External Evaluation of the project
� Youth Leadership Conference for� 2005
R E P O R T
May 2006
Prof. D-r. Cvetko Smilevski
Skopje, Macedonia
[email protected]
CONTENT
1. Introduction
1.1 The Project
1.2 The Context
1.2.1 The General Context
1.2.2 The Project�s Context
1.3 The Evaluation
1.3.1 Subject of the Evaluation
1.3.2 Evaluation Methodology
2. The Evaluation�s Results
2.1 The Formative Evaluation
2.1. 1 Conference design and content
2.1.2 Recruitment and selection process
2.1.3 Travelling
2.1.4 Educational sessions
2.1.5 Debate - dialogue sessions
2.1.6 Social activities
2.1.7 Post-conferences activities
2.1.8 Inter-conference differences
2.2 The Summative Evaluation
2.2.1 Results
2.2.2 Achievements of Goals and Objectives
2.3. Conclusions
2.3.1 General assessment
2.3.2 Good practices and lessons learnt
2.3.3 Strengths and opportunities
2.3.4 Constraints and weaknesses
3.Conclusions and Recommendations
3.1 The follow-up activities of the evaluated conference
3.2 The Sustainability of the project
1. Introduction
1.1 The Project
Since the year 2002, OSCE has supported and funded the development and implementation of Youth Leadership Conferences (YLC) for students from secondary schools from Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo and Struga. The project was suported by Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and implemented by partner organisation Center for Management of Conflicts (CMC) from Skopje. Target group for Conference were the youth from different schools in western part of Macedonia including all ethnic communities (Macedonians, Albanians, Romas, Turks and Vlachs) at the respected schools in the cities of : SKumanovo, Skopje, Tetovo and Struga.
1.2 The Context
1.2.1 The General Context
The region of South-Eastern Europe is a ground where a lot of different cultures meet. This multiculturalism makes the relations between people of different cultures a mater of daily practice. The problems that have been prevailing in our society have forced people to good deeds and to blame others for the turmoil. This has been a major problem in the Balkan which has led people to completely separated entities, necessary and important contacts. As a result of leaving the problem behind, we have witnessed all these wars which in turn have worsened situation. For that reason this region is rated as the lowest in Balkan economy, respectively in the cultural and educational fields. In lack of other options, people easily resorted to armed conflicts as an option for solving the problems. As a part of Balkan and not being able to learn from the neighboring experiences, Macedonia faced an open-armed conflict. Culture of violence became way of living that people started to accept as an everyday appearance. Addressing the issue of Peace in Macedonia society, this particular program was also trying to eliminate the existing culture of violence, especially in the schooling surroundings.
1.2.2 The Project�s Context
Centre for Management of Conflicts, having a specific status in society and being specialized in providing its expertise on Peace building, through its entire program gives its effort to contribute for better living conditions in Macedonia - free of violence! Bearing all this in mind, CMC through its work has realized that students in high schools are manipulative target group, often misused by politicians and extreme groups operating in Macedonia. The existing physical and mental infrastructure is providing perfect ground for cultivating seeds of heritage and intolerance among young population. In lot of schools that are ethnically mixed, the fights between students are regular problem that the state institutions are facing every year. The expertise among the school institutions, to face these kinds of challenges unfortunately is lacking.
Centre for Management of Conflicts � three years in role is leading and implementing Youth Leadership Conferences (YLC). The established training program has proven to be more than effective due to fact that the project is based on model of �best practice�. Under all this circumstances Center for Management of Conflicts introduces this fourth series of Youth Leadership Conferences (YLC).
1.3 The Evaluation
1.3.1 Subject of the Evaluation
The present report summarizes the findings and recommendations of the evaluation of the conferences held in 2005. The subject of this evaluation is process and effects of the implemented conferences in order to enable OSCE and CMC to identify good practices and lessons learnt, strengths and opportunities, constraints and weaknesses of the implemented project.
