Sep 7, 2022 | Blog, Related Activities & Initiatives
Caption: Photo-collage workshop (An example of bottom-up engagement to inform adults) – 8th April 2021, Red Nose Foundation, Jakarta, Indonesia
While it was heartening and inspiring to listen to the major successes of the Mobile Arts for Peace projects in their initial stages, I was also delighted by the participants willingness to talk about their disappointments. In these spaces we often only hear of success as this is an essential aspect of justifying resources and securing future funding. However, an exclusive focus on success limits opportunities to learn and improve our work and recognise common challenges across projects and themes and subsequently come up with strategies to address them. In the Mobile Arts for Peace projects, a pattern of challenges was evident because of the openness of presenters. In the cases mentioned by MAP partners and dialogue attendees, these disappointments stemmed from similar lack of external support and buy-in from those they were targeting while the corresponding successes resulted from engaged and committed stakeholders. In this case, and in others, we see that for change to happen, there needs to be both bottom-up and top-down engagement.
Creating spaces for constructive dialogue between young people and decision-makers, particularly politicians and government officials presents a host of challenges. Often, projects focus on empowering and building capacity and skills of the young people with whom they are working. Young people are supported to identify issues that are important to them and to articulate them in formats which can be disseminated and shared with stakeholders and those with the power to bring about change. The adults supporting them introduce them to data collection methods, analysis techniques and facilitate events where young people can share their findings. The final step is where the biggest challenge remains. Young people are empowered and develop capacity to speak to those in power – but are those in power capable of listening and hearing?
While copious resources are put into developing the capacity of young people, rarely do projects elaborate or build opportunities for reversals – building the capacity of the powerful to listen to young people. And yet this is an essential component of change. Entrenched social norms around childhood and youth often mean that children are expected to listen. Yet, if other social norms – such as child marriage and gender discrimination are to be challenged – people, and especially adults – need shift their perceptions of what young people are capable of and the role they play in our societies.
Robert Chambers argues that power does not have to be a zero-sum exchange and that to give up power does not necessitate that someone else loses it, rather he contends that these exchanges can be win-win (2016). To advocate for win-win scenarios requires a shift from focusing only on bottom-up approaches. Instead, transforming power requires that top-down approaches take place alongside bottom-up approaches: ‘the importance of bottom-up power with and power within strategies, vital and often primary though they are, should not distract from the potentials of top-down transformations using power over in ways which are win-win, with gains for the powerful as well as for those who are empowered.’[1] There are spaces in development where this has started to take place – such as working with men on issues of gender inequity, see the work of Equimundo, and working with business owners on issues of working conditions in the CLARISSA programme.
As mentioned by the MAP Nepal team, there was greater success when government officials who were involved in the MAP dialogues recognised the value of youth finding and presenting the issues which were most relevant to their well being as it meant that government officials then knew where to focus their energy and resources. Yet, even when adults are supportive of youth activities, in adult and youth exchanges there is the danger that ‘adults talk too much’ and/or present as experts. Taft’s (2015) work on the Peruvian children’s working movement explores how intergenerational collaboration when embedded in contexts of age-based inequality can reinforce disempowering dynamics. This case and others serve as an important caution to those supporting youth initiatives. Without adequate self-reflection and top-down capacity-building and commitment to address power imbalances, our efforts can unintentionally uphold youth marginalisation.
MAP’s openness to addressing these challenges and others suggests that the next stages of the project will be exciting places for learning and practicing how adults can learn to work with youth in bottom-up policy initiatives.
[1] For more on types of power, see VeneKlasen and Miller (2002)
Jul 21, 2022 | Blog, Conflict Tree, Related Activities & Initiatives, Theatre, Video
Caption: Kyrgyzstan’s Team Presentation, part of the Agents of Change Webinar
If you wish to envision the future of world peace, young people from the MAP project shall be your reflective lens. From Nepal to Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia to Rwanda, the young peacebuilders from these regions, equipped with the tools of arts-based research, documented critical issues that they believed impacted their society. Traditionally while these approaches are utilized for peacebuilding endeavors in reconciliation processes, today, there is a need for incorporating the same into preventive efforts and driving more targeted interventions.
