Evaluation of The Salvation Army Mozambique Worth HIV/AIDS Programme

Background:
The WORTH Programme begun in 2004 as a women’s empowerment project. In 2006 it grew to include adult literacy responding to a request form women as they realized that sustainable empowerment had to be through education starting with literacy and numeracy, their much needed skills to communicate with marked clients and manage their business. The Worth programme is jointly funded by NORAD and The Salvation Army Norway since 2004.
Purpose/objective:
The evaluation is designed to enable the stakeholders to learn from phase one of the project and use the lessons to inform the design of phase two of the WORTH HIV/AIDS PROGRAMME in a way that will consolidate the gains and increase the future sustainability of the women’s empowerment.

Key question to be explored
• What are the outputs, outcomes and indicators seen as result of the project?
• How do these results relate to the project objectives?
• What are the measurable changes are seen within the beneficiaries, monitors, and the Salvation Army through the influenced by the project?
• What are the concerns for the project? How are they being overcome?
• How is the project impacting the community?
• What do stakeholders think should continue or changed in the project?
• How is the project contributing towards the HIV/AIDS pandemic?
• How are the lessons learnt being transferred to other locations?

Methodology:
The consultant had quality time for key-project document review such as the project document, Adult Literacy Centers reports, annual report from the WORTH project director and the Salvation Army program director.

The consultant formed an evaluation team with the Salvation Army staff composed by Mr. Virgilio Joaquim Suande and Mrs. Ruth Manjate, Program director and WORTH project director respectively.

The team conducted participatory evaluation sessions using several organizational development (OD) tools such as appreciative inquiry, fish bowl, brainstorming, timelines and interviews with individuals and groups.

The participatory sessions enabled both Salvation Army and WORTH beneficiaries to review past, present and future, look critically and project inputs, outputs and outcomes. Lessons learned and future expectations.

The evaluation visited Vilankulo (Mukoke and 29 de Outubro centers) and Maxixe (Sahane and Nhamaxaxa) districts in Inhambane Province where they met, Salvation Army captains, adult literacy students and teachers. In Maputo province they visited the several WORTH centers such as Bagamoyo, Luis Cabral, Mavalane and Inhagoia interviewing and meeting the same stakeholders as in Inhambane.  In total the evaluation team interviewed nearly 100 WORTH trainees, teachers and local captains.

Key Findings

• The Salvation Army Adult Literacy Department has been successful in maintaining a network of adult literacy centers in five out of eleven Mozambican Provinces.
• Although the WORTH program was initially designed to target and empower women it is also attracting and serving men as well children that haven’t had space in the public education system. This open an opportunity to widen up the target groups in WORTH 2 as the project realizes that if men are not benefiting from education along with women, they may block their advancement fearing to lose control and power.
• Given the visible success and growing demand of the program, the Salvation Army leadership is seeking new partnerships to consolidate and expand the WORTH Program to fulfill the grassroots demand for more adult education offer. The demand comes from beneficiary family and friends, church and community leaders and government officials as well. 
• 90% women who completed levels 2 and 3 in the WORTH program are able to read, write and count. They participate in community decision making process expressing themselves openly in Portuguese without need for translation
• Adult education is impacting behavioral change of the beneficiaries, family and community members around them as they are now reachable by most media community radio, newspapers, posters and leaflets produced by the civic education activists.  
• 85% of the women in the WORTH started a self-help credit scheme called “Xitike” and are able to buy food, send the children to school, buy furniture, build or improve their houses.

Recommendations:
• WORTH Program is a success story. It should be consolidated where it is already established in terms of maximizing access of both women and men and improve quality of adult education delivery, and should be expanded to new areas as human, financial resources and Salvation Army logistical capacity to provide back-up support is available;
• WORTH Program should make use of the opportunity to expose the adult education beneficiaries to an integrated and holistic approach to public health awareness covering quality discussions of HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera and tuberculosis. These are the poor killer diseases and claim many lives in Mozambique. Knowing how to prevent and mitigate all will have a great impact in improving the quality of livelihood;
• WORTH Program should associate adult literacy with some demand-driven vocational training to build a ground to income generating initiatives. This will serve as attraction to the classes as many adults find it a time wasting to learning without seeing the benefit of it at the end of the day. In order to implement the vocational training WORTH Program will have to include a budget line for demand driven vocational activities;
• As the task of adult education is enormous, involve Hugh sums of funds over a longer period of time, the Salvation Army should seek new strategic partners locally and internationally to support the WORTH Program as it consolidates and expands;
• Salvation Army need to conduct a yearly Adult Education Induction Program at the beginning of the season to expose the officials (captains) to the program. They are the ones that make it happen in terms of motivating both teachers and students. In the induction they will discuss and plan the overall WORTH objectives, expected results, yearly goals for each official zone, choose and prioritize vocational needs, indicators, means of verification, risks and mitigation measures;
• Salvation Army needs to improve the beneficiaries’ access to books and educational material. To achieve this will have to establish a network of educational libraries to support adult s in their learning needs. The library should be demand driven as different groups may have different needs and interests;
• Salvation Army needs to promote exchange and motivational visits to attract more adults, men and women to the WORTH Program, facilitating exchange and motivational visits by adults that having gone back to school at an older age, have succeeded in making it through to earning a college degree, a high job or starting a successful business;
• WORTH Program should be managed as a program with the many others ideas are seen as projects