1.3.2 Evaluation Methodology
In general the project was evaluated �post festum�. Althought due to this, my position as evaluator had a lot of disadvantages, there was enough presented materials from which I can draw out lot of good conclusions from what is done in the field. The disadvantages are concerning mostly the accuracy of the conclusions regarding the training style of the two core trainers and the six assistant facilitators.
The external evaluation was conducted on the basis of the following methodology:
1. Content analysis of the project documentation (project proposal and conference curriculum � Annexes A)
This analysis was the basis for evaluation of the Conference concept on one hand, and it was regarded as a criterion for the achievement evaluation on the other hand. Particularly useful was the information for the training methodology and the process for identification and selection of the conference participants.
2. Content analysis of the video documentation of the conference activities
In the situation, in which the evaluator did not have the possibility to follow the conference directly, the delivered video documentation for the key events from the conference activities presented comprehensive and objective source of information. The content analysis of these documents was the basis for the formative evaluation, i.e. the quality of the group dynamics process between the conference participants which has crucial influence on the process of changing the participants� attitudes as one of the project objectives.
From use in this regards were also the pictures placed in to the DVD material.
3. Content analysis of the conference written evaluation conducted by the participants at the end of the conference.
The conference with each group of participants was preliminary evaluated by the participants themselves. This evaluation was conducted by using one comprehensive questionnaire consisted of 17 questions with qualitative answers and quantitative grades. The first reaction of the participants to the conference activities is a very important source for the summative project evaluation. The evaluation results were used for gaining preliminary information for the effects achieved at the conference as well as a basis for formulating questions used in the planned interviews with the focus groups of participants. These results can be assessed from two aspects: as very useful qualitative, differentiated expressions of the conference participants and as positive, but also not differentiated quantitative grade (10 for each question). The review of the summative results of this evaluation is presented in the annex B.
4. The interview with focus groups of participants from all 4 conferences (annex C).
The intention of conducting the group interview (focus groups) was to receive information from the participants because of:
- more differentiated check of the participants� opinions stated in their written evaluation at the end of the conference
- collecting information for the post-conference activities and effects and
- additional information for the project sustainability.
For the conducting of the interviews with the conference participants four meetings were planned, with all the conference participants who were be able to take part in the planned period. According to the project records, all the conference participants were informed by the project coordinator for the intention of conducting an interview with a focus group of participants in order to evaluate the conference and its effects and they were invited to take part in it. The meetings with the focus groups took place in the premises of the partner Non governmental organizations of CMC in Kumanovo, Tetovo and Struga, and in Skopje those meetings took place in the premises of the Institute for Sociological and Political and Juridical Research. These premises were easier to be provided because the meeting with that focus group took place on weekends.
Although only one third of the participants were present (that was the size of the focus groups), the group structure was representative considering their background in terms of ethnic, gender and religious belonging. Conducting the interviews in the NGO premises was also one indicator of the conference effects, i.e involving the majority of the participants in the NGO�s activities.
The project coordinator was not present during the group interview. The purpose was providing free expression of the focus group released from any simpathy or influence from the organisers.
In order to achieve the above stated interview intention, the focus groups participants were asked the following core questions in a relaxed, cooperative atmosphere:
1. Who recommended you to take part in this conference?
2. Why did you decide to take part in this conference and what were your expectations?
3. Which behaviour were you practising before the conference and now (after the conference) you stopped practising?
4. Which behaviour were you not practising before the conference and now (after the conference) you started practising?
5. Which activities have you been engaged in with your classmates after the conference?
6. Which activities have you been engaged in with your conference colleagues?
7. Has anyone from the school noticed changes in your behaviour?
8. Why would some of your friends take part in a following conference?
9. What would you suggest to be improved in the following conferences?
10. What else would you like to learn from this field?
Additional sub questions were asked dependable on the subject of the conversation and analyses needs. It is understandable that all the participants did not answer each of the questions, but all the participants took part with their statements regarding some of the questions. The results of these focus groups represented key basis for formulating individual benefits from the conference and the post-conference effects in the environment from which the conference participants were recruited. Also, one part of the answers enriched the formative evaluation.