In the context of the Agents of Change event on the 24th May 2022 Each project developed by the teams communicated challenges that often went unnoticed in transitional societies and used the skills learned through the Small Grants Project to bridge meaningful participation and partnership for their communities. While navigating through the stigmas and prejudices that marginalized people in their communities face, the teams brought a multitude of creative outcomes. Documented through films, posters, photographs, stories, and comic strips, the young people ensured adequate safeguards by working with skilled professionals such as lawyers, trainers, community leaders, and psychologists to drive their interventions. For example, in a project involving violence against the children of migrants, the members were working with high-risk and vulnerable children prone to anxiety and trauma. Using mitigation measures like involving a psychologist and legal professionals, the team parallelly encouraged legal advice and therapy for those who sought the same. Aside from the mitigation measures, the teams took cognizance of the broader historical context of the region. For example, the project in Nepal identified the ethnic and socio-cultural conflicts that impacted their societies. Integrating a bottom-up approach toward policy intervention, the team used multiple channels for continued advocacy on the issues.
Based on the foundation of the “Theory of Change” analysis, each of the projects reflected a sincere effort to dig deeper into the immediate problems that their communities faced and the existing gaps within the institutional structures – both formal and informal. Through inter-generational dialogues with key decision-makers, they furthered the historical roots of their culture and carried it with a fresh perspective towards the future with the use of social media as a critical channel for communicating their assessments. The event also fostered intercultural learning amongst the team members of different countries and as a member of the audience, one could also identify the common concerns for the protection of the vulnerable and the prevention of the atrocities against those marginalized despite the geographical barriers.
A key highlight for me was the keen awareness and recognition of the diverse socio-cultural factors by young people and their usage in the planning, designing, and implementation of the project based on the arts-based tools. For example, the team in Rwanda took cognizance of the long history of war and conflict that has fractured the society. Involving elements of transitional justice as a part of solutions and recommendations while simultaneously working with the members of the civil society to transform the situation for children was critical. As the teams realize the projects alongside the communities they serve, it is a hope that the documentation of these lived experiences that is often unnoticed realizes into concrete policy efforts by local, state, and national governance.
About Ayesha:
Ayesha is an incoming LLM student at Georgetown University for the academic year 2022-23 on the prestigious Georgetown Merit Scholarship. In the recent past, Ayesha co-lead the Youth Wellbeing team under the UNESCO Youth as Researcher program for the Asia-Pacific Region . Here, she represented both in the Knowledge-sharing Meeting and High-Level Political Conference advocating for the access to mental healthcare within the region for university students with various stakeholders. Her priority interest areas are in security issues, human rights laws and peacebuilding that impact lives of young people through the intersection of mental health, gender and technology.
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You can also access the whole Webinar recording here
May 17, 2022 | Blog, Conflict Tree, Related Activities & Initiatives, Theatre, Video
Caption: Policy Brief created by MAP Youth Researchers in Kyrgyzstan
Art-based methods enable different stakeholders and audiences to engage with critical ideas and issues. The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project ‘Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP): Informing the National Curriculum and Youth Policy for Peacebuilding in Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia and Nepal’ aims to explore the use of art-based methods to enable communication structures between young people and decision-makers from local to regional levels. In a MAP webinar on 10 May 2022, young researchers from 16 participating MAP Youth Researcher Clubs in Kyrgyzstan and six MAP Child Clubs in Nepal demonstrated how they used art-based research methods to explore underlying issues and problems and to communicate these issues with local and regional decision-makers. Experts from the Open Innovation Team, a UK cross-government unit that works with academics to help officials generate analysis and ideas for priority projects, served as respondents. In relation to creating systemic change, respondents stated that it would be important to build a consortium with like-minded organisations or projects to help put pressure on decision-making or policy-making bodies. The webinar enabled the MAP team and webinar attendees to think deeper about next steps concerning how art-based methods might enable shifts in behaviour and attitude in relation to practices that might be embedded within certain cultures. For instance, there is legislation against child abuse in relation to migration in Kyrgyzstan, but some of the practices have become normalised. Art-based outputs including posters, drawings, films, and performances demonstrated the impact of these social issues on the lived experience of young people. Findings related to the causes and recommended solutions to the issues identified by the young researchers, that evolved through conversations between young people and local decision-makers, were incorporated into policy briefs. In our next ‘Agents of Change’ webinar on 24 May 2022, young researchers from all of the four countries will share their youth-led research projects including art-based outputs and policy briefs through a virtual exhibit with respondents from UNESCO. MAP will continue to engage local and regional decision-makers as we move to the next phase of the project which will focus on building communication structures between young people and policy-makers from local to regional to national levels.
