It has been a while, but even though we are back in the Netherlands for four weeks already, we are still thinking about our adventure on a daily base. In this blog a description of the last event and our final goodbye as team Father-Involvement.

By the end of March, the inevitable moment was slowly approaching: the day we had to say goodbye. Our three month Father Involvement Challenge was almost over, our time in Hammanskraal had come to an end. In her blog from a few weeks ago, Irmarie spoke about the last community meeting where we presented our data results to the community. During this meeting, the community came up with the idea to organize an event to have parents and children spend an afternoon of play, sport, games and fun together. We had not forgotten the enthusiasm of the students that Carine discussed in her last blog and we asked if the teens also wanted to be a part of this event, that was held a few days before we would return home.

Teenage performances

To our joy, quite some teens came to the event. What was even greater, was that in the end they did multiple performances in front of all the community members that attended the event, which were (including children) almost a hundred people! They did drama performances, which got their audience very enthusiastic, having them laughing but also listening very well as the teens stole the show. But the theatre play was not just funny. During the play, the teenagers explained they wanted to address issues that people in the community come across in their daily life. They played out situations of drug- and alcohol abuse resulting in domestic violence – and although they did it in a ‘funny’ way, it was clear that people recognized themselves in it. One of the mothers came to Laetitia while the boys were performing, saying: “Thank you. Thank you for coming here and addressing these issues. Before, many of us were abused in our homes, but now we do not want to be silent anymore. We will now encourage each other to talk about it and stand up for ourselves. I also want to thank your organization and the people in your country for sending you here”.

The High School students furthermore performed their ‘we need you in the family’ song and got the whole crowd to clap their hands, cheer and dance. This collaboration between the community and the teens was so special, it was more than we could have hoped for. And what was even better: they made plans to continue working together! The idea is that a ‘community committee’ will gather monthly, asking the community what kind of activity they would like to have organized, and then indeed start organizing an event. They want a community event to take place every three months. At the moment they are already discussing the next event where parents and children will be able to spend time together in a fun way; The latest news is that they are planning on organizing a ‘fun run’ and 20 km marathon. They are working together with the local researchers from the other community as well, as they feel they do not want to ‘keep’ this project to themselves.

Final speech

The day was ended by speeches, from our first driver and local researcher, from Laetitia and from one of the community leaders. All of them expressed happiness and gratitude for the participation of so many community members in what can be considered as a very positive and successful first community event. Especially the community leader gave an inspiring speech. He emphasized the importance of father involvement and also said he wished that more fathers had attended this day – as some fathers had shown up, but still far less than mothers and children. He finished stating that he believed that when the people in the community would carry on with these kind of events, eventually other community members – including fathers – would start showing up as well. This first event was only the beginning, and we all hope (and think there is a good chance) that in the upcoming months more fathers will show up and get more and more involved.

Final goodbye

Our time in South Africa is done for now, and this part of the Father Involvement team unfortunately (!) had to return to the Netherlands. But we leave behind another part of the team, a part with incredible people with many talents and strengths. We have high hopes that the local researchers we worked with, the community members and the ambitious teens will continue the challenge and that the goal of more father involvement will be eventually achieved. We can at least be certain that some change has been brought about already – and we are looking forward to see what else is coming in the future. We are incredibly thankful for everything that we have learned and that we were able to achieve over the past three months. It was more than we could have hoped for. To everybody we met in South Africa that played a part in the Father-Involvement Challenge, we want to say: you changed our lives and we learned a lot from you. We all hope to return someday, so who knows what the future will bring us..

Obviously, we are fully aware that it was not only the four of us, neither ‘just’ the local researchers and community, who established the Father-Involvement Challenge. To SevenSenses, our sponsors, our family and friends and everyone reading this right now – proving that you were or are interested in what we have been doing in some way – we want to express deep gratitude and respect. Some of you showed support by financing, others by motivating us and listening to our personal frustrations, anxieties, doubts or worries while preparing for the trip or while in the field. It sounds cliché, but without this huge group of people that believed in us, we could have never done what we did in the last three months. You gave us courage, faith, wisdom and hope to overcome this Challenge and to stretch beyond our own boundaries of safety and comfort. It helped us in a personal way, and we wish that the same thing might happen to any of you one day. We are proud of ourselves, our team and our project, knowing that the Father-Involvement Challenge is in good hands with the local community of Hammanskraal.

