Gender Action Learning System

GENDER ACTION LEARNING SYSTEM

Jagriti Shankar

Gender Expert

Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand

Email. [email protected]

Based on Oxfam Novib’s Women’s Empowerment

Mainstreaming And Networking (WEMAN) programme

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand GAL’s Context

Understand Principles and Key Features of

GALS

Understand GALS Methodology

Understand Activities of GALS Stage 1

GALS INTRODUCTION

Gender Action Learning System (GALS) is key part of Oxfam Novib’s Women’s Empowerment Mainstreaming And Networking (WEMAN) programme for gender justice in economic development interventions, including market and value chain development, financial services and economic policy and decision-making.

GALS is a community-led empowerment methodology aiming at ‘constructive economic, social and political transformation’ on gender justice.

BACKGROUND

Developed and piloted by Linda Mayoux with Kabarole Research and Resource Centre, Uganda, 2002

GALS is gender adaptation of a general methodology called Participatory Action Learning System (PALS) for action learning and planning. The PALS methodology evolved from work on livelihoods development and poverty reduction in 2002

GALS has already been adapted in: ANANDI (India), PASED/LEAP (Sudan), FINCA Perú and Movimiento Manuela Ramos (Peru), etc.

GALS principles, processes and tools are build on a number of other established methodologies for community empowerment and participatory monitoring and impact assessment: Paulo Freire’s community conscientisation, Action Aid’s REFLECT literacy methodology, Appreciative Enquiry, Helzi Noponen’sInternal Learning System and above all Participatory Action Learning methodologies developed by Robert Chambers and others.

FOR WHOM?

GALS works with women and men to develop their visions for change, appreciate their strengths, achievements and work collectively to address gender inequalities within the family and community

GALS works with poor or very poor women and men, with no or little education, with no or little regular income

GALS tools and participatory processes can be adapted for gender mainstreaming in any issue including economic improvement, life improvement planning, livelihood, value chain development, environmental management, health, and so on..

WHAT IS GALS METHOD-1

GALS is based on participatory planning

principles and processes

GALS uses diagrams tools so people with

little/no education can understand and

participate

GALS enables full and equal inclusion of

poor women and men and makes them equal

and respected partner in improving their lives

WHAT IS GALS METHOD-2

The methodology also develops the

analytical, participatory, listening and

communication skills of institutions and

policy-makers to increase the effectiveness

of pro-poor interventions

GALS is innovative and differs from regular

gender training processes, as it stresses on

individual yet collective life planning

GALS PRINCIPLES

Women are intelligent agents of development: Women are not seen as ‘victims of subordination in need of consciousness-raising’ but as intelligent actors who already have aspirations

Men are allies in change: Men are seen as potential partners in a process of change and justice (to be tested in pilot group)

Start with the individual and then collective reflection at group

Acknowledge and respect differences: before negotiating these into consensus

Every event is focused on action for change

Peer learning: Every learning event contributes to building capacities

Inclusion and prioritization of the needs of the poorest and most disadvantaged

Gender justice and rights-based principles are non-negotiable

GENDER JUSTICE IS NON-NEGOTIABLE

GALS initially focuses on promoting constructive communication between women and men,

with an ultimate aim of removing all forms of gender discrimination and empowerment of women and men to realize their full human potential.

In some cases this may require strategic negotiation of conflicts of interest in favor of women’s rights.