You can register now to our upcoming ‘Agents of Change’ Webinar, or contact the Principal Investigator (PI) Professor Ananda Breed.
May 5, 2022 | Blog, Conflict Tree, Related Activities & Initiatives, Theatre, Video
Caption: A Young participant drawing a Conflict Tree
As a general trend, policy-informing projects in Nepal are decided by donors and decisions are made from the top-down. Young people are often only at the receiving end of development and research projects.
Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) Nepal allowed young people to brainstorm and develop a research project by themselves and implement it through the Small Grant Project Call.
From January-April 2022, seven child clubs implemented small grant projects on several topics including caste-based discrimination, gender-based violence, human trafficking, and drug abuse. In this blog, I am writing on how those issues and topics were selected by MAP Child Clubs in Nepal for MAP Small Grant Projects.
In a workshop organized by MAP Nepal team on 27th April 2022, the Small Grants Grantee shared the process how had they chosen issues and topic for the projects. Based on the responses collected in the workshop, I grouped the ideas into five major stages:
- Collection of ideas and issues through self-realization/peer observations by young people
- Analysing the issues through Conflict Tree Methods
- Consultation among child club members
- Consultations with teachers and parents
- Partnership with other local stakeholders.
A conflict tree analysis of drug abuse among young people prepared by one of MAP Nepal Club Member.
First, teams of 4-15 young people were formed in each school, where they had preliminary discussion meetings. They collected possible ideas, and the issues that they are facing. The ideas and issues were shortlisted giving priorities to the issues which are directly experienced by the team members or their peers. For example, a MAP club from Palpa district shared that one of their child club members got married at the age of 14 when she was studying at grade 9, hence, they prioritized child marriage issue on the top. A MAP club from Kanchanpur district shared that they found one of their peer’s attendances to school was irregular because he had to work to make a living, thus they decided to focus on child labour issues.
After the selection of the key issues, all the clubs used Conflict Tree Methods to analyze the issues. They looked at the root causes and effects of the problem. Then, they consulted back with all club members. After discussion, the issues and their analysis were note down and they asked teachers and parents for help. Finally, our MAP Nepal youth clubs collaborated with school management committees, Parents Teachers Association, Mothers Committee, Local Government, Local Music and Arts clubs, Local Artists, Nepal Police, and other local CSOs. They consulted with these local partners and involved them in the small grants’ activities.
Young people engaged in workshop – 27th April 2022
The small grant project allowed young people to gain initiative and leadership skills along with opportunities for co-creation, collaboration, and project planning.
The Small Grant project – supported by MAP – fostered a bottom-up approach in the creation of research and development agendas, thus, allowing young people to move beyond the role of beneficiaries into active creators.
We invite other researchers to give young people an active role in deciding the most pressing issues for research, and to give them a voice in the decision-making process.