Re A Leboga (thank you)!

Ayda, Irmarie, Carine and Laetitia

The post Over but not done: The last event and our final goodbye appeared first on SevenSenses.

For me personally, adolescents are the people that I love working with the most. These young individuals are the future. The ones that will rise up and take their place in society within the next couple of years, the upcoming decade. The ones with ideas and aspirations, enthusiasm and energy. Sometimes maybe the stubborn or the unrealistic ones, but also the ones that dare to dream and aim high. These are the brave ones.

I don’t think I have ever met adolescents that amazed me more with their courage and strength than the ones we met in Hammanskraal. In this blog I want to tell you more about them, the future fathers and mothers of South Africa that shared their thoughts, hopes and dreams with our team.

Through Nkele, one of our local researchers, we got in contact with a local High School and we were given the opportunity to spend three afternoons with a grade 12, consisting of almost 30 teenagers that were around 18 years old. We discussed the role of fathers with them in different kinds of ways. This is the story of what they shared with us, what they dared to speak about and the things they taught us.

Next level acting skills

The first time we met the teens, we did not tell them upfront what our project was about exactly. We did not mention how we wanted to know why fathers were not that involved and how we planned on asking them about their ideas to get fathers more involved. Instead, we told them that we were researching family life. This way we hoped to not influence the teens too much, before discussing their thoughts on father involvement.

After shortly describing our project, we divided the class into small groups, whom were given cards with different family situations that they had to act out. Examples of these were ‘teenage pregnancy’, ‘caring father, disabled mother’ and ‘(alcohol) abusive father’. After practicing these situations for about ten minutes, the groups performed their plays, where every student had their own role (for instance father, mother, child or friend). The teens took the acting very seriously, playing their parts with incredible enthusiasm, passion and emotion. They rolled, they screamed and they jumped around  the classroom. Their portray of parents that were angry at their children, alcoholic fathers and desperate teens looked so realistic that it felt as if it almost had to come from their own experience. It was hard to imagine that they just improvised their chilling performances. While discussing the plays afterwards, our suspicions were confirmed. Many teens had experienced (some of) the difficult situations that they were acting out.

“ I hate my father ”

After all the performances we had a group discussion, where we asked the class what they thought the plays had in common. The teenagers quickly realized it was about the role of fathers in the family.

We heard many interesting stories from the kids. For instance, there was a young girl that was pregnant. When I spoke to her afterwards, she told me that instead of backing out of the sensitive situation, she deliberately chose to play the pregnant girl in the teenage pregnancy play. She wanted to do this so that she could help her fellow classmates to become more aware about the importance of safe sex and taking responsibility, by providing herself as an example. She tried to get something positive out of her difficult situation, for which I highly admire this young girl.

We were amazed by how good the teens were listening to each other and the level of openness and vulnerability that they showed. We also heard positive father involvement stories; not every teen was negative. But still, there were multiple teens that expressed disappointment about their fathers. One of the things that touched me most, was how one of the guys said “I hate fathers”. He even went as far as stating that because of the bad examples he had seen in his life, he himself never wanted to be a father when he grew up. Afterwards he did an interview with me in which he told me more personal stories about how his father had not been a good role model. The boy wished that his father would have been more around and that he would have been there for him.

Their stories showed us how relevant and important the topic of father involvement was in their lives. The enthusiasm of the students was contagious and when we left we already felt excited about returning there in the weeks after our first meeting.

We need you in the family

After the drama class, we went for a second and third time to the High School. These afternoons we further discussed the relationship that the teenagers had with their caregivers. We discussed in smaller groups what their parents and especially they themselves could do in order to have a positive and healthy relationship with each other. We wrote their practical ideas down on posters and discussed them with the entire class. One of the guys drew a beautiful black and white portrait of a father who’s hand is reaching for his child. Later on in the project, we decided to use his drawing as a logo for our challenge. Afterwards we hung the posters on the walls, as reminders and motivation for them to try to enhance the relation with their caregivers in the upcoming months.