5. Interview with the implementers of the project the project leader and the assistant.
Valuable Input for the evaluation process as well as for the better understanding of the flow of the project activities was given by the organisers of the project (the project leader assistants and the facilitators). Considering their partiality in the process of the evaluation the remarks given by this group of interviewed people ware only used as reference and guiding elements for composing good questions for the later interviews with the students.
The obvious enthusiasm, motivation and dedication of the implementing team to cope with sensitive issues such are the interethnic relations is asset to the whole process. This is as well understandable by the way of utilizing their energy to find broad support for the project a well as by seriousness of coping with the project issues and obstacles;
6. The handouts given to the participants
The prepared handouts that were given to the participants gave more insight on some of the content that was used during the trainings.
2. The Evaluation�s Results
2.1 The Formative Evaluation
2.1. 1 Conference design and content
The conferences in this project are the main activities of the project. As such they are designed as three days educational workshops for students from different ethnic communities who attend secondary schools (third and fourth grade) from several cities in western part of Macedonia. (Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo and Struga). The purpose of the conferences was to provide space and time for students from different backgrounds where they will have chance to exchange their stances, attitudes, concerns and opinions with their pear students. All this to increase the tolerance among the students and reduce the violence in the schools. In order to achieve this purpose, the project has planned special method of identifying and recruiting conference participants, who possess potential leadership preferences, travelling together from the place where they live to the place where the conference will be held as a part of the process for spontaneous mutual acquaintance, through series of educational and dialogue sessions and social events in the place where the conference is held, towards expected self-initiative and motivated educational and dialogue activities of the students after the end of the conference.
2.1.2 Recruitment and selection process
In order to recruit participants, there are several ways which were used for potential participants identification: talking to secondary school principles and teachers, help by the pedagogues of the schools, focus groups of interested students, recommendations from participants from previous conferences etc. From particular importance had been the letters of support from the ministry of education and science, where they state their appreciation for implementing such kind of project in the secondary schools. An interview was conducted with the identified participants in which they were selected on the basis of their vision for the future and ability and willingness to make changes in the society. All the questions in the interviews were asked in this direction.
Important process that brought a good quality students to the interviews was the fact that the organisers had prepared a brochure with necessary information on the whole process. The brochure was written in a interesting way of usage of multiethnic languages, where one has to go through the other languages to come to understanding to their part of information from the brochure. It was distributed in advance by the teachers in the schools to the students and than the students that showed interest in taking part in such kind of activity showed in the interviews. Altought a big number of students has showed in the interviews only several had the possibility to be part of the whole story. Written agreement was requested from their parents for their children�s participation in this useful, but because of the context sensitive activity. I appreciate these measures as very useful for providing primary assumptions for constructive involvement of all the key stakeholders in this project.
All in all it seems like to the recruitment process it was given specific emphasis. The energy spend in the preparation phase, with organising very complicated way of recruitment, resulted with better quality of selected students. This is as well relaxing element when it comes to having constructive dialogue process among the youth that understand what happens in their surrounding.
2.1.3 Travelling and accommodation
From the interviews with the students and from the recordings made from the journey to the place where the conference was held it can be concluded that holding the conferences away from the place where the students live and travelling by bus together was completely justified. At the beginning of the travelling two important effects were obvious: from the weak inter-group and interpersonal communication as a result of the first level of the group dynamics and ethnic groupings as a result of the present ethnic division in many social activities in the Macedonian society to a intensive and reach interpersonal communication among all participants.
As of the issue of accommodation, it should be emphasised that added value to the whole process is the fact that the organisers carefully and thoughtfully mixed the students in their rooms in terms of their ethnic background. Some students in the evaluation forms emphasised the satisfaction from sharing the room with a student from other ethnical groups. For some of them it was for the first time to meet and share a room with a person from other nationality. This experience has shown to be effective from the beginning and the general recommendation is to continue with that particular way of bringing the relations of people closer to each other cross the existing ethnic boundaries.