May 5, 2022 | Blog, Indonesia, Related Activities & Initiatives, Theatre, Video
Stigma is adding to the pain of victims of sexual violence, particularly adolescent girls in urban poor communities of East Jakarta. The stigma tends to overlook the disabling environment causing the girls to be at risk of sexual violence. MAP young researchers created a short film to address the problem. The film will be a research tool to create dialogue with community members about stigma and the causes of sexual violence.
The young researchers led all the stages of filmmaking together, had their say about different pros and cons in the contents of the script, and debated different technical choices. Before creating the film, they sent out questionnaires to community members and interviewed adolescent survivors of sexual violence in order to create the script. They consulted Kalamtara, MAP partner filmmakers, from writing down a synopsis, to the cast rehearsal, filming and editing. In particular, the technicalities of filming were also assisted by young people of Jakaringan Cinema, a film-based advocacy youth groups based in East Jakarta.
In back-to-back discussions between Kalamtara filmmakers and young researchers, the researchers learned about what films should be and how to plan each production stage. Meanwhile, the filmmakers learned how to guide young people to create films they were passionate about. This process ultimately led to a discussion on how the film should end. In the young researchers’ view, the film should have no ending because they wanted to use the film in dialogues with community members to help find solutions. For the filmmakers, the film should at least show the main character is challenging the status quo or trying to get out of the violent situation.
The ongoing nature of the collaboration between young researchers and filmmakers constitutes a great example of what we consider a participatory arts-based approach.
You can find the final film in Indonesia’s Artistic Outputs page.
Aug 27, 2020 | Blog, Related Activities & Initiatives, Resources
Written by Professor Ananda Breed
Mobile Arts for Peace (MAP) and Changing the Story (CTS) hosted a three-day conference that focused on ‘Arts-based Research for Education and Peacebuilding’ from 5 – 7 August with the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP) as a co-host in Rwanda.[1]
Speakers included the MAP youth facilitators and master trainers alongside the University of Rwanda, the National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC), Never Again Rwanda, Aegis Trust, Rwanda Education Board (REB) and UNESCO as well as workshops, performances and panels. The conference used technology to link partners across Rwanda, Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Nepal, Cambodia, Uganda, the United Kingdom and other countries. Zoom, live camera feed, and combined physical and virtual break out rooms enabled connection and interaction between the 40 participants who were located at IRDP and between 40-50 participants who joined online across the three-day event. [2]
MAP Master Trainers and Youth Facilitators
Due to travel restrictions and social distancing measures during the time of COVID, the event highlighted the opportunities and possibilities for digital technology to connect research communities on a global level. This focus built upon an online webinar by Changing the Story, ‘From Grassroots Participation to Policy’, which examined new possibilities for grassroots engagement with policymakers.
Beyond the attendees at IRDP and online, there were additional communication hubs set up for MAP participants to engage with the event in each of the five provinces (Northern Province, Southern Province, Eastern Province, Western Province and Kigali Province). Laptops and communication packages were administered for MAP research participants to follow the event through communication hubs (for those who did not own their own computer or smart phone). In this way, MAP created a responsive, creative, and innovative digital platform that used a blended approach between online and physical spaces to engage with our research participants across Rwanda and other countries.
The Principal Investigator of CTS, Professor Paul Cooke, stated: ‘The event was a Master Class in how to turn a necessity into an opportunity. It was great to have such international interaction. While I would have much preferred to be in the room in person in Rwanda, we could never have afforded to bring such an international group together.’
An online participant in Rwanda stated: ‘The event was well organised. I appreciated the discussions in groups and the presentations about the problems in society using the solution tree exercise. Thank you for inviting different partners in education, especially the Rwanda Education Board (REB), which is the one to elaborate education policies. Thank you for providing us with all of the necessary materials needed to follow the event. We were connected and allowed each and everything.’