After the last session, a couple of the teens told us that they had made a song about fathers and father involvement, with lyrics like ‘we need you in the family’ (listen below). It was nice to see how much the students seemed to be engaged with the topic. In the end, we told the students how much we appreciated working with them and said our goodbyes. One of the students gave us a short, touching speech about how they liked the time that we had spent together, which made us all a bit emotional. I wish we could have stayed longer and learned more from these intelligent and creative kids.

In the end we invited the teenagers for our last day together. To our great joy, we surprisingly got to see more of their enthusiasm and creative talents on this day. In our last blog, that will quickly appear on the website as well, you will hear more about this emotional, powerful and positive goodbye. We will share how the brave ones left their mark on the community and we will tell you about exciting collaboration plans between the teens and the community to increase father involvement.

Listen to the song made by the High School teens:

To be continued!

The post These are the brave ones: About the skills of high school learners in the community appeared first on SevenSenses.

Only two weeks left. Wait, what?! When I became aware of the fact that there were only two weeks left to complete our research, I suddenly felt that we hadn’t come far at all. I thought by myself, we’ve been here for almost three months, but what have we actually achieved? Then I started thinking about what we had done and who we had met during our time in Hammanskraal… I realised that I had looked at it from the wrong perspective. That perspective that we had talked about as a team so many times. That perspective that we wanted to avoid – our perspective.

Because it was never about what we as an individual or as a Dutch research team could accomplish. It was about working together with local researchers, local stakeholders, local community leaders. And when I look back on how far we have come with getting to know people in Hammanskraal, working together as a multi-lingual and multi-cultural team, I can’t help but feeling honoured to be part of this team – getting to know South Africa in a whole new way. It did not only broaden our minds, but also our network, our skills and our capability to do the research we came for.

Last Saturday, the 10^th of March, we organised a community meeting where we  presented the results of our research to the people of Hammanskraal. The week before, we worked very hard to analyse all the data we gathered during the interviews, focus groups and high school-visits. This was quite a big happening – for us at least. It was very important to mirror what the people had told us during the research. This data presentation was meant to show everything they encountered on a daily basis. The way they experienced family life, life in the community and being a man or woman in Hammanskraal.

For the data presentation, we had hired a tent and four tables, that Solly, one of our local researchers, had set up with some guys from the community. We chose to allocate one main theme to three of the four tables; themes that were mentioned most during the research. To visualise them, we made “Challenge Trees” (see example on picture below), divided in the following themes: Lack of Safety, Teenage Pregnancy and Lack of Father-Involvement. The trunk of the tree represents the challenge, the roots represent the cause(s) of this specific challenge and the fruits the result(s).

Solly told us that he had informed the people of the community that we would start at 13:00h, but he expected that most of them would only arrive an hour later. However, at 13:00h, the first people started to enter the tent. We received hem with a drink and a snack. Soon more people came in and we counted about 20 people when we decided to begin with the first round of discussion. We divided the group into three smaller groups, and each group could choose a table to start at. Each table was hosted by at least one local researcher. Cynthia and I were hosts at the “Lack of Safety” table. Carine and Kgothatso at “Teenage Pregnancy”, which left the last table to Mmamoruti. Each group started their discussion with the “Challenge Tree”.  I asked them if they recognised the challenge, the roots and the fruits. One of the older men immediately answered with a firm “Yes, we recognise all of them”. They started to examine and review the tree.

After a minute or so, I asked them to look at the next drawing, the “Possibility Tree”. This tree exemplified the exact opposite of the challenge, namely “Safety” for my table, “Healthy and Safe Sexual Behaviour” and “More Father-Involvement” for the others. Here, the trunk acted as the possibility, the roots as the solution(s) and the fruits as the result(s). I invited them to have a look at this tree and, after that, to put their heads together and brainstorm about possible solutions. What activities could they think of as members of the community to improve safety in their neighbourhood, households, schools, etc.?