Seriousness and feeling of security gave the fact that a buss of OSCE was transferring the participants in to the place of the event. This is important because many of the parents feel uncomfortable to send their children with some organisation and transporting companies. This is coming from the previous experience where transport companies have made many accidents during student excursions.
2.1.4 Educational sessions and the training team
The educational sessions are designed and delivered as an input in the dialogue sessions, as well as method for cross cultural understanding. During these sessions the participants are introduced into the essence of the dialogue and the rules of leading a dialogue. In real situations of interpersonal and inter-group relations and mutual acquaintance, the participants are gradually making progress in the constructive presentation of their own attitudes and listening to the others. Particularly useful technique in this phase was the technique: �I speech�, �You Speech�, �We speech�.
The predicted path of the events shows its justification in the end of the whole educational process, when participants express freely themselves in the dialogue process. The curve of development of relations starts with providing knowledge and practical skill on basic communication skills (with emphasis on non-violent communication), followed later with good input on the topics of perceptions, stereotypes, prejudices. This is very good ground for further cross cultural dialogue. As the process gets hated in the peak of the dialogue sessions it is very nice to see that the trainers thoughtfully bring the development curve down through using relaxed and common themes such are: team building, Leadership, visioning. As mentioned by the organisers there is not actually many time to deal with conflict management skills and reconciliation topics. These could be a good opportunity to use as topics in the future post conferences events.
As stated by the interviewers the energisers and games used during the conferences are pleasantly accepted by the participants. This teaching methodology that is not used in the formal education it seems that it is something that the students like. Some of the students have even practiced this games with their friends in the schools.
The two leading trainers and their two assistant facilitators are leading the sessions skilfully and relaxed. The fact that the trainers and the organisers involve the alumni students of previous Youth Leadership conferences, gives one more strength to the whole process. The newly selected students can symbolically see that there is existing well thought process where the organisers predict place for everybody that shows interest. Than important to me mentioned is the fact that the co-facilitators or the assistants of the core trainers are coming from the respective areas where the conference is aiming i.e. a co-facilitator coming from Kumanovo area can much easily communicate and understand their pear students, than if there is somebody else from some other region or city. This gives a relaxed feeling to the ones that can not express freely without using their local language and accent.
In connection to the training team important to be mentioned as positive side is the extra energy and effort given by the two core trainers to educate and train the two other facilitators. As this process was done before the conferences, it would be nice if the trainers think on identifying a new group of facilitators from the new Youth leadership conferences, that could be of help in the future facilitations of different other trainings. This is to form pre conditions for qualitative input from them in advance rather than to give and make short workshops on facilitation, where this groups of new facilitators would get fast input and would be putted to face important challenges.
The delivered handout are from a great use for the participants in the future. Their content is adapted for the recipients in this case the students. This is also a good way to transfer knowledge in to the new generations of Youth Leadership Conferences (YLC) . They had only one disadvantage that most of them were not translated in to Albanian and other languages. The suggestion in his regards is to have this handouts prepared in different languages so that they are more practical to use them in to other activities that participants are going to prepare. If possible it would be from greater use this handouts top put in one small booklet.
2.1.5 Debate � Dialogue sessions
These sessions represent the core of the conferences. I name these sessions debate � dialogue sessions because the participants hold quite long on to the debate character before they move to the dialogue. Perhaps this depend on the way that the group is developing the skills to have constructive dialogue. And from this development one can easily see how they the participants move from unorganised and emotional debates in to relaxed and ordered dialogue. The technique of questioning participants from other ethnic community is the basis for developing and the constructive dialogue process dialogue. The debate character particularly dominates in the phase of questions with political and inter-group character (Albanian for president of Macedonia...), transitional phase are the cross-cultural and inter-religious relations and than the dialogue is led mostly in relaxed and open conditions, where they have to talk more about the interpersonal relations, rather than defending some stances and attitudes of their idols. In this phase the role of the facilitators is considered to be of great importance, because they appear as facilitators that through the process are bringing their personal experience and examples, so that they catalyze the dialogue. Although a little bit tricky, this very important moment in the whole process depends on the impartiality of the facilitators (core trainers). From the gained material one could not notice partial intervention although it is normally expected in such kind of set up. Even if used, the partiality could and should play the role of provocation of dialogue which is safer to be done by local trainers such are the ones that are involved in to this project.
