CENTERING WOMEN IN RECONSTRUCTION AND GOVERNANCE PROJECT

(CWRG) IN SRI LANKA

OUTCOME MAPPING REPORTBased on the Workshop of

February 20-22, 2008

The TeamParticipants:•Community Women-3 each from Moratuwa and Matara• NGOs-2 from Siyath Foundation and 1 from Women’s Bank• CWRG Project Staff-8 Sevanatha Staff and 1 from ICSC• Government-6 Municipal Council Staff and 1 person from the Department of Agriculture

Facilitators: • Sevanatha-K. Jayaratne, Ranjith Samarasingha, Sujith Mahage •ICSC-Sumana Wijeratne

Trainer: Heidi Schaeffer of Rhythm Communications, Inc.

Documentation Team

What is Outcome Mapping?Outcome Mapping or OM as it is popularly known is a Tool to measure the changed behaviors, relationships, activities and actions of boundary partners of a program. OM enables the project team to continuously monitor and fine tune the project and reinforce or modulate changes as part of successful implementation of the project.

Traditional lighting of the lamp at the Outcome Mapping Workshop

Workshop objectives

Vision

Community members meet regularly to determine goals and actions for improving their living conditions. Working independently yet actively participating with municipal councils, regional authorities and international NGOs, the community members build awareness and support for better sanitation and environmental sustainability. Communities enjoy nutritional food through urban agriculture and improve their economies through better livelihoods, respecting religious values and traditions.

Community Vision Through Art

Vision drawings made by workshop participants

Mission

Through organizing and empowering grass roots women to build self reliance and environmental stewardship, and engaging women in improving sanitary and infrastructure services, the CWRG project will change the attitudes and behaviors of communities and build the relationship among women and service providing national and international, government and non governmental organizations to improve their knowledge and skills and net working capabilities aimed at reaching their goals.

Boundary partners

• Women’s society (WS)

• Municipal council • Sevanatha /ICSC• Women’s bank • Agriculture dept.• Divisional

secretariat• Housing authority• Dept. of health • Religious leaders

Workshop Attendees

Best possible behavioral changes of boundary partners

Municipal councils (MCs) • Identify objectives of the

Women’s Society (WS) and adopt them.

• Maintain relationship with WS to help them meet their objectives

• Gather and update information

• Plan, implement and monitor programs with community participation (PRA)

• Respond promptly to the requests of the WS

Women’s Societies• Efficiently manage time• Build relationship among small groups

(Clusters)• Gain trust of the communities• Build mutual trust among families• Build relationship with all community

groups• Engage everybody in planning • Build trust and mutual understanding

among office bearers• Organize to resolve issues related to

loneliness.• Develop awareness about service

providers • Organize against patriarchy

Best possible behavioral changes of boundary partners

Mobilizers• Identify community needs• Build trust among

communities• Listen to community voices• Participate in community

activities as a community member

• Value communities and their actions

Sevanatha• Improve understanding of

community actions• Continue building trust among

communities• Monitor regularly• Better understanding

between CWRG project staff and regular staff

• Engage community in monitoring activities

• Respond promptly as needed

Best possible behavioral changes of boundary partners

Women present at the MC meeting GROOTS

• Provides regular leadership training

• Trains communities on livelihood assessments

• Provides training for CRC management

• Gives regular feed back on project activities

Challenges for Women’s Society

Organizing women into clusters• Difficulty in changing community attitudes

• Difficulty of obtaining land rights

• Difficulty in obtaining support from men

• Difficulty in time management due to the involvement of many NGOs

• Difficulty in eradicating drug addiction

• Difficulty in obtaining support from different government organizations

• Difficulty of finding construction materials needed for infrastructure improvements and resolving differences in viewpoints related to construction.

Progress markers for Women’s Society

Expect to see•Monthly training on home gardening, literacy, animal husbandry and self-employment

•Increase savings of members

•Weekly labor exchange programs

•Regular religious activities

•Improve common herbal garden and herbal plants in home gardens

•Organizing events with programs

•Members of small groups meet weekly and discuss future plans

•Exchange activities on leadership, enterprise development, home gardening and waste management

Like to see•Increase members

•Consumer groups exchange activities (seettu)

•Improving participation in cultural activities (street dramas)

Women’s Society Cont…. Like to See (contd)•Rain water harvesting

•Annual sports events/camp among sports clubs

•Community contracting and regular maintenance of completed projects

•Management of CRC

•Plan and implement activities that help build relationships among families and small groups

•Tuition classes conducted for children (English , math computer and music)

•Women access service providers and influence them to get the services.

