How do we know we are making a difference?

Here are the 10 steps we use to check our progress and to find out what impact we are having:

Step One: The Theatre for a Change team develops practices of target setting and staff appraisal to enable us to ensure that we are continually improving as individuals and as a team.

Step Two: We plan with our partners organisations and participants what our outcomes and indicators are going to be, so we know what we changes we are aiming to achieve. We then carry out a base line survey to establish our starting point on the indicators. Click here for Malawi Baseline.

Step Three: We train NGO staff, teachers and National Service Personnel how to facilitate Interactive Theatre workshops and performances with young people to achieve these outcomes

Step Four: Trainees are engaged in self and peer evaluation to ensure that they are able to monitor and evaluate themselves. Every trainee keeps a journal which is a record of their learning process.

Step Five: the Theatre for a Change Capacity Building Team monitors the implementation of this training with young people in the community. Their feedback feeds into the planning of the following training sessions.

Step Six: Each organisation has a supervisor who monitors the progress of their staff trained by Theatre for a Change in their work with the focus group

Step Seven: Reflection is a key part of being able to change behaviour, and is built into the workshop process. All young people involved in the work are given a journal and are encouraged to set personal aims and to reflect on their development.

Step Eight: At the beginning, middle and end of the training, trainees are assessed by the Capacity Building Team on their work in the field and awarded a final grade based on this assessment.

Step Nine: There is a team of Monitoring Officers and volunteers who carry out a baseline survey at the very beginning to find out what awareness and practices around HIV are like in the communities when we start, and then mid and end of project surveys to find out what impact we have made.

Step Ten: This information is brought together by the external evaluators who collate the information from the field and from partner organisations, analyse it and write a final report.