A good 20 minutes of discussion passed by when the groups had to move on to the next table. Here they were given the same set-up and questions, though with a different theme. It was interesting to hear the different discussions at the different tables. We, being only English-speaking, did not follow everything, which made it even more fruitful to have the local researchers with us that day. They helped us with explaining, translating and receiving new arrivals. Because, even though the discussions had already begun, more and more people started to fill the tent. Solly was a good host and appointed them to one of the three groups. At some point, we counted about 40 people present.

We expected more community members to attend this meeting, but this amount of people actually turned out to be perfect. It allowed us to end the day with one big, final conversation. We asked every small group to present the solutions they came up with to the rest of the community. We wrote them all down on a big piece of paper. Many solutions were a picture of how the ‘ideal situation’ would look like – very ambitious. Some, maybe, a bit too ambitious to start with. After every solution was presented, we asked them to think about one activity that could be done in the coming two weeks. One small activity that would be easy to organise and could be the first step to help realise the bigger ‘possibility’; the ‘ideal situation’. Laetitia tried to explain – with Mmamoruti translating every few words into Tswana – that each individual only has a limited circle of influence. However, if you can influence the people in your circle, they can influence the people in theirs and so on and so forth.

Time flew by. It was already about 17:00h and it still looked as if not much would come out of it. Then one woman raised her voice and suggested that they should organise a ‘Mother-Daughter’ day. A day where the women in the community could bond with their daughters. Where, with the idea of creating a stronger bond in the future, it would become easier for daughters to talk about sex and sexual behaviour with their mothers, and vice-versa. After that, the men thought it good to organise a ‘Father-Son’ day as well. After much discussion and suggestions, the date was set. The two events would be organised on the same date – Saturday the 24^th of March (the Saturday before we leave!) – on the soccer ground next to the church. Lucky for us, Wickey was also attending the meeting. Wickey is the DJ at the local radio station. They immediately arranged for him to announce the event on the local radio.

Three days after our data presentation, we met with Solly again. Solly, being as enthusiastic and passionate as only he can be, told us that the day after our presentation the community had had another meeting. In this meeting, they continued Saturday’s discussion! “We informed all the people who were not there on Saturday! Even the people who were there, they also stayed to listen to it again,” he said. “I’m still spreading the word!” This was music to our ears! We were so excited and happy to hear him say those words. And the good news did not end there. Wickey phoned Solly a few minutes later and expressed the same enthusiasm about this project. He said that he wants to meet up with Solly to maybe have a daily (!) timeslot on the radio devoted only to speak about these subjects!

We hope that after these events, organised by (solely) the local stakeholders, more ideas and activities will follow. In the coming two weeks, we will still be interviewing some people for the short documentary that we want to make. Furthermore, we will visit the High School where we did the drama class one last time. And obviously, we will attend the big event on the 24^th. We are looking forward, and will keep you posted!

Love,

Team Father-Involvement

• Check out our Father Involvement Challenge page!

The post Father-Involvement Challenge Data Discussion: where collaboration with local stakeholders is the most essential part appeared first on SevenSenses.

“Does anyone have any questions for now?” I asked at the end of my ‘speech’ about the research plan and the goal of the Father Involvement Challenge. “I do!”, one of the community leaders replied. “You said you were here two years ago for another research on children, and that this time, you want to discuss your results with us. What happened to the results of two years ago, did you also take them back to the community?”. Feeling a bit embarrassed – I had actually hoped that no one would ask me this – I had to admit that I hadn’t. Or at least, not in the way we are intending to get the community involved for this project. I tried to explain it to him and the others listening – through an interpreter, meaning that every half-a-sentence you have to pause and wait for the translation, after which you can finish your sentence – at least, if you still remember the first half by then. It had indeed been one of my own biggest frustrations, doing a research for my studies and knowing that I would not be able to do anything with the results. Of course I wrote a report that I sent to the local organisations that I had been working with, but I realized that chances were very little that something would actually be done with it. This was part of my motivation to engage with SevenSenses and the way they conduct action research, as the ‘action’-part of ‘action research’ is one of their top priorities. They seemed satisfied with my answer and started to fill in the questionnaires. (Laetitia, FIC-Coordinator)

