a long-term sustainable project directed from within the same community. I look forward to seeing the progress in the coming months on this construction!

The power of possibility

From the seed of an idea, to a project with a targeted completion within a few months:

Once upon a time there was an AMIGOS DR community with an interest in practicing Taino sculpture. Youth within this community had found Taino (a Caribbean indigenous culture) art pieces within the nearby mountains and taught themselves how to sculpt pieces in a similar style.

Some youth within the community had one of those "pie in the sky" ideas - "Wouldn't it be great if we had materials to host a formal workshop to not only practice and improve our art, but also to pass along the knowledge to the younger children in the community?" I heard about this idea when discussing possible grant opportunities with PLAN. From what I understood, the youth in this community had already begun soliciting funding for this project, and that the main components were sculpture tools and machinery, as well as organizational assistence and mentorship.

After discussing the idea with PLAN contacts in more detail, we decided to move forward toward crafting a proposal for AMIGOS. Going out to the community of El Capa, it soon became clear that while there was much passion for this project, there had not been much, if any, planning for this particular project. The project proposal, with detailed project objectives and justifications, was missing. Additionally, there was no location for the taller yet. Given the tight timeline that AMIGOS works under during the summer, this seemed like a challenge to accomplish within little more than a month.

PLAN, however, latched onto the vision of the workshop. Not only is it an excellent microenterprise opportunity (strengthening the financial opportunities within this rural community), but it is focused on cultural preservation as well as upon youth leadership. The teenaged and young adult leaders of the Neo-Taino Artesan Group would lead this workshop, gaining valuable experience managing a small organization/business, as well as experience in teaching other young people about Taino culture and art.

PLAN led the process of guiding the youth through the visioning process for the taller, from that "pie in the sky" idea all the way down to the number of nails needed for constructing a building capable of holding this dual-fold workshop (artist workshop as well as training workshop).

After several long days of this planning and detailing, I submitted the grant application, and a period of waiting on the judgement, the grant was approved! While there is little time left with AMIGOS volunteers in the community, PLAN has taken ownership of this project and all levels of the organization within the DR are committed to seeing this project to completion. Within a few months, there should be a working edifice for practicing the art. For the next year, the youth in charge of the project will have training on organization management, managing funds.
For the next years, this community will be empowered to make a name for itself as leaders in contemporary Taino sculpture and as preserving a key part of the Dominican Taino culture.

And I'm off tomorrow to see the ground-breaking ceremony for this project.

Sustainable Community Development

One of the areas of focus this summer with the AMIGOS program has been on the promotion of sustainable community development. While AMIGOS has a long history of working in Latin American countries on promoting community development, and has been working toward community development, this has been a major focus within the Dominican Republic project this year.

Most AMIGOS projects have some sort of Community Based Initiative (CBI), a small project initiated from within a community for volunteers and community members to focus on during the AMIGOS volunteer's time in the community.

How are we different? Here's how:

1. Emphasize the importance of the process of the CBI. While the actual painting of a mural, or the construction of a playground is important, we have worked on training the community youth on the process of the community, its values and strengths, and the visioning process of what possibilities we have for further strengthening these values. As the community and youth become more familiar with this process, they are able to carry out this process (and the subsequent proposal planning and implementation) on their own.
2. We changed the terminology based on cultural meanings. While Community Based Initiative typically translates to "proyecto comunitario" in Spanish, the term proyecto carries the connotation of a large construction-based project. Instead, we are using the term "Iniciativa pequena de la comunidad" to better convey the community-based focus as well as the small-ness of our initiatives (most of our initiatives are within the $350 USD range).
3. Encourage communities to participate in fundraising outside of the AMIGOS proposal process. Many of our communities are supporting significant portions of the "iniciativas pequenas" - some more than 50%, and one is completely supporting the financial aspects of the initiative!

Between these key points of focus in our project, as well as focused training to our volunteers as well as community youth on the Community Based Initiatives and process, we have been having a successful, and in my mind - sustainable, process for working within our communities this summer!

Collaboration - the meaning of partnership

Here in the Dominican Republic, AMIGOS is working with a partnering organization on all aspects of our project. We are collaborating with PLAN International, an international development organization focused on youth participation.


We have worked jointly with PLAN in all aspects of the program planning, implementation and evaluation process. The first project-related activities this summer was meeting with the national level contacts to establish focus for our volunteer program and a chronology for the summer.


Some of the joys of working with a partnering agency:

• Our partner contacts know and understand the communities and cultures we work in much better than we do. They have established relationships with our contacts in communities, and know best on how to approach challenging situations. There have been more than one occasion where sharing the challenges we are experiencing with our PLAN contacts have helped to ensure a swift resolution to the issues at hand.
• Our PLAN contacts also have worked with the AMIGOS programs in previous years and have the first-hand experience of lessons learned. As the AMIGOS project leadership changes yearly, we strive to benefit from the lessons learned, and the strength of our partnering agency relationship helps to ensure this.
• More fun! We have forged some great friendships with the people at the PLAN offices, and have enjoyed getting together on the weekends, or exploring some of the cultural opportunities (namely the craziness that was the Dias Patronales festival).

