Author: Neftaly Malatjie

• The daily check in and check out was great
• The safe space created by the facilitators was excellent
• Facilitation was excellent and the facilitators engaged with the group very well…and taught me new ways of facilitating
• Design thinking, though not part of the official programme, was exciting
• The clarity and insights brought about by this workshop
• The manner and approach to facilitation was interactive and excellent
• The facilitation tools used by the facilitators worked well and gave me deeper insights about my own organization – please avail the tools use to us
• The facilitation methods and exercises worked really well
• Good facilitation skills, please keep it up
• Facilitation style and the activities done
• The workshopping process was much appreciated – thank you
• The participatory approach used by the facilitators – use of rich pictures, drawing and sharing of lessons
• The patience of the facilitators, the feedback sessions from coalitions
• Facilitators’ insights and flexibility to discard a pre-determined programme
• The entire workshop, there is nothing I can fault – thank you!
• You are super
• Excellent tools, methods and facilitation approach
• Participatory tools used, very clear process
• The safe space from checking in and checking out worked well
• Linking of the sessions and activities
• The room layout and sitting arrangement
• Drawing on participants’ energy and knowledge
• Thank you very much facilitators for your insights and expertise
• Facilitators accommodated everyone
• Respect among the participants
• Content was relevant for learning and sharing
• Participatory facilitation methods used and techniques for all sessions
• Checking in and out of processes, energizers, empathy and portraits
• Time well spent, invested and worthwhile
• Facilitation was excellent, the safe space created and conversations were honest and participatory
• Constructive feedback
• Learning and sharing
• Great workshop and facilitation
• Checking in and out
• Empathy mapping
• The activity of what is working, what is not working and what could be changed within the SeViSSA partnership
• The information, knowledge, approaches and tools shared

Overview:

To allow participants to share concrete images and ideas of what success could look like at the end of the SeViSSA programme after 2019

Intentions:

• To get each of the SeViSSA partners to imagine a rich picture of the change they would like to see as a result of their interventions
• To highlight what the different pieces would look like together, and the role of each SeViSSA partner

Participants shared the following images and rich pictures of the success they envisaged and imagined at the end of the SeViSSA programme in 2019. Below are examples of some of the images drawn by the participants which struck a strong code with the entire group.

• I learnt a lot about other coalitions
• Design thinking methodology
• New facilitating skills
• Shamillah and Munya are the best facilitators I have met
• With the new insights gained, I still need more personal time to reflect on self and my organization
• I understand the theory of change better, and can now report better than before
• The quadrants of social change and design thinking…
• Better understanding of theory of change, report writing and better understanding of impact and evidence
• The SeViSSA child and woman – emotional mapping, the quadrants of change
• The centrality and importance of evidence of impact and our work in general
• New concepts and practices around planning, implementation, reporting and evaluation
• The quadrants of social change, design thinking
• Writing reports in context
• I identified the gaps in my report writing
• The importance of understanding context and content of work and the environment
• I learnt a lot about other SeViSSA partners and I will write better reports going forward
• Lots of knowledge
• Conceptions and understanding of social change
• Empathy mapping
• The outstanding work that still needs to be done
• How to interpret my and other partners’ work
• Improving gaps in our work
• Understanding myself
• Design thinking
• Understanding the full and clear picture of what is need for SeViSSA
• Too much to mention

Intentions:

• To explore participants’ associations with learning, monitoring and evaluation and reporting and link it to their work on the SeViSSA programme
• To get participants in touch with their own associations and experiences of reporting, evidence and impact and create a tapestry of images/expressions on learning, monitoring, evaluation in the group

For 5 minutes, and using journals, participants were asked to freely write/draw and think on what comes to their minds when they hear about: impact, evidence and reporting. They were encouraged to journal, meditate and draw without limiting or censoring whatever came to their minds. Thereafter, the participants paired up to share with the next person and consciously notice what drew their attention from their peer’s sharing, and what caught the attention of their peers from their own sharing.

Following the individual reflections and free write/draw/meditation, volunteers were invited their reflections in plenary as well as highlight what had struck them from what their peers had shared with them. The plenary debriefing focused on: what has struck you? What collective picture emerges from our experiences, views and reflections? What is impact/evidence and reporting all about for us? Finding and grappling with our own definitions What do we all learn from the exercise, from the reflections and sharing and what does this mean for us in the context of SeViSSA and our everyday work, our conceptions of social change and impact, reporting and evidence?

• Following the journaling, reflection and sharing exercise, participants felt connected to their own impressions and experiences of monitoring, evaluation, reporting, evidence, impact and learning.

• They began to develop a sense of shared facets and patterns in how learning, reporting and evidence are experienced in the programme.

• Reporting is the process of communicating what has taken place, and the opportunity to share successes, challenges, and what the lessons are for future plans. Reporting can be written, audio, visual as it accounts for programme implementation.

• Evidence are verifiable results, tangible proof that show that the change has taken place. These include stories, data and pictures.

• Impact refers to the quality of change, how to measure it. It can sometimes be intended or unintended impact.  Assessing impact allows organisations to assess whether they are on right track or whether they need to change their focus or continue.

• In the conversation what emerged particularly was reflecting who reporting is for?  Is reporting for donors or is it for the beneficiaries? 

• Very often when thinking about impact or report, organisations forget that they are accountable to the context or the groups they work with as they are so focused on fulfilling donor needs for evidence.

• Conclusion –  partners are learning, monitoring, evaluation and reporting all the time anyways, though not always conscious of it. Monitoring and evaluation is about learning and improving but we often think/sense it is about proving (that I am good at this, that I am not stealing money, that what I do has impact, that I am worthy).

• Therefore, in the context of SeViSSA participants were encouraged to not try too hard or imagine something too sophisticated when it comes to learning, or seek and provide evidence for the impact of their work.