Padare Documentation of Lessons learnt

Background   

In 2010, Padare established school based clubs which were set as platforms on sensitizing and raising awareness in young men and boys on the problems of gender violence, child abuse of the boy child, children’s and gender inequality.

Due to the socialization process, cultural beliefs and practices, children and especially boys, imitate same sex family members’ behaviours and attitudes on how they relate to each other and on girls on a daily basis contributing to the perpetuating of violence and abuse. Because of the cultural and traditional practice that treats and degrade women and girls, boys and males become the main perpetrators of violence and sexual abuse.

Purpose/objective (including evaluation questions)     

The specific objectives of this Endline study were to :

1. document key lessons learnt from the project so as to come up with better programmes in the near future
2. analyse the project success areas as well as the shortcomings and identify the factors that caused the shortcomings
3. identify the best practises and establish if similar practises can be replicated elsewhere.

Methodology     

The methodology used in the documentation was highly qualitative and thus allowing an in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding the project. The assessment team comprised of a mix of M&E team, Child Protection team as well as representative of Padare. Two methods of data collection were used to provide data for the documentation process.

Focus Group discussions
The project targeted mainly in and out of school children in Midlands Province. Therefore children and young people became the main units of analysis in this documentation. Focus Group Discussions were therefore conducted in 8 schools which included both rural and urban schools. At each school, a group of club members were selected for the discussions. The Focus Group Discussions were used as a tool gather data on in-depth issues about the project in relation to lessons and best practices. 

Key informant Interviews
The documentation process required special opinion from participants that are more informed about this project. This warranted the team to carry out further investigation about the project from the key opinion leaders. In this regard, the assessment team carried out some interviews with the traditional leaders who were involved, club patrons and matrons, several Padare champions including former club leaders who have further taken the work to universities.

Key findings   

The documentation process initially looked at the major achievements of the Padare schools clubs. Although the documentation process was not typically an impact assessment exercise, it should be noted that the major achievement of the clubs was however seen to be highly linked to impact of the project in the schools and communities around the schools. The process was basically meant to capture quick highlights of the key success of the clubs and further, an understanding of the factors that supported this success was also profiled. The following bullets therefore present a summary of some of the key successes identified by the documentation process;

One of the major achievements of Padare clubs was contribution to the transformation of lives of school children. This was alluded to by club members and patrons who participated in the Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) during the documentation process.  The transformation of lives was seen to start from the club members and trickled down to other children at the school. Live positive testimonies of children whose lives have changed as a result of the clubs were provided during FGDs. For instance, some children who once faced abuse and other social problems at home stood up to give their story and how the Padare club assisted them to overcome those challenges.

The project key successes highlighted above would not have been possible without supporting factors which acted as enhancers to the project. In this case, the following have been documented as some of the positive factors that contributed to success;

The involvement of influential traditional leaders (such as Chief Gambiza) in the programme provided a strong supporting pillar that contributed significantly to success. The figures were reported to have been so instrumental in contributing to the acceptance of the project in the schools and community and thereby giving more space for the clubs to carry out their activities effectively.

A discussion of the shortcomings and possible solutions was also conducted to unveil some of the gaps that such projects may need to address if implemented in future. The following bullets provide some of the points considered to have compromised the project.   

• Lack of adequate information on referral centres or services   
• Misconception of child rights by children – rights vs. responsibilities   
• Lack of visibility material in clubs   

Lessons learnt in this case are defined as what was not done right and therefore would not warrant to repeat in future. The analysis of the data collected compiled the following in a summary as the lessons learnt from the implementation of this project.

Much as the project did the best to reach most of the schools in Midlands, the project did not do well in reaching hard to reach areas which left the children in these areas not benefiting from the intervention.

The project groomed clubs leaders to be real leaders. The leadership skills gained through clubs have benefited the cadres even after leaving high school. Testimonies of former club leaders who are champions at the university were provided during the documentation process.The project provided overwhelming guidance and support on child abuse issues at school level which has left an impact at the schools.

Recommendations   

The ideal Padare concept is expected to have two ends, the school clubs and the community men’s forum. However, the documentation process observed and concluded that there was no link between the school clubs and the community men’s forums and hence compromising the effectiveness of the concept.  

It was revealed that teferral systems do not provide for safe places for abused children. Explanations given showed that abused children at home are returned back to the abusers as there are no safe places to keep these children

Although the Padare intervention introduced more activities to contribute to the impact, the activities became too many to the extent of diluting the effectiveness of the real traditional harmful practices activities. The activities added included male circumcision, sexual reproductive health, PMTCT, maternal child health etc

Shortage of resources surfaced as one of the limitations to club activities. The project however should have introduced the clubs to IGAs e.g. Drama recording and selling DVDs that could earn some income and at the same time raising awareness. The clubs relied heavily on project funds which is not sustainable.

There was an identified lack of proper systems for documentation of success stories e.g. MSC and publishing of articles in newspapers. Resultantly, no evidence to demonstrate success was gathered overtime.