About a week and a half ago, we formally introduced ourselves to the community where we are carrying out our research. Our contact person here had assured us that around fifty people would show up to the community meeting that he and the community leaders had organized. However, when we arrived at the place of the meeting, ten minutes before the meeting was supposed to start, there were only four men waiting for us. Fortunately, in the minutes that followed, more and more people started to show up. Even in the following hour, people kept joining the group gathering at an open place in between a couple of houses. Although we were not sure what to expect from the meeting and the amount of people that would show up, Carine counted over sixty people at some point during the meeting! After our introduction, we asked them to fill in a questionnaire with some basic questions to find out whether people were interested in taking part in the research. And apparently they were: in that hour, we collected almost sixty questionnaires of which almost fifty left their phone numbers to be called to make an interview-arrangement. It was an absolute honour to meet these community-members and to receive their responses.

And this was only one of the interesting meetings we have had in the four weeks since we arrived. For instance, we organised drama classes at a high school, in which we brought up some fatherhood-related issues. We were very impressed by these teenagers; not only because they were really open about their daily life experiences, but also because they did so well at the role plays! Multiple times, both the Dutch and the local researchers stated to be touched by the situations that were acted out. After the role plays we discussed the learners’ ideas and opinions, which gave an interesting impression of the things they value in their families and lives.

There are two main reasons that we find it important to get to know the community that we are working in. First of all, we want to show the people that we are serious about wanting to get to know them. That is why in the first week, we followed Tswana classes. Even though Tswana turns out to be quite a complicated language – with letter combinations that force us to make a fool of ourselves in trying to pronounce them right – we can at least greet and thank people in their own language. This often leads to funny reactions: people either laugh at you, or they start telling you a full story in Tswana, after which you have to admit that you only understood the greeting and two or three words…but we are trying! And according to the local researchers in our team (we’ll tell you more about them in a bit), people do appreciate it.

The other reason that we want to get to know the people in the community, is because we want to make sure that we do not try to change things that they themselves do not want to change. That is why in every meeting, every interview and focus group, we ask about what they would want to see different in their own community. Obviously, the topic of father-involvement was chosen for a reason: two years ago it already became clear that people would want the involvement of fathers to increase. But that does not mean that we should not assure ourselves time and again that this is indeed an issue that the community wants to take on.

And so far, the local researchers have proven to be of great value in this whole process. Ever since we got to know each other during the first workshop (the one on Teambuilding), we feel free to discuss all our insecurities and potential mistakes with them – and they are really being kind and patient to us! Right now we have five local women involved in our research; they act as driver, interpreter, gatekeeper, and networker – but most of all as our very own ‘real life experience-experts’. Together with these ladies, we designed the Drama class, the research plan and the interview questions. It was interesting to see how we were sometimes hesitant to bring up certain topics, while they would say “no, you can ask about it, it’s no problem!”. Up ‘til now, they always proved right.

We are four weeks into the project now, in between the data gathering and data analysis phase. Although many people (including ourselves) express curiosity towards the results and possible solutions, it still feels like we have very little to no clue of what the outcomes will be. Nevertheless, we realise that this is quite common for action research: we will only become aware of possible ‘solutions’ when the community gathers and starts brainstorming. So what is going to be our role, as Challenge team?

The coming weeks will be a combination of gathering more data, transcribing, analysing and asking new questions. In about two weeks, we should have a (general) idea of our research results. We will then also start thinking about a way to present these results to the community: how do we understand the answers that were given, and how can we explain these in a way that facilitates local people in their process of co-creating tools to improve family life and father-involvement? We do not aim to come up with solutions or THE answer, rather we aim to give some insights into the way the different people in the community view their own daily family life. We cannot stress enough (to them, to you and to ourselves) that we are only here to facilitate. We will not be the ones inventing some kind of miracle-working plan. But we will try to get people to talk to each other, to discuss their own and each other’s potential and to ask questions where this could be helpful. Hopefully, in a couple of weeks, we will be able to tell you more about the progress of the Father-Involvement Challenge. Please be patient with us and know that we are doing our best to keep you all up to date.

Lots of love,

Team Father-Involvement

The post About our first month: Community meetings, Tswana classes and local researchers appeared first on SevenSenses.