The readiness of the participants to be active in dialogue is completely dependable on the ground that the trainers are setting up through using other topics and exercises. The way that the groups are divided when formulating questions that they have never had a chance to ask (because of fear concern, shame, pressure etc) is working well. For consideration should be the sensitivity of dividing the ethnic communities that are not represented equally in the process (Roma, Vlachs, Serbs, Turks etc). For now it seems that the trainers have found a good way to cope with this issue, thought giving them complete freedom to chose whether they like or not at all to enter in such kinds of discussions as a separate group, or they would like to join some existing group.
2.1.6 Social activities
The social activities are also a result of the previous educational and dialogue activities, but at the same time they are subsequent process of the group integration. The short-term positive effects are manifested in them in the most impressive way, as well as the germ of the future new interpersonal relations between the participants from different ethnic communities. As important activities that could be from great use in multiethnic conferences, they the social activities showed to be of highly important events of relaxation after the hard and sensitive dialogue sessions. For more, their value is bigger in these conferences because they are exclusively made in closed area provided only for them.
The informal conversations during the coffee breaks, lunches, dinners and late evenings are well used as triggers for cross-cultural cooperation and understanding through precise planning of all their free time. A mark that is visible on the pictures and worth to be mentioned as positive element is the mixture of the participants during this informal conversations. This is also a sign of the achievement of the aim of the project. i.e. the signal of good development of group dynamics is when one can notice mixture in the way of sitting during the breaks, pauses, lunches and dinners. So when Albanians and Macedonians sit in one table. As mentioned by the organiser this was noticeable process. In the beginning the participants did not really mix with people from other communities whereby after the start of activities one could notice total mixture. From the conversations with the organisers I could notice that they were taking this issue seriously and tackling it in professional manner.
The creativity of the students comes in the surface in the second day when the participants organise their own show. The good thing here is that the students through usage of humour, sketches, poetry and music they reflect what they have achieved during the conference. This is a good reference for the project team in the future.
2.1.7 Post-conferences activities
After finishing the conferences, two kinds of activities are put into practice. First, transfer of the new acquired knowledge for other ethnic communities and practicing the dialogue in the regular school activities and second, mutual social activities between the participants from different ethnic communities in the city. The first type of activities could not be fully practiced like with the groups from the previous years, because of the short evaluation time after the conference. A transfer was carried out with these groups between the classmates in the classes where the students came from and there are projects proposals in preparation for similar activities with classmates from different schools and different ethnic communities in the cities.
What should particularly be emphasized is the participants� mutual attendance in social activities (parties, celebrations), in which besides conference participants there are also other classmates involved. In that way, the practice of mutual activities is being gradually widespread.
The peace exchange in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the partners of the Center for Management of Conflict is just one activity that proves that CMC and OSCE is caring about the participants and their development. All similar activities that give the opportunity to the students to be active, that are coming from the other partner organisations, should be welcomed and used as much as it is possible.
Pear education as something practiced with the previous YLC groups would be of great importance if need is shown for intervention in particular cities or schools. If more energy is given the alumni now, they could serve as connectors between the different communities and as amortizators of the ethnic tensions appearing in the schools.
From the e-mails exchanged in the e-groups one could notice that the established network is using the internet very frequently as way of communication. Since most of the young students have e-mails and the schools are equipped with computers maybe it is nice if the organisers think on developing particular web page for all members of the Youth Leadership Conferences (YLC).