Love to see•Women run the CRC with a profit margin

•Women get infrastructure contract from MC and other institutions

•Women organize local & international exchange and disseminate lessons

Strategy Map – Women society

Aimed at boundary partner

CAUSAL•CRC construction •Supply materials for community contracts•Supply equipment for livelihoods and urban agriculture •Supply equipment for CRC management

PERSUASIVE•Training and awareness building on AH, UA, livelihoods , computer, literacy & and management•Exchange visits•Engaging communities CRC design •Community contract training •Labor exchanges for urban agriculture

SUPPORTIVE•Land ownership •Permanent houses•CRC management by women•Women’s bank branch•Legal status for WS and activities•Livelihood loans

Aimed at surrounding environment

•Supply sports equipment for youth clubs•Holding mobile clinic

•Peer exchanges •Youth participation in women’s actions•Training with MCs and other partners•Vocational training for youth

•Registering youth club •Networking with national and international (GROOTS, PLUS, ClAP)

Challenges for MCs

Difficulty in building better relationship with community•Difficulty in time management according to community needs.

•Lack of human resources in relation to the responsibilities and the work load (Cadre issues)

•Difficulty in allocating available funds on priority needs of community due to political influence.

•Difficulty in gathering accurate information.

•Distrust among communities about municipal councils and their work.

•Lack of policy initiatives of NGO activities/operation in Local authority areas.

•Absence of long term sustainability of donor projects after the end of such projects.

•Absence of inter relationship among service providing institutions.

Progress markers for MCsExpect to see•Departments are aware of monitoring and evaluation of community activities.

•Available information is organized

•Ensure community participation in planning

•Hold regular meetings with community based organizations on their activities.

•Exchange and learning from other local municipalities on similar practices.

Like to see•Council accepts community participation as a policy.

•Maintains and updates accurate information and records.

•Develops procedures for monitoring and evaluating community based activities.

•Adopt participatory process for implementation and monitoring.

Love to see•Considers women’s CBO objectives as municipal objectives. •Developing a procedure for holding regular meetings with community based organizations.

•Develops systematic procedure for meeting community needs.

Strategy Map for MCs CAUSAL PERSUASIVE SUPPORTIVE

Aimed at boundary partner

• Identification of CBO leaders and gathering information

• Appoint a women officer from MC responsible for this project

• Provide computer facilities for MC at CRC

•Engaging women in CRC design

•Training women in computers

•Training women in CRC management

•Registering WS at MC•Establishing project coordinating , monitoring and evaluating committees for CBO activities.

•Construction of CRC on MC land

Aimed at environment

•Appoint coordinating officers for CBO activities

•Consult project communities at project design stage

•Holding PRA/CLAP training for MC staff

•Computerizing information and provide them to community

•Training on municipal staff on project objectives

•Networking with other MC,s to learn best practices

•Obtaining the membership of PLUS network local learning cluster

Challenges for Sevanatha Difficulties in organizing communities • Lack of interdepartmental relationship within Sevanatha

• Difficulty of changing dependency mentality of communities

• Short project implementation period

• Difficulty of building trust among community about Sevanatha

• Lack of understanding in reporting

• Difficulty in working simultaneously with two different communities

• Difficulty in implementing community requests falling beyond the project’s spatial scope.

• Lack if office equipment.

• Inadequate power delegation and delays in implementation

Progress Markers - SevanathaExpect to see

• Identifies new leaders, trains and encourages existing leaders on regular basis

• Conducts weekly and monthly monitoring meetings

• Allocates multiple tasks and resources over limited time

• Formulates different strategies according to the contextual issues

• Acquires CRC equipment for project work

Like to see• Conducts interdepartmental field visits and review meetings at

communities

• Provides training for feedback/reports expected from higher level officers

• Encourages women society to provide such support on regular basis

Love to see• Delegates decision-making powers and responsibilities and

regular monitoring

• Develops as a gender sensitive organization with a long term vision

Follow up work • Sujith will meet with the team and show them the progress

markers journals of the Sri Lanka Urban Greening Project• Hansani will assist Amila to type the Sinhalese version of this

document• Hansani will also help Amila to type progress markers for all

partners (WS. M.C. and Sevanatha) into journals and arrange meeting with Sujith on November 1

• Next review meeting will be held in May/June together with Sumana’s trip

• ICSC will explore the possibility of getting additional funding for OM training for Matara/Moratuwa MC staff and cluster cities

• Participants/documentation team will fill the journals for the next review meeting

Outcome of OM Training Built relationship among partners

Women as resources

Workshop attendeesThe group reflects on changes and expectations