SayPro SEVISSA Session 4: Free writing/drawing/meditation

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.