One of the challenges with our partnering agency relationships is that through AMIGOS we have a short timeframe to build our relationships and to leverage them for the success of the program. We are lucky to have such dynamic contacts within PLAN for this reason, and I imagine that there would be further strength by having continuity within the AMIGOS program over time as well.

Overall the partnering process between AMIGOS and PLAN has been a positive relationship building. Like any relationship (think about our personal and family relationships), it takes time to build and a lot of give and take. But this relationship is one that has a great effect upon the success of the AMIGOS program in the Dominican Republic.

Latin American Youth Involvement

Our project this summer is one of the AMIGOS projects at the forefront of Latin American youth involvement. We are including six Dominican volunteers in what has traditionally been a US volunteer-based program, and these six volunteers will be working, living and sharing side-by-side with their US counterparts. Two Dominican youth will be participating as AMIGOS volunteers in the Costa Rica project, and also must be properly prepared for their experiences there.

So far we are in the recruiting and training phases. Here are some of the similarities and differences from my experiences with training and recruiting American youth:

Similar:

• Dominican Youth are very eager to participate in AMIGOS. We had nine people apply for the eight volunteer spots available between the DR and Costa Rica programs, and some have already started asking about supervisor-level opportunities.
• They are very excited for the program and happy to participate in all activities!
• They are familiar with some of the same dinamicas (energizers) as we use in our US training (Human Knot, Captain's Coming, Name Games...)

Differences:

• DR youth appear to be more mature as a whole than the US volunteer participants. Part of this may be due to some of the age differences (16 is the minimum age for US volunteers, whereas our partnering agency put the minimum age of 18 for Dominican volunteers)
• Even with the age differences, Dominican youth have expressed very clear commitment toward our standards of conduct and the working aspects of the program.

We have part 2 of our Dominican volunteer training program on Wednesday, so look for updates then!

Making the Best of Challenges

My time in the Dominican Republic has included quite a lot of time on finding "opportunities," or otherwise working on resolutions to problems that have arisen. One of the most recent challenges has been working through water supply issues to the house I'm living in.

It took about a week to find a staff house in San Juan for my project team, which included several days of looking for houses (low availability) and talking with landlords about the possibility of renting for only 3 months, but we finally found a nice house. It's in a nice neighborhood on the edge of town and is about a 15 minute walk into downtown San Juan. The house has a lot of space for the nine people we have living in the house on weekends, when all of the supervisors have come back from their community visits.

But after the first night of being in the house, we ran out of water.

Not that the water turned off temporarily, but that the water storage tank (fed by the city water supply) went dry. We had firefighters fill the water cistern the next day (Sunday) and thought our problems were over. And it happened again on Monday - dry. (Free water delivered by the municipality solved that problem).

After working with the ingenieros (engineers) on possible leaks within the cistern or other water pump equipment, we thought the problem was fixed. But the day after the project supervisors arrived (completing the D.R. Staff team), the cistern went dry again - and on a weekend.

Weekend + nine people = smelly people. Sunday is a rest day in the Dominican Republic, and most offices are closed (all stores close by 2 pm as well). We made an emergency pit stop at a hotel for some bathing Sunday afternoon.

Monday morning, I started working the phones to get an engineer, landlord, or someone from the water company to understand our problem. It didn't seem like it, but it paid off. Magically, overnight, the water cistern had filled up. A "key" had been turned off previously, preventing water from coming from the city into our house.

Lessons Learned: persistence, don't give up, creative solutions (hotel showers) and working the phones can help to solve problems.

We've now been 5 days without water issues!

Dominican Republic!

Well, I have arrived in the Dominican Republic about 10 days ago, and have been busy since getting acclimated and getting our project this summer off the ground!

I arrived in Santo Domingo a day before my companñeros did, and so I went to our hotel Pension La Quisqueyana and began to get to know Santo Domingo. I´ve been to the D.R. twice before, but I´ve never spent much time in Santo Domingo on my own, so it was nice to walk around and get to know the neighborhood I was in. I waited til the sun cooled a bit, and then walked out to the ocean, and around and around and around! Finally I found a great little sandwich shop and had a nice ham and cheese sandwich.

When Mason and Liz arrived the next day, I had explored some more and showed them around. We stayed in Santo Domingo for the weekend to hang out, eat some pizza on El Conde, and get ready for our first PLAN meeting!

Monday morning we met with the PLAN International office and had a great meeting to plan out the work between Plan and AMIGOS this summer. It was interesting to meet so many people and to learn more about how this international non-profit operates in the capital city and surrounding areas.

After our meeting we went directly to the bus station to head to San Juan de la Maguana, the host city for AMIGOS this summer. We spent most of our time in San Juan looking for a house and beginning to meet with the San Juan PLAN office to start collaborations for our summer.

Project Supervisors arrive tomorrow, so we´ve got a lot to do before they arrive!