Case Study: Child Friendly Schools
Participatory Video and Most Significant Change Evaluation (Sierra Leone)
In the spring of 2016, 1.5 years after the big peace celebration that marked the end of a local conflict, UNICEF Sierra Leone and the Ministry of Education Science and Technology— the two initiators of the Child Friendly School Programme that was implemented by DIP in 20 schools in the region — selected the school in Sawula as the location for an in-depth evaluation to better understand the relationships between peace, conflict and children's education. The evaluation was carried out by a mixed group of eleven people who were trained by InsightShare, who specialize in the use of participatory video for positive change.
Over the course of 13 days trainees learned how to use participatory video methods combined with the most significant change methodology to carry out story collection and selection processes to gather insights into the changes experienced by the community members over the course of the conflict and the role of the Child Friendly School programme. This case study accompanies the community-made videos and provides an overview of key findings.During the Action Research sessions DIP staff enabled adults and children to explore the links between the CFS standards and key drivers of conflict.
This evaluation helped to further clarify these links as well as additional blockers and enablers in the wider community that directly or indirectly influenced children's wellbeing and education. Findings of the participatory analysis emphasize how interrelated all the enablers, blockers and changes are, and what a big influence local social relationships and the natural environment can have on the education opportunities of children and the quality of their learning.