2.1.8 Inter-conference differences
Although one of the core trainers that started the trainings had to be replaced on the third and forth training because of birth delivery, the process did not suffer any damage. A contrary, the new trainer that was coming from the alumni was just added value to the whole process. The video documentation analysis, the written evaluation by the participants and the interview with the focus groups didn�t show significant difference in any of the conference aspects. The minor technical changes and working program adaptations were done as a result of response to the needs the dialogue process. Above all the programme, the trainers, the organization, the accommodation and the food were assessed with the highest grades. The only obstacle from importance, the translation in to different languages of the ethnic communities was approached and solved very good. The groups which had participants mostly from the rural environments (several participants in the groups from Kumanovo and Tetovo), they hade difficulties following the conference because of translating problems and insufficient knowledge of the Macedonian language. The problem was partially solved with giving to the participants opportunity to get translation in the most necessary explanations. Assistants in the project had paid particular attention to this people through using �whispering translation�, and the facilitators had made sure that participants have full freedom to disturb or stop any process if they were not having the feeling that they have understood some part of the workshops. This seems to be ideal solution having in mind the limited time of the conference and finances. I say it was partially solved because of the fact that some times some participants can get highly disappointed if they do not have the right to use their own language during the conference. This is from particular importance if participants are divided in to groups and they do not have translation or they do not understand each other, than they will not fulfil their task/s properly as the instructions are given. The general suggestion for this would be to always have in disposal at leas one translator that will be used for formal translations when necessary and if needed and usage of the assistants as translators within the groups.
2.2 Evaluation Summary
2.2.1 Results
Expected Results
- Educated students on the topics of Peacebuilding and conflict management;
- Formation of pool of young educators that will transfer the gained knowledge among their friends/students;
- Reduce of violence's among youth in high schools;
- New and improved relationships between youth leaders across ethnic lines and motivated young leaders for taking proactive and positive steps in their communities;
- A high-profile, non-controversial example of the international community working to achieve sustainable peace among young people of different ethnic backgrounds
The assessment for the achieved results cannot be complete because I only had information about the conference flow and subjective statements of the participants for the post-conference activities in one relatively short period of time. However, the general assessment is that the process for achieving all of these results has begun and than this kind of comprehensive approaches will for sure contribute towards the expected results. However the real effects should be expected in the next period of time. For now the realistic fulfillment of the expectation comes from seeing and hearing about the engagement of the alumni students. The current results from the previous conferences can be used as indicators in the direction of:
- Taking part in conferences abroad (Spain, France) and in conferences and other meetings in their cities (for example two-day workshops in the region of Ohrid and Struga organized by the participants in the previous conferences) and at national level;
- Organizing workshops in the schools for promoting interethnic relations and nonviolent solving of conflicts;
- Recruiting assistants facilitators from the previous in the next conferences
- Engagement of almost all the participants from the previous conferences in different NGOs with peace mission
The following concrete results can be stated as direct achievements of the participants from this conferences series:
- organized and individual involvement of the participants from Struga in solving the problems with the fights at the secondary school in Struga
- gained knowledge in the field of Peacebuilding and Leadership;
- Improved confidence and critical thinking especially among the ones that were very active in the conferences;
- mutual visit to social activities performed by participants which have different ethnic background
- involving other classmates and friends in the mutual interethnic meetings
- learning the language of other ethnic community
- 12 participants from these conferences attended the international peace exchange in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Annex D)
- appearance of �cross cultural and ethnic love� between some of the participants during and after the conferences
2.2.2 Achievements of Goals and Objectives
Project Goal:
- Reducing inter - ethnic tensions and elimination of culture of violence among young people in Macedonia by providing them new practical life skills on peace and non-violence.
