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PARTICIPATORY LEARNING AND ACTION. Linda Biersteker ELRU Vivienne Bozalek Department of Social Work UWC. What is PLA?.
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PARTICIPATORY LEARNING AND ACTION Linda Biersteker ELRU Vivienne Bozalek Department of Social Work UWC CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
What is PLA? • A growing family of approaches, methods, attitudes and behaviours to enable people to share, enhance and analyse their knowledge of life and conditions and to plan, act and monitor, evaluate and reflect. (Chambers 2004:3) CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Enabling people to speak up and out, especially the otherwise marginalised, such as poorer younger women, children and the socially excluded • A focus on interactive learning between and among local people and those who provide, or make decisions about the provision of, health and other social services • An explicit concern with the quality of interaction, including a stress on personal values, attitudes and behaviour as a prerequisite for effective work CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
The use of open-ended, adaptable, visual methods within a flexible, iterative(repeated) learning process, rather than the use of set sequences of specific methods for pre-identified ends • A commitment to generating knowledge for action, rather than simply for understanding, and to addressing tangible, do-able action plans for immediate or intermediate follow-up. Cornwall, A. (1999: 1) CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
PA and other Methodologies • Community development workers might use PA as a support to community organising or empowerment work using other methodologies. • Also used with log frames or stakeholder analysis for appraisal and planning or integrated into participatory monitoring and evaluation work. • Fits well with other qualitative methods such as participant observation, oral histories or focus groups. Quantitative researchers can use them in combination with questionnaires. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Common techniques • Visioning • Mapping • Transect walks • Mood lines • Matrix • Impact diagrams • Problem and objective trees • Proportional piling (time/resource allocations) CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Visioning • People come up with their vision for how things might be and it can widen their thinking as well as indicating the things that are important to them. This could be drawn, modelled, acted or sung. It serves as a starting point for discussion of what actions could be taken. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Mapping • Includes mapping of social, demographic, health and service issues, opportunities or resources • Can be drawn on the ground or on paper, models can be made, natural resources used • Provides a starting point for discussion or for prioritising issues for change CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Venn diagrams • Shows influence of different service providers, resources and information sources CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Adolescents’ sources of information on sex reproduction (Analysed by a group of boys, Old Kanyama Compound) CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Transect Walks • Local people walk the facilitators around the area, identifying local resources. • Useful technique in participatory research because it gives the research subjects the opportunity to lead the way in generating data relevant to their experience and utilisation of the environment. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
E.g. Transect walks have been done • To familiarise researchers with regular routes children took to get to school • For children to point out their favourite places in their preschool • For young people to show the amenities and areas of their communities where crime was most likely to occur • To explain resources even along the bottom of the sea! CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Mood or Life Lines • Can be done individually or as a group • People can track how they felt about particular events or the programme over time. • Need to be used sensitively. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Flow and Impact Diagrams • Like spider diagrams giving first the immediate impacts and then what these mean. For example one positive impact of a public works project might be employment - when this is unpacked some impacts might mean less crime, greater skills, greater family harmony etc • A negative impact may be that few people benefit – this causes community conflict etc. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Matrix ranking • Used to prioritise. The group brainstorms what it thinks is important in relation to a particular issue and then votes on which is most important. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
IZINTO EZIFEZEKISWA – THINGS WHICH CHILDREN GAIN FROM PRESCHOOL . Matrix generated by parents of children at Yipakamisa Preschool, Ezibeleni, Queenstown. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Matrix Scoring of Health Providers, Ado-Odo, Nigeria Young men’s group, S.W. Nigeria, July 1996 From: Cornwall, 1999. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Problem and Objective Trees • Allows participants to focus on a problem, identify causes and impacts, rank these. From this they can define objectives for an intervention. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Producing a Problem Tree • Brainstorm to produce a list of causes, and consequences, of the focal problem. • Rank them in terms of importance. • Turn the problem tree into an objective tree by making the causes issues to address and change, • Do the same with the consequences. • Arrange into a problem tree, discussing the links between factors. • If time allows, develop the objective tree: state all the solutions/objectives. CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Proportional Piling/Pie Diagrams • Quick way of assessing proportions. Using a pile of something that can easily be piled, the participant divides the heap according to the way they perceive the allocation to be. E.g. how do you spend your income, time; proportion of people they think suffer from particular conditions etc CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
Behaviour and attitudes are more important than the methods! • Self aware responsibility • Commitment to equity and empowerment • Recognise and celebrate diversity • and … CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
USEFUL RESOURCE • http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/particip/ CSI PLA Workshop Feb 2007