A MAP Exercise, called the ‘Solutions Tree’, completed by event participants
One of the primary outcomes of the event was the successful generation and distribution of knowledge on a local level (communication hubs across Rwanda) and on a global level (linking the event to participants and partners in Kyrgyzstan, Indonesia, Nepal, Cambodia, Uganda, the United Kingdom and other countries). In this way, MAP discovered new opportunities provided by communication and digital technology to provide additional opportunities to engage our research participants and to have greater impact on local and international levels. During the conference, MAP youth facilitators and master trainers worked alongside the participants at IRDP and the online community to explore the root causes of conflict and their solutions in response to the staged issue of discrimination (that was illustrated through a video clip of a forum theatre performance about disability that was originally generated through the sharing of personal stories during a MAP youth camp held November 2019).
Another online conference attendee and MAP research participant stated: ‘MAP activities help especially in the teaching and learning process and education in general. For example, when I am teaching, I use these activities to prepare a lesson plan; and because they are engaging, learners are motivated and interested. MAP activities match with competence-based curriculum which is currently used in Rwanda. MAP activities made the youth improve their way to solve their own problems that are there in society; to clarify the root causes (and any other causes), the consequences, and to find solutions. At my school, we have MAP clubs that perform plays in front of the school. It is through that platform that the school principals know the problems students have and they try to search for the solutions together.’
MAP activities and discussion groups
Following discussions that linked the physical and online break out rooms, a solution tree exercise elicited feedback in relation to the perceived conflict, root causes, consequences and solutions. In terms of informing policy, a representative from the REB and UNICEF responded very positively to the solution tree and a draft policy brief was presented by the MAP youth facilitators and master trainers.
Ministers from government institutions sent WhatsApp chats to the director of IRDP and CTS Co-I, Eric Ndushabandi, in response to the policy brief. In this way, MAP served to communicate the issues that young people face through arts-based methods (performance, visual arts, film) to policy makers; in this way establishing a two-way form of communication between young people and policy makers. We aim to harness these approaches and findings within the development of an AHRC GCRF Network Plus project entitled Mobile Arts for Peace: Informing the National Curriculum and Youth Policy for Peacebuilding in Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia and Nepal (2020-2024).
For more information about MAP, please go to the website: map.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk or contact Ananda Breed at ABreed@lincoln.ac.uk.
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[1] MAP was a Phase One project for Changing the Story (2017-2021) led by Co-I Ananda Breed and Eric Ndushabandi that evolved into a fully-fledged Network Plus project led by Ananda Breed as Principal Investigator and eight Co-Investigators from Kyrgyzstan, Rwanda, Indonesia, Nepal and the United Kingdom (Tajyka Shabdanova, Eric Ndushabandi, Sylvestre Nzahabwanayo, Harla Sara Octarra, Bishnu Khatri, Rajib Timalsina, Kirrily Pells, Koula Charitonos and Fereshte Goshtasbpour).
[2] Registrants included 42 participants on 5 August, 52 participants on 6 August and 43 participants on 7 August.
Aug 20, 2020 | Opportunities, Related Activities & Initiatives
The Colonial Legacies in Our Minds and Madness
Hamwe Festival has issued an open call for artists to join a collective creative project tackling the issue of existing colonial legacies in mental health systems.
You may find the original link with further information copied below: https://ughe.org/open-call-for-artists-the-colonial-legacies-in-our-minds-and-madness/
The text of the open call by the Hamwe Festival is copied below:
Hamwe Festival is a platform that brings together the health sector and the creative industries. Our goal is to generate new insights into global health challenges and corresponding solutions, using the unique and complementary vantage points of artists and global health professionals.
The festival is an initiative of the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE), an independent, accredited university, training the next generation of global health professionals striving to deliver equitable, quality health services for all. At UGHE, we believe that building bridges across sectors is a necessity, not only to improve access to services and the quality of their delivery globally, but also to eliminate the gap between the most and least disadvantaged.
Hamwe 2020 edition will take place from November 11th to November 15th, it will be an exclusively online festival. The festival theme will be Mental Health and Social Justice.
