Workshop 1: Preparing the Promoters
Purpose – Rationale
This first workshop presents techniques that can be used by teachers, as community facilitators, during the introductory meeting aiming to recruit promoters (children, parents and other members of the community) who will be actively involved as a core group in the Participatory Action Research (PAR) project. Promoters will be familiarized with the right’s-based approach for CQL and will collaboratively identify causes and effects of key issues or decisions that need to be made.
Promoters will be familiarized with the right’s-based approach for CQL and will collaboratively identify causes and effects of key issues or decisions that need to be made.
Objectives:
Participants will
Identify the root causes of the problems hindering CQL, nested within school and the broader community.
Analyze the situation created by the immediate causes.
Prioritize and plan actions to resolve the problems identified in the process.
Target Group/Audience/Participants: Promoters
Promoters will be students, parents and other members of the community who will be actively involved as a core group in the PAR project.
Promoters will participate in a series of participatory activities that will enable them to identify the root causes of the problems hindering CQL and plan actions to resolve the problems identified in the process.
Facilitators:
Teachers/Teacher trainers
Materials:
Pictures depicting children rights
Computer and projector
Post-it notes
Paper sheets
Flip charts
Whiteboard
Two tree diagrams
Duration:
3 hours
Activity 1: Ice breaker
Description
Everyone gets in a circle. The facilitator starts saying “My name is (….) and I like (an object that starts with the same letter as their first name).” Then the next person says the same thing with their name, then repeating the person before. This goes on, with the last person repeating everyone.
The icebreaker is followed by a brief self-introduction of the participants (i.e full name, capacity, reason for participating in the PAR, expectations).
The facilitator then presents the outline of the five-session and informs participants about the aim of the PAR and their role in the process.
Check out this video to learn more about the ice breaker activity.
Activity 2: Picture stories
Description
The teacher/facilitator prepares collation of pictures that portray various aspects of Children’s Quality of Life (CQL).
Pictures could represent CQL in terms of access to health, education, security and the right to play. Pictures should be selected to reflect the particular context where the workshop is taking place.
Participants discuss each picture to identify and rank the problems/issues, propose solutions and illustrate possible consequences.
The facilitator could use prompt questions like: “What do you see in this picture?”, “What does the scene say to you?”, What is quality of life for children?” “Is this picture relevant to children’s quality of life? Why?”, “Do all children have equal rights? “Do all children have equal opportunities”, “What do we mean when we say that children have the right to play?”
The group should direct the sequence of the pictures and rearrange them to indicate priority.
Temporary removal and reintroduction of one or more of the pictures can help determine its importance and encourage discussion.
The final composition can be recorded with a photograph or drawing.
It is expected that by the end of this activity participants will reach a working definition of CQL.
Activity 3: Social Norms
Description
Participants identify normal daily activities for a child in their locality by adding labels, pictures or symbols of these around a picture of a child. Each activity is discussed in groups. Participants need to determine the contribution of each activity towards CQL. A whole-class discussion is followed to reach a conclusion.
Participants, in groups, consider the daily life of a child belonging to a particular socially deprived or excluded group i.e. disable, immigrant, LGBT. The picture is replaced with that of the child of the particular group, and participants in each group draw lines of different colours from the picture to each activity, to show whether they think that the child has equal opportunities, as any other child, to participate. Participants consider the barriers that children of these categories face by adding labels on each line explaining why certain activities cannot be undertaken.
The facilitator displays a large diagram showing concentric circles, labelled from the centre outwards as Individual, Family, School, Community, Wider Society etc. The group moves their labels into the relevant circle of the diagram, to show the origin of the barrier to participation.
Activity 4: Problem Tree
Description
This activity can either be generic or focusing on specific for particular categories of children (i.e. disabled, immigrant, LGBT).
The facilitator uses a picture of a tree (see the video for “the problem tree”). The picture is labelled as “Barriers hindering CQL”.
The barriers for CQL, determined in activity 2, are labelled and drawn as the roots of the tree.
Participants discuss the various different causes of the problem and add additional root causes.
It may help to use sticky notes, since these can be moved around to distinguish between immediate causes and deeper root causes. The facilitator keeps asking “What causes that?”
Barriers hindering CQL
Next, the effects of the problems-barriers are drawn as branches of the tree.
The diagram should identify links between issues by joining branches together…