CEDAW

Women’s rights include:

rights to life, liberty, security of person and freedom from violence and degrading treatment and freedom of movement;

legal equality and protection by the law including women’s equal rights to make decisions in their family regarding marriage and children, property and resources;

right to own property and freedom from deprivation of property;

freedom of thought, opinion and association;

right to work, freedom from exploitation and right to rest and leisure;

right to a standard of living adequate for health and right to education including special care for mothers

GAL IMPLEMENTATION AND ADAPTATION AT

COMMUNITY

GALS can be adapted for any context/field/ community/ organization, in small stages

Field-testing and first community-designed pictorial manual(s): The activities should first be field-tested by the coordinators with a small group (10-15) of women and men, comprising poor people as well as community leaders. The field-testing aims to establish community ownership from the start and to develop a core of women and men in communities who can then be part of the training process at other communities

Design and adaptation: Next the process is to be adapted and streamlined on the basis of suggestions from the community during field-testing, and the organization's existing activities. This includes plans for peer training and staff capacity building, longer-term sustainability of the action learning process and organizational documentation and follow-up.

Capacity-building with staff and communities: Next wider capacity-building of staff and communities is done. The women and men in communities who were part of the field-testing should be at the forefront of teaching the tools to staff and other community members.

·Scaling up: The pictorial manual(s) should be combined by staff into simplified locally-adapted organizational manual in one or more local languages which they can use to implement and scale up the process.

GALS STAGE 1 : ENVISIONING GENDER JUSTICE

STAGE 1: Visioning and committing to action on gender justice

Activity 1: Gender Justice Diamond: looks at local views of gender inequality and identify priorities for change.

Activity 2: Challenge Action Trees: Take gender justice priorities identified through the diamond, brainstorm possible solutions and develops concrete action commitments to change at individual level.

Activity 3: Tree of Diamond Dreams: These trees are then combined into a ‘mother tree’ as an action plan for the group/organization/community.

GENDER JUSTICE DIAMOND

Focused on women’s and men’s human rights Gender Justice Diamond asks participants to think about gender inequality.

Ask how women and men feel about their gender identity, the aspects they like or dislike, and, the aspects they want to change.

There are often contradictions between different aspirations of women and men. However it is possible to build on these aspirations, and the contradictions, a consensus on at least a few common human rights on which both women and men can start to move forward.

GENDER JUSTICE DIAMOND

Image Source: Tree of diamond dreams: Visioning and

committing to action on gender justice

Manual for field-testing and local adaptation : GALS

stage 1

POSSIBLE DIAMOND OUTCOME

Expressed Aspirations:

Women might want house registration in their names so they can use it as collateral for loans

Women might want to be able to buy household stuff on their own

Women might want their daughters to go to school and get education

Men might want better relations with their wives

Men might want to spend more time with their children, and want their girls and boys to go to school

Women Don’t like:

Women might not like restrictions on moving around the community

Domestic violence

GENDER JUSTICE DIAMOND STEPS

Step 1: Brainstorm Individual Aspirations: People draw 1) how they feel about themselves; 2)what aspect they like about their life; 3) what they don’t like

Step 2: Pair wise sharing: People choose a partner and share with them their thoughts. This provides space for discussion in group and potential contradictions.

Step 3: Ranking and placing on the diamond: People prioritize the issues through voting, and then each issue is placed in order of priority on the diamond.

MOTHER DIAMOND FROM GROUP

Step 4: Plenary feedback and placing on the mother diamond. This activity attempts to bring women and men together around a common vision of human rights for both sexes, and also raise awareness of the dimensions and extent of current inequalities in the issues prioritized.

Step 5: Facilitator wrap-up: By introducing CEDAW and national gender policy, summarizing how the issues are important and other important issues that might be discussed later.

Step 6: Quantification and prioritizing challenges: It is the important to arrive at consensus on at least some priority gender justice issues to take forward, other discussions can be ongoing after the event.

A large mother diamond is prepared with

the horizontal lines and vertical gender

columns

NOTE FOR FACILITATORS

It is important to note that no attempt should be made in GALS stage 1 to raise awareness of ‘practical needs’ and ‘strategic interests’ (as done in gender training concerned with teaching gender frameworks)

The focus of GALS is on helping people thinking their own solutions to address practical needs in strategic ways.

The main aim is to bring about women’s rights in CEDAW, and promote strategic interests in ways which have tangible and practical benefits for all.