As it is growing, the “Global Mental Health Movement” has engendered new reflections and research from scholars, artists and activists who question some of its approach and analyze inherent colonial legacies present in that field (Cooper, 2016). This year, Hamwe festival will propose discussions on these issues and invite the public to reflect with creatives and researchers on the existing colonial legacies in mental health systems and how it is a detriment to health of individuals and communities worldwide.
As part of this reflection, an event compiling spoken word, poetry and other performing arts creations will be organized: The Colonial Legacies in Our Minds and Madness. We’re looking for artists who can create engaging online work sharing stories, experiences or research findings on the colonial legacies remaining in mental health systems and the impact they have on mental health.
To inform artists in their creative process, we’re organizing a 3-day workshop with world researchers and artists, availability to attend this workshop will be based on a selection criteria. The workshop will be conducted in English from the 6th to the 8th of October, during the afternoon Central African Time (CAT).
Performances will be shared with the public on the 15th of November 2020. Selected performers will have the option to conduct live performances or to pre-record their work.
Eligibility:
- Hamwe Festival is open to all. We encourage diversity and welcome applications from all nationalities, gender, ages and backgrounds.
- We are interested in hearing from spoken word artists, poets, singers, more performing arts forms of expressions.
- We welcome participation from individuals, groups and
- Artists at any stage of their career are eligible (from beginners to more established practitioners). However, we will ask for excerpts of existing creations or performances and review them in the selection process.
- All communications and activities will be conducted in English but performance in all languages can be accepted, as well as silent performances.
- Availability for the preparation workshop the 6th to the 8th of October, during the afternoon Central African Time (CAT).
Selection Process:
Applications will be reviewed on the following criteria:
- Submission of a fully filled application form (only in English) including all supporting documentation by September 13th.
- Motivation to participate and evaluated level of interest in the theme
- Quality and chosen themes of prior work, based on supporting material
- Artists will be evaluated based on the information submitted.
Successful applicants will be notified by email by September 20th, 2020. Due to the volume of applications received, we are not able to give feedback on individual applications.
Fee
UGHE will provide a fee of 250 USD for each project selected and will provide all technical requirements and technical support for the project. Amount will be transferred to the project participant’s bank accounts at the end of the project
For any questions please email the Hamwe Festival at hamwe@ughe.org
Reference:
Cooper, S., 2016. Global mental health and its critics: moving beyond the impasse. Critical Public Health 26, 355–358. https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2016.1161730
Mar 23, 2020 | Blog, MAP archive, Peace Education, Related Activities & Initiatives, Toolkits for Youth
This post was originally published via Changing the Story (CTS)’s #YoungChangemakers series on 1st October 2019, as part of the CTS sub-project Examining the Interpretations of Civic National Values Made by Young People in Kenya and Nepal.
Changing the Story is an AHRC GCRF project which asks how the arts, heritage and human rights education can support youth-centred approach to civil society building in post-conflict settings across the world. The ‘Examining the Interpretations of Civic National Values Made by Young People in Kenya and Nepal’ was closely linked to the methodologies used in the CTS MAP project, and contributed to Nepal becoming one of MAP’s current country focus. Find out more about Changing the Story and see the original post here: https://changingthestory.leeds.ac.uk
‘Examining Interpretations of Civic National Values made by Young People in Kenya and Nepal’ is led by a consortium of UK, Kenyan and Nepalese partners, a fusion of academics, educators, peacebuilders, civil society organisations and Performance Arts Companies that focus on Theatre.
Our project fuses performance arts methodologies as a pedagogical approach to teaching and learning in primary schools. We provide children with the opportunity to reflect on what they may know of past conflict in their countries, but through their understanding of community peacebuilding in the now, and for the future. This project is centred fully as a comparison of young voices from Kenya and Nepal. However, it is a project that speaks comparatively to the statutory teaching and learning of ‘civic national values’ in UK early years settings, primary and secondary schools through the notion of ‘Fundamental British Values’. These have emerged from more recent and current times of social and religious conflict and are stated as: democracy; the rule of law; individual liberty; mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith. The statutory teaching of these is aimed at preventing radicalisation in young people and seeks to foster a universal sense of connection and belonging to national identity.
