Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan: See How We Did It
Our Methods Explained
Feminist MEAL methodologies allow participants to challenge traditional ways of gathering information, as well as the typical power dynamics within data collection. The power shifts to participants through the process of producing information about their projects by and for themselves.
Here are some typical approaches:
- CellphilmOpens in a new window: Cellphilming is the act of taking a short video of yourself (typically between 1-3 minutes) with a cell phone, tablet or other device. The goal of cellphilms is to share a message that represents your way of looking at a particular issue in your everyday life. It can raise awareness, promote dialogue, be a form of activism and allow you to reflect on your own role in advancing gender equality and women’s rights.
- PhotovoiceOpens in a new window: Photovoice is a visual methodology that uses photography to capture, represent and reflect on reality from your own perspective. Photographs can communicate significant people, events and attitudes, prompt discussion, raise awareness and challenge social norms surrounding gender equality and women’s rights.
- DramatizationOpens in a new window: Dramatizations, such as theatre or performance, can be powerful tools to creatively represent alternative viewpoints, social justice messages, raise awareness and challenge social norms related to gender equality and women’s rights. Dramatizations are powerful tools because they can be participatory, engaging, visual and moving.
- Community radioOpens in a new window: Community radio is one of the most important forms of media to reach a wide number of people, foster community participation and challenge social norms about gender equality and women’s rights. Broadcasts from the community can be used to allow people to participate in discussions, facilitate dialogue, reach isolated communities and break down language barriers.
- Storytelling: Storytelling methodologies have many different forms, including narratives, writing poetry and drawing. Stories capture experiences. Storytelling is a way to share your own individual or collective organizational journeys, pass knowledge from one generation to another and inspire action and change to forward gender equality and women’s rights.
The feminist MEAL data from the reflections that took place during the Women’s Voice and Leadership co-creation workshop showcase participants’ learning and understanding about the benefits, challenges and practical applications of the different feminist MEAL methodologies. For example, in a feminist MEAL cellphilm video from the last day of the five-day workshop, a participant described the reasons why cellphilm is a useful technique for women’s rights organizations:
“At the closing of each of the days of the co-creation workshop was time for practicing feminist MEAL activities. So today’s technique is cellphilming, and I am sharing today’s learning with you. This participatory feminist MEAL technique is very interesting to convey our knowledge and learning experience; it is a reliable, easy to access and cost-effective means of transferring knowledge.”
The feminist MEAL data from the workshop demonstrates a deepened commitment to practicing feminist MEAL on the part of women’s rights organizations in Pakistan.
Lessons Learned
Reflecting on the baseline process, staff from Oxfam Canada, Oxfam in Pakistan and the women’s rights organizations agreed that adopting a feminist approach within the project had been a highly rewarding and beneficial experience. When asked about their experience implementing the project baseline and its goals of shifting power and ownership through feminist MEAL, staff from the women’s rights organizations repeatedly described the process as being collaborative, inclusive and providing a sense of ownership that is unlike other projects on which they have worked. The lessons learned below encompass our learning from the entire baseline process, in addition to the co-creation workshop specifically.
The Strength of Learning Together:
Participants said that the co-creation workshop format we used as part of the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan baseline process provided an opportunity for peer-to-peer learning, networking and alliance-building among the women’s rights organizations. In a cellphilm video from the last day of the five-day co-creation workshop, a participant said that, after the workshop, she felt more connected to the other staff from the women’s rights organizations and that they felt a collective sense of hope.
“We are hopeful that for the coming three to three-and-a-half years, we will learn together and will transform ourselves into gender-just organizations and will be securing women’s rights as a whole.”
Facilitators from Oxfam in Pakistan also participated in the feminist MEAL reflection exercises. In another cellphilm video from the same workshop, a facilitator from Oxfam in Pakistan reflected on her own learning and appreciation for feminist MEAL:
“These [techniques] were completely new for me, and were very helpful. It gives ownership and power to participants to talk about their own journey and success, and the reason for failure or areas of improvement. This is, I think, shifting power to people who are actually change agents.”
Time and Technical Requirements:
Many of the baseline activities took longer than expected because a feminist approach requires a deeper level of consultation, engagement and participation from all project partners than more traditional approaches. All of the baseline activities also needed to be extensively documented, and the amount of qualitative data was massive. Consolidating, transcribing, analyzing and validating this data with all of the partners required high levels of technical expertise, and highlighted that there was more capacity or skill in terms of data collection than analysis.
Resourcing, Capacity and True Co-creation:
The baseline process served as a reality check for what it actually means to co-create a project with small and under-resourced women’s rights organizations when the funder is operating similar projects in thirty countries around the world. This is a challenge for feminist MEAL because the program requires that we use the same indicators and outcomes worldwide.
The 12 core women’s rights organization partners for Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan have varying levels of organizational experience doing feminist MEAL and complex project reporting. For this reason, the project team devoted additional time and resources to help guide staff from the partnering women’s rights organizations, as needed. Conversations with Oxfam Canada and Oxfam in Pakistan revealed that much of this work fell to the Oxfam in Pakistan team, which is not a sustainable approach. Going forward, Oxfam Canada will discuss this issue openly and candidly, develop strategies to meet the needs of both Oxfam in Pakistan and women’s rights organizations and also promote the use of feminist MEAL methodologies to reduce reporting burdens throughout the rest of the project.
Feminist MEAL Foundations
The process involved in developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership - Pakistan baseline report integrated all of Oxfam Canada’s feminist MEAL foundations Meaning of the term "feminist MEAL foundations" Feminist MEAL: Is an approach rather than a process, is an integral part of transformative change, shifts power to partners and participants, highlights the evaluator as a facilitator, values collective, context-driven knowledge generation, provides a learning orientation to evaluations, is rooted in safe programming, guided by ‘do no harm.’ Read Oxfam Canada's Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL. to varying degrees.
In particular, the following foundations were prominent in this work:
Oxfam Canada’s role throughout developing the Women’s Voice and Leadership Pakistan baseline report was that of a facilitator, who provided technical support and posed questions to stakeholders. Oxfam sought to continually acknowledge power dynamics and practice reflexivity Meaning of the term "reflexivity" Reflexivity refers to examining one’s own beliefs, judgments and practices during research or evaluation processes and how these may have influenced data design, collection and analysis. Reflexivity involves questioning one’s own taken-for-granted assumptions. In Feminist MEAL, using a reflexive approach requires evaluators and organizations to acknowledge their own power and how this power could potentially impact (intentionally or not) the evaluation exercise. For more information, refer to Warwick University’s discussion of reflexivity, as well as Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL. . One women’s rights organization participant said: “This is a unique experience, as it did not feel as a donor-partner relationship – rather, we felt equal in making decisions for ourselves.”
The Feminist MEAL approach used in the Women’s Voice and Leadership Pakistan baseline report was oriented to learning and not just data collection, and it prioritized strategic program learning to strengthen collective ownership of the project.
The collaborative process during development of the Women’s Voice and Leadership Pakistan baseline report was guided by ethical and safety standards that centered on the principles of ‘do no harm’ and ‘nothing about me without me’. Key considerations included that participants had the right to terminate their involvement at any time and that participants were fully aware of how their data was being used. One women’s rights organization participant commented: “The first day of the workshop was very informative as we learned how to align the guiding principles of Oxfam with our respective organization. The special message of today: ‘Nothing about me without me’ will also guide us in future project preparation and implementation.”
Learn More about Feminist MEAL Foundations
Read about our Feminist MEAL Foundations in more depth in Oxfam Canada’s Guidance Note on Feminist MEAL.