Community dialogues - Nelson Mandela Foundation

“It is essential to look forlocal strengths in termsof what the communityhas and to questionif the evaluationencompasses this.”Ailish Byrnehad also decreased. If participatory monitoring and evaluation hadnot been done, Lekhuleni explained, the impact of the communityconversations in this school would have remained unknown.Lekhuleni then told of Giyani, where conversations had happenedin the chief’s kraal, typically a space where only men are allowed.For the purpose of the dialogue, however, women were invitedin, and have subsequently been encouraged to voice theiropinions and become part of the decision-making process inthe community.Alison Campbell, from AFFIRM Facilitation Associates, explainedin her presentation how she had seen the progress andimplementation of community conversations over the past20 years. Her main observation was that communities lookedboth to the past and the future at the same time, and so couldsometimes take a long time to gather themselves and take action.Organisations, on the other hand, tended to be stuck to timelines.The local monitoring and evaluation process can therefore be bothlong and cyclical, explained Campbell. Community members arenot able to take action each and every day, but their strength lies intheir long-term memory, and sustainable change happens over thelong term, Campbell noted. As such, monitoring and evaluationefforts should have this long-term approach, facilitators should becommitted and involved for longer durations, and organisationsshould adjust their thinking and expectations accordingly.Communities of long-standing can draw from past experiencesover a much longer timeframe, and can readily recogniserecurrences and find explanations for them, said Campbell.She then highlighted the personal value of communityconversations. “A special part of monitoring and evaluation is theway it reconnects people to each other and to their sense of will.Monitoring and evaluation needs to look at ideas of ‘I’ and ‘we’ andhow this space evolves.”In conclusion she pointed out how important it is thatmonitoring and evaluation is an inclusive process. “Having ateam appropriate for facilitation is important [and] you needto diversify the team approach. There is no reason to keepgenerations apart.”HIV/AIDS community conversations programme findings and lessons33