Our decision to develop a comparison of educational responses to teaching and learning about civic national values in Kenya and Nepal was associated with commonalities to the UK context, but more specifically to congruency identified in Kenyan and Nepalese policies for post-conflict citizenship education. This is identified by the discourses of ‘values’ education. In Nepal, this includes the stated provision of ‘Moral Education’ for the teaching of ‘citizens in the community’ ‘civil rights and duties’ (Basic Education Curriculum, 2018). In Kenya the notion of developing ‘Engaged, Empowered & Ethical Citizens’ emerges from their national policy for ‘Values’ education (Basic Education Curriculum Framework, 2017).
Aims
Our project was interested in achieving the following research aims:
- To empower young people in post-conflict settings to develop and advance their thinking about the past, present and future possibilities of peacebuilding through theories of ‘reflection’, in our case using the method of a reflective diary.
- To explore how young people in post-conflict settings interpret and communicate civic national values supported by their application of varied performance arts-based tools and techniques.
- To examine the perspectives of teachers on civic national values including the varied ways they share these narratives with their learners.
- To facilitate our research partners to continuously analyse, reflect on and conceptualize their understandings and shared communications of civic national values for advancing future policymaking through a performance arts-based ‘scheme of work’, that can be applied locally, nationally and internationally in comparative contexts.
Methods
Our project created a four-part Scheme of Work (SoW). These were lesson plans written by the project team that sought to embellish current aims and objectives of values and citizenship education policies each country. We worked with teachers from primary and secondary schools in Nepal and Kenya and tested the processes of the Scheme of Work. The teachers facilitated their students who reflected on their experiences of ‘community’ and project ideas of and ideal community through their own notions of ‘tolerance’ and ‘mutual respect’. Lesson one and Lesson two both encouraged the young people to reflect on their locality; to articulate and record their experiences of community; cultural and ethnic differences and similarities; and cultural identity and citizenship. These lessons sought to develop thinking, discussion and shared articulation on values such as ‘tolerance’ and ‘mutual respect’ at a micro community level. Participation by young-people and teachers were also filmed by the project team. Lesson three helped the young people to turn their ideas from Lesson one and Lesson two into action and performance. This approach was facilitated by professionals from performance arts organisations: Zenn Theatre Company (Kenya) and Mandala Theatre Company (Nepal). The performances generated by the young people were then captured on film.
Credit: Marlon Moncrieffe
Discussion
There are many comparative opportunities for our project. In each country, we managed to apply the Scheme of Work in two very different schools (urban and rural) (state and private). This allowed us to understand more about the pedagogical variations adopted by teachers in each school with further comparisons of traditional to experimental approaches in teaching and learning. The cultural capital of the teachers and the students were also significant factors in determining the engagement with the Scheme of Work. We ensured that the Scheme of Work document was written in three different languages: English, Nepali and Swahili. This ensured connection and equity in empowering all teachers to facilitate the lesson plans.
Our Civil Society Organisation participants in attendance as spectators were keen to learn more about the research process. This project has brought for them an alternative approach in the selection of performance arts tools in relation to education and peacebuilding with young people (For more on this read the blogs by two young changemakers working on the project). Although the practices and approaches were new to so many, the participants actively engaged with activities using Ipads as their digital diaries of reflection, and participatory approaches founded on child-centred teaching and learning.
Credit: Marlon Moncrieffe
[Nepal explosion kills four in capital] This incident occurred as we began our research in Nepal. As a team it made us critique the term ‘Post-Conflict’ especially where we were told that the suspects of the attack were Maoist Splinter Group linked closely to deep conflict of the past. It reminded us the issues faced by people in this country are indeed relatively current. The explosions caused deaths and a resulting ‘strike’ which slowed Kathmandu. Lack of transport to the city and within it prevented teachers and partners from attending our pre-conference meeting and seminar session.