The tools are designed to bring about an ‘gut awareness’ in all participants about the inter-linkages between achieving their material dreams and changing gender relations - thus motivating more people to make at least small steps towards change.

CHALLENGE ACTION TREES

As a next step The Challenge Action Trees are developed with the 5 priority issues chosen by participants. It helps to figure out causes/dimensions of the issue, possible responses and concrete changes

It focuses on generating solutions in form of ‘SMART’ action commitments which can be monitored

It helps people to share ideas, analyze the reasons, and interrelations between different dimensions of the challenges selected, and possible solutions

The participatory way of thinking of ideas reinforces commitment, and ownership.

Women can be put on one side of the tree, and men on the other using color coding (gender analysis). These single issue trees are then combined together with collective actions by the group and possible responses from organizations are then added as flowers and bees in the mother tree.

THE CHALLENGE ACTION TREE PARTS

It has 4 parts:

The trunk – is the challenge/issue to be addressed

The roots - representing the causes or dimensions of the challenge

The branches – representing possible solutions for each challenge

The fruits – representing individual actions which each person can take to bring about the solutions.

THE CHALLENGE ACTION TREE

The challenge should be described in positive terms e.g. obtaining an equitable role in decision- making, overcoming alcoholism, etc.

Make a symbol for women on one side of the tree, and another symbol for men on the other side because women and men contribute in different ways to the causes of many challenges, and so the they need to take different actions. Common causes and actions for both sexes will be put in the middle.

Then each participant chose at least 3 individual ‘SMART action fruits’ for as their commitment to address the challenge and start the road to change immediately.

SMART(specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound) action fruits, which can be tracked over time

TREE OF DIAMOND DREAMS

The final tree of diamond dreams then combines these different trees (challenge action trees, developed through identifying gender justice area, brainstormed possible solutions and concrete action commitments) into a quantified ‘mother tree’

This includes individual plans for sharing what they have learned with others in their households and communities and starting to develop a ‘GALS culture’ with songs, poems and theatre.

Image Source: Tree of diamond dreams:

Visioning and committing to action on gender

justice

Manual for field-testing and local adaptation :

GALS stage 1

TIP

The more community men and women

involve themselves in developing challenge

action tree, the greater the sense of

ownership and local creativity, and hence

likelihood the change process will be

dynamic, sustainable and up scaled through

community actions

WRAPPING UP CONTD..

GALS stage 1 prepares participants for subsequent GALS stages like ‘Steering life’s rocky road’, or an organizational self assessment like Oxfam Novib’s Gender Mainstreaming and Leadership Trajectory (GMLT).

The subsequent GALS stages build on the gender awareness and community ownership developed in stage 1 for a much systematic process of planned change, gender advocacy and livelihood development.

REMEMBER

GALS follows established good practices in participatory facilitation with community members. But GALS is not conducted in ‘teaching mode’ because the goal is not ‘awareness raising’.

GALS in not conscientisation by outsiders, but to catalyze discussion, awareness and motivation ‘from within’ the participants themselves.

The discussion makes women and men ponder about potential contradictions between their expressed opinions, e.g. For men liking to have power, but not wanting much responsibility; or women expecting men to be strong, but not wanting violence

REFERENCES

Linda Mayoux, Participatory Action Learning System : Training Manual. Available online at: http://www.wemanresources.info/documents/Page2_GALS/PALS_Docs/TUP_PALS_part%201.pdf

Tree of diamond dreams: Visioning and committing to action on gender justice Manual for field-testing and local adaptation : GALS stage 1 ,available online at: http://api.ning.com/files/Zx8GP9iGT01hKq35ulpZzxUkom-Rn263PX7tP1um7xBDwgnk3LzJpRg01tJlshy7GHsExYqbvZquqRxLHBu4cYc2ZHHMR1QO/101229diamonddreamsEnglishweb.pdf

THANK YOU!