Project Objectives:
- To emerge leaders of various ethnicities to be able in future to help the society to manage daily school conflicts;
- to provide young leaders with: leadership, communication and conflict resolution tools they need to work together to address the problems they face in their schools and communities;
- To change the existing violent attitudes and behaviors in to positive and practical learning abilities;
- To identify, support and provide a positive influence to youth leaders of various ethnicities, providing them with the necessary skills, such as conflict resolution and negotiation, to better address the inter-ethnic challenges they face;
- To establish and strengthen the relationship between youth leaders from different ethnic backgrounds, enabling them to work well together both now and in the future;
- To develop a pool of skilled and recognized youth leaders beyond the narrowly-defined categories, such as student union leader and class president, to include influential students from other areas, such as the arts, the community, sports, NGOs;
- To motivate youth leaders to use their talents to instigate and implement confidence building initiatives in their local communities;
Hearing and seeing some of the success of the alumni, one could easily say that the goal of the project is achieved. However it would be difficult to come to same conclusion for the last series of four conferences due to the fact that the evaluation is done immediately after the conference where the only post conflict activities were the peace exchange in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the activities of Struga Students in terms of organizing small presentations for their classes and classmates. This shows that, as well as the previous conference series, this one considerably contributes to achievement of the project goal. For complete evaluation of the achieved goals as well as for the expected results it is necessary that some time goes by after holding the conferences when the acquired knowledge and the process of changing attitudes which has already started during the conference activities, will begin to transform into new behavior of the conference participants and new practice in their social surrounding. So in general it is realistic to expect more concrete action especially if they are constantly motivated and supported by the organizers.
The future indicators for measuring the success of the project, that should be closely looked upon, could be the following elements: current status of the students, their choice of the profession, involvement in to different NGO, involvement in to Peacebuilding fields, implemented projects, initiatives undertaken, ideas for the future changes, presence in the media, respect in the society, their success in the university, the number of exchanged communications, the number of friends from different national background, interest for the others languages, interest shown for the others culture, history and religion etc. For this a new and more comprehensive research should be done, where it would be envisaged all students of all four YLC will participate.
At this level of identified objective indicators and objectified subjective statements during the interview, the achieved project objectives can be grouped in the following clusters of achievement:
Individual benefits
All the participants in the final conference verbal evaluation and the participants in the post conference interview emphasized the personal satisfaction from the quality of the educational component and the effectiveness and usefulness of the dialogue sessions , as well as receiving and exchanging information about other ethnic groups and cultures. In addition to this, the new made friendship and the expected future relations are also considered to be an independent benefit.
What should particularly be emphasized is the defined personal change and the sincere confession about their past negative behaviours which they don�t practice in the present and they won�t practice in the future, not just towards representatives of other ethnic communities, but also towards anyone else. This was clearly stated by most of the interviewed participants. The process of changing the mental models has already begun, the new consciousness for honesty and openness in the dialogue and exceeding the misunderstanding are processes of priceless value.
Social integration
As a result of these conferences there are micro groups of new social integration of young people created in each of the four cities. Their expansion through individuals, who join them, then through connection with the groups from the previous conferences and the initiated projects for dissemination of knowledge and dialogue skills open positive and hurried process of youth social re-integration in these cities.
Exceeding obstacles
The objective language obstacles for some of the conference participants did not put into question the success of the conference. A contrary, the demonstrated readiness for understanding interest was successfully exceeded by mutual help from the colleagues and, what is very important, it initiated interest for some participants from all ethnic communities in learning the language of the other ethnic community (Macedonian, Albanian, Romany).
2.3. Conclusions
2.3.1 General assessment
1. The conferences design and the process of their realization are made at high professional level, with particularly emphasized commitment of the facilitators, trainers and organizers of the conferences.
2. The results at the end of the conferences and especially the post conference activities highly justify organization of these conferences in the future.
3. The provided conference documentation can be of great importance for similar educational as well as research activities on this topic in the future.
