Teresa Hanley, Independent Consultant

1. Evaluating Arts in Development :the case of a street theatre programme challenging racist attitudes Teresa Hanley, Independent Consultant

2. The programme

3. Programme aim • ...to challenge commonly held racist attitudes and negative stereotypes of minorities and indigenous peoples in four countries

4. Places and partners

5. Approaching racism and attitudes • Participants in theatre group • Process to create plays • Content of plays • Audience discussions • Film screenings • Media coverage • Advocacy

6. SAFE- film and play • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmhIPOigon0&noredirect=1

7. The evaluation

8. The evaluation When - End of programme year 3. Methods • Monitoring data – surveys, photographs, reports • Content analysis of scripts: • Demonstrates discrimination • Challenges stereotypes • Gender issues integrated • Message Country visits • FGD and interviews with actors, communities (gender disaggregated), partners, targets of advocacy.

9. What the evaluation could show • Success in getting things on the agenda • Successful strategies • Changes achieved • Increased confidence of minority groups involved • Self-reported change in actors attitudes • Increased partners’ capacities, range of tools, networks

10. Evaluation limitations

11. Practical issues • Finding people who participated • Discussing the issues • Attribution of change- busy environments, memory • Local partners capacity to undertake monitoring

12. Challenges in evaluating attitudes • Limited information on drivers of prejudice and range of mind-sets • Self-selection of people to be monitored • Monitoring data shows people reached but not depth of engagement • People – sensitive and not always aware of attitudes

13. Challenges in evaluating arts • Instrumental approaches dominant • Assessing quality • Attribution when using inter-linking communication strategies

14. What the evaluation could not do Reach but not result • Identify depth of people’s engagement- more than entertainment? • Results of media coverage • Changes in attitude and behaviour • Test assumptions of theory of change i.e. giving space to issues diminishes potential of conflict

15. Reflections

16. Reflections for the future • Methodological challenges- change, process, quality • Dealing with tensions between implementation and building evidence • Expand collaboration- arts, private sector, academia, practitioner/community development • Potential of different arts – get more specific

17. FROM ANECDOTE TO SYSTEMATIC EVIDENCE We want to make people aware that certain language is discriminatory. They are so used to using it they don’t know. Minorities are so used to hearing it they don’t know The play was an eye-opener to me because as I was acting I realised some of the things being said in the play were things I said... The biggest achievement is that it helped the youth from the Bateyees. It helped them to leave behind their feeling of embarrassment from the stigma associated with the colour of their skin and where they live. And feel proud of who they are. They gained confidence ...Before they were afraid to speak about these subjects in public. ….they don’t admit there is discrimination in the DR. The general sentiment is anti-black but since it is expressed as anti-Haitian it not considered discrimination You don’t usually see Batwa in the media - only in dance troupes when they do their traditional dance ...the professional actors and the director also became disseminators of the knowledge within our circles. To a certain degree we are among those who generate public opinion.

18. Thank-you! Teresa Hanley teresa_hanley@dsl.pipex.com