Removing Barriers, Increasing Effectiveness - amarc

Evaluation that is based on qualitative indicators rather than quantitativeindicators, and takes advantage of life stories of social change, provides a bettersense of what may be needed at the planning stage. Community membersthemselves can work hand-in-hand with researchers, as they did in Colombia 30 ,to establish evaluation indicators and methodologies. Participatory evaluations ofcommunication initiatives that have not been participatory usually reveal thatcommunity ownership should have happened from inception of a communitymedia project.Qualitative indicators are flexible because they are indicators of social processesand speak of real people and of individual and collective stories of social change.Quantitative indicators are often like an outsider’s picture which is taken at agiven time and doesn’t reflect the before and the after. The snapshot approachto quantitative indicators will only tell about a precise moment in the process, butlittle about the process itself. 31Impact on social changeWhen we inquire about the impact of community media (radio, Internet, or other),what do we mean by that?The main concern of communities in terms of their well-being is selfdetermination,the increase of participation and collective action to solveproblems that affect the community as a whole, the strengthening of localcommunity voices to increase the dialogue with other communities and withexternal agents of development, the rise of cultural identity, the appropriation of ashare of the public space for active citizens participation, and the growth ofawareness of the concept of national citizenship or ethnic universe.The main impact on social change, identifiable in community radio stations thatare truly participatory and democratic, is on voices. The fact itself of being able tocommunicate is a qualitative indicator of the highest relevance. Communitiesthat never had the opportunity to express themselves, or social sectors within aparticular community that were placed under the shadow of silence, now havevoices of their own. The importance of having a voice that is heard through acommunity radio station indicates social change underway within that communityand in relation to any external stakeholders. Communities that seize their right tocommunicate and not just their right to access information are taking a great stepforward in acting together for the betterment of their lives.The importance of voice and the ability to exert the right to communicate may notseem so important for those who have that right insured, but it can be the most30The systematization of the community radio network (AREDMAG) in the Magdalena Medio region wasa joint effort of three universities and the local radio stations.31The Communication for Social Change Consortium has developed a set of publications on ParticipatoryMonitoring and Evaluation (PM&E) which can be found at: http://www.cfsc.org/publicationsresources.php?id=283AMARC Community Radio Social Impact Assessment 2007 Page 46 of 128