From gaining our data we reminded ourselves not to draw generalisations from two schools in each country, but to think more carefully about how we assess the children’s work through the processes of the SoW. We also reminded ourselves that a critical stance must be adopted towards our SoW. We see our project both as a research and development project.
Next steps
The aim of Lesson 4 is for the films made to date to shown at each school. Following this, the young people involved will write their reflections; the aim being to share their thoughts on the cross-cultural exchanges and their new knowledge and interpretations of civic national values through hearing the voices of their peers in hard to reach parts of their country. What are the commonalities in their voices? What do they learn from each other about community, mutual respect and tolerance? Lesson 4 will facilitate thinking, discussion and shared articulation on how young people’s interpretations of civic national values can be advanced further towards a sense of connection and belonging with national identity at a macro community level.
Mar 23, 2020 | Blog, MAP archive, Peace Education, Related Activities & Initiatives
This post was originally published via Changing the Story (CTS)’s #YoungChangemakers series on 1st October 2019, as part of the CTS sub-project Examining the Interpretations of Civic National Values Made by Young People in Kenya and Nepal.
Changing the Story is an AHRC GCRF project which asks how the arts, heritage and human rights education can support youth-centred approach to civil society building in post-conflict settings across the world. The ‘Examining the Interpretations of Civic National Values Made by Young People in Kenya and Nepal’ was closely linked to the methodologies used in the CTS MAP project, and contributed to Nepal becoming one of MAP’s current country focus. Find out more about Changing the Story and see the original post here: https://changingthestory.leeds.ac.uk
Written by Pramila Bisunke.
When I (first) heard the title of the project (Examining the Interpretation of Civic National Values made by young people in Nepal and Kenya), I was literally perplexed thinking what this is really about.
My role at Changing the Story
In this particular project I was responsible for administration and documentation. I started by going through the documents about changing the story, program content particularly in case of Nepal and its projects in different countries such as Kenya, Zimbabwe, Colombia, Rwanda, Kosovo and Cambodia etc. We were supposed to pilot (our project) in two schools; one rural and one urban. (My role involved) communicating with the schools and (translating) the documents we had about the project: about Changing the Story, information sheets, consent forms for children and lesson plans for teachers etc. needed to be translated from English to Nepali for field work preparation. It was only through doing this I got the gist of what we were supposed to do while simultaneously still wondering how it (would) work. (I started to) document planning meetings, seminars in Tribhuvan University, sessions in schools and review meetings. I prepared meeting notes and disseminated among the people involved in the project and my understanding about project got even better.
I grew up in such school environment where I just sit on the bench and listen to the teacher. Even today, I believe more than half of the schools follow the same teaching method. I will not say this method of teaching is the best in today’s context. Because the concept of teaching and learning is not only limited to student listening and teacher speaking, it is now more about (the) participation of students and using various artistic methods to learn as well as apply the learning better in life.
Working on the documents in our own local language gave me the concept of new methods in teaching along with the use of technology i.e. Ipad. During the fieldwork when I engaged in the activities (I saw) fun group work among students, their own lessons on community and moral education from their course book, reflections on their actual concept of community, living in harmony, equality regardless of gender, background, caste, culture and profession. Moreover, their capacity to reflect their thoughts into community context through arts such as drama, poetry and songs were amazing. It was all smiles on their faces after the activities.
I believe such projects need to be demonstrated in as many schools and countries as possible to adapt the teaching methods in schools. In addition to that, the teachers should be trained in such a way that the learning can be fun rather than memorizing the textbook. This will be a major educational change if we can adapt the teaching methods to the present context of post conflict settings. Particularly in post conflict because people have been displaced or migrated from one place to another, therefore the society is more mixed up in between rural and urban, people from different backgrounds. As the title says Changing the Story, it might help young people to learn about respect, harmony, peace, equality, non-discrimination from the schooling age in more practical ways that they learned through their own engagement.
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