2.3.2 Good practices and lessons learned
1. The involvement of the key stakeholders (school principals, teachers, pedagogues, psychologists, parents etc) in the process of selecting participants has appeared to be effective and according to the previous conferences also very useful for implementation of the post-conference activities and the project sustainability. The immediate intervention on the problems in the Struga school through the project , is from valuable importance because it has crated forces within the schools that will oppose the violence. This reduces the risk that new violence�s appear among the students in this school in Struga.
2. The conference participants evaluated the methodology of the conference activities as pleasant and effective as well as in accordance with their age. This methodology includes different interactive forms of work (a myriad of games, debates, lessons and role-plays, used and proven by the CMC in numerous similar environments)
3. The strategic approach of CMC was assessed as very good practice. This approach strives to take students out of their micro surrounding and their daily challenges, where then a neutral space gives its own power of sincerity
4. In all the four conferences one part of the participants points to the troubles and difficult coping with the involvement of the political topics in the dialogue sessions. This should be considered as important lesson that these topics should be left for the higher next levels of the conference activities. This is particularly important for the groups that can not cope easy with the direct political questions. In stead of this as alternative could be used a shift of focus in cultural and religious questions. As of the religious topics it would be nice if the conferences predict some short visits in the churches and mosques.
5. For the next development levels of this project it is suggested that the conference groups could be made of different cities as a basis for further spreading of the contact net and learning from different experiences.
2.3.3 Strengths and opportunities
1. Strong side of this project is the developed and confirmed experiential learning concept of positive attitudes changing from the area of inter-ethnic relations, building peace and non-violence;
2. For these and similar to them next conferences and post-conference activities there is already formed team of facilitators and trainers, they should be used as much as it is possible;
3. Several generations of conference participants from different cities introduce huge possibility for establishing individual and institutional nets for transferring the conference activities into the everyday life, Non government organizations with peace mission, and also for designing next conferences at higher level, above all thematic dialogues for the actual inter-ethnic questions in the state.
4. The project is already trademarked as OSCE project done in cooperation with CMC. This is to say that having a serious and important organisation on board of this project gives specific wait to the success of all activities predicted in the project.
5. From many specificities of the project I would extract as highly valuable the comprehensive approach in to the preparation phase as well as the educational and components that are tackled with professionalism by using specific approach adopted to the target group.
2.3.4 Constraints and weaknesses
1. The training part of the conference was assessed by certain number of participants as well as by the trainers as too ambitiously defined. There is a need the agenda to be relieved of some of the contents which would be subject at the next conferences at higher level;
2. Some participants point out to the insufficient contacts between the conference participants from different series.
3. Follow up activities after the core series of the YLC are yet not developed as strong system of support and motivation of the students. Except the incidental support yet there is not existing some constant long term activity that will connect the students in the future. As crucial element of the success this should be considered as important thing that deserves a strategic thinking and approach.
3. Recommendations
3.1 The follow-up activities of the evaluated conference
1. Organisers should work on developing strategy for future support of the upcoming proposals from the students, so that they are motivated to be engaged constantly in peacebuilding projects.
2. The post conference activities of the participants in their surroundings and the mutual activities at a city level should be followed and promoted through the media.
3. There should be lobbying for support of micro projects for dissemination of the conference effects in the social life of young people at a city level.
4. There should be initiatives for building network of NGOs in which the conference participants are members or volunteers in order to strength peace building projects and activities
3.2 The Sustainability of the project
From the previous three conference series there can be enough experience taken to build a strategy for sustainability of this project. In its defining, besides the previous implementers: CMC and Confidence building unit of OSCE, the facilitators from the previous conferences should also be involved as well as participants who showed important results in the transfer of the conference effects in their environment, especially through the NGO sector. The following possible components of that sustainability strategy emerge from this evaluation:
1. Continuing with this type of conferences with defined number of series, with orientation of younger students with specific emphasis on the students from the rural environments;
2. Projecting system of measures for supporting participants activities at the conferences in the process of transfer and dissemination of the conference activities.
The report is prepared by DETRA institute
Written by:
Prof D-r. Cvetko Smilevski
Skopje, Macedonia
[email protected]
