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Program Evaluation of Circles of Change in Haiti
January 5th, 2005
Circles of Change are groups of people--teachers, community and organizational leaders, and others, 15-25 in number--who come together weekly for a minimum of six months for the purpose of developing teaching, collaboration and participatory leadership skills. Weekly Reflection Circle/Open? Space sessions are facilitated by two Haitians skilled in these methods.
Background
Jim Engle-Warnick, a professor at McGill? University in Montreal, is working with Circles of Change program and Open Space Institute of Haiti to perform a type of inquiry which is formally called Treatment Evaluation. The intention of this document, which has been translated into Haitian Creole and made readily available, is to provide a springboard for thought about conducting the inquiry from Haitians and expatriates who play a part in Circles of Change and Open Space Institute of Haiti.
Purpose and Description
We wish to understand whether and how the practices of Reflection Circles and Open Space affect institution building. We feel this is important because formal institutions such as public schools, judicial systems, police departments, mayors’ offices, hospitals, libraries, fire departments, NGOs, etc. along with informal institutions such as neighborhood watches, bible studies, and other community groups, are considered essential for the building of civil society and are a major focus of foreign aid programs in Haiti. The development of peoples’ participation in institutions is a measure of civil society’s evolution.
The question is to what extent practices in Reflection Circles and Open Space are contributing to the evolution of participation in formal and informal institutions.
In order to do this we will be mapping the social networks of participants and non-participants in Reflection Circles and Open Space. Social networks are ways in which we are connected to other people in our everyday lives. We discover people’s social networks by asking them questions about who they go to for help and/or advice for the completion of everyday tasks. What we get from this is a graphical representation of the people that a person is connected to; this is their network.
Our challenge is to develop a questionnaire that will be applied to participants before and after the six-month Reflection Circle and Open Space training-- i.e. Circles of Change--and to a control group, which would not undergo the training.
A key question we’re considering for the questionnaire is, “What are the things you have to do in your life in order of importance and who are the people you turn to for advice and/or help to accomplish these things?” Since many of the groups participating in Circles of Change are part of the same organization, we will also be asking questions before the training and some time after the training regarding the functioning of their organization.
We invite your comments/questions and ideas. Go to http://circlesofchange.com to learn more.
Jim Engle-Warnick (click here to see CV http://upload.mcgill.ca/economics/JimCV0904.pdf)
Andre Costopoulos, Ph.D., an anthropologist at Mcgill, is also part of the evaluation team. (learn more about Andre at: http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/programs/anthro/ACostopoulos_files/AndreMcGillPage/index.htm)
John Engle mailto://john@johnengle.net SEND ME YOUR COMMENTS AND I WILL POST THEM. THANK YOU!
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