Introduction
This section together with its sub-sections introduce the community development processes and community learning environments of Participatory Learning Workshops (PLWs) used as research methods in this project. Originally developed by the PI, as part of an ESRC funded project ‘Community Network Analysis (CNA) & ICT: Bridging and Building Community Ties’(Day, 2011), PLWs are grounded in, and shaped by community needs and assets. They are simultaneously methodological and community development tools situated in a community media environment.
In the PLWs for this project, community participants learnt about CBPR; they learnt about research ethics; and they learnt how to appropriate media technologies for data (community stories) collection through as active participants in PLW designed from their earlier participation in the preliminary research planning meeting and the community conversations. Through these workshops participants witnessed their voices shaping the design of the research; they became community researchers and community media practitioners. Building community capacities and capabilities actualises community development through communication as a mainstay of the project ethos. PLWs enable and facilitate contextualised community learning as a contribution to ‘research as a development challenge’.
Situated learning & PLWs
Designing PLWs, so that participant learning experiences are located within the ‘lived’ environment of community life, or what Lave & Wenger term ‘situated learning’ (1991), demands that community knowledge forms part of the design process. Of course, the academic team benefitted from the fact that the 3 Kenyan academics are Luo and have lived and/or worked in and around the Luo of Migori County for some considerable time. This provided the project with a ready store of indigeous knowledge. However, the personal networks and lived experiences of academics, even when members of the Luo tribe, differ from those living in marginalised rural communities such as Cham gi wadu. It is this knowledge and these experiences that were needed to contribute to the design of the PLWs and this is where the community conversations and the preliminary research planning meeting proved their value.
When academics facilitate participatory workshops in, with and for the community, it is crucial to remember that workshop setting is neither a classroom nor a higher education course. The pedagogical approach needs to be: relaxed and flexible; as well as accessible and relevant to the needs of community participants, who are participating voluntarily.Many are subsitsnce farmers with homesteads to run, animals to care for, crops to tend, and any number of other tasks that need to attending to. Often they have had long distances to travel to the workshops. This can, and did, mean that some participants did not attend every session and punctuality was the exception rather than the norm. In order to make the workshops enjoyable and meaningful we: 1) employed participatory and interactive techniques rather than the didactic approach to teaching; 2) worked at a pace set by the community themselves; 3) worked with media tools that the community wanted to learn (e.g., audio tools for community radio); and 4) wherever possible, used content generated by workshop participants as the basis for the learning materials.
In rural Kenya, many communities are dispersed geographically. This meant that some participants didn’t know each other as well as others, if at all. It was important to ensure that participants interacted and spoke with one another. Dialogue and socially interactive communications in environments that are safe and respectful formed a central part of PLW design. It was emphasised at the start of all our sessions that every voice matters and should be heard. The challenge with this form of learning is that many participants have no prior knowledge or experience of media technologies or research methods. They were learning how to engage witheach other, technologies and concepts alien to many of them. A hands-on, and fun, approach to learning, with time and spaces for participants to share and discuss their thoughts; listen to the ideas of others and reflect on each stage of the workshop were essential – forming essential components of workshop design. As Bacon, Mendez & Brown note, learning and reflection are significant elements of the research processes (2005). They are also important components of capacity and capability building and make important contributions to community development.
Lessons from PLWs
As the workshops progressed and their technical skills and knowledge developed, participants were encouraged to reflect individually and collectively on how their learning might be applied to support the activities of the project. Thus creating a virtuous circle of critical thinking, reflection, dialogue and problem solving within the research cycle of the project. We also discovered that the knowledge, skills and understanding developed by the learners were being taken back to local community groups. In this way extended community learning was emerging as an outcome. The PLWs were contributing to community networking by extending the influence of the workshops through community communications.
During the workshops we noted 3 main areas of interest. 1) There was a great interest in using media tools for practical learning but also for reflecting critically on how these tools might be appropriated to support community activities, e.g. how might an audio recorder or mobile phone be used to create radio content for diseminating information; sharing knowledge and stimulating community communication processes. 2) The creation of spaces for social networking, dialogue, discussion and information sharing, and critical reflection; and 3) processes for building social capital. The interaction and dialogue encouraged by critical reflection and the social interactions of PLW processes supports the creation, and in some cases re-establishes, network ties and relationships of trust and reciprocal sharing. PLWs support community networking in terms of developing community communication processes whilst contributing to the development of community network structures.
In this way PLWs support the four processes of community learning – 1) open participation, 2) community dialogue, 3) networking, and 4) information sharing (Nielsen, 2002). They speak to the design of effective community learning environments (Boettcher, 2007). During this project we facilitated 2 different types of PLWs. The first introduced CBPR to community participants through what Day has termed a scenario-based PLW approach. Or to be more accurate, two different scenarios in the workshop. Here participants were provided with scenarios (shaped by the outputs of previous community interactions) to find solutions to. The second PLW approach was practiced based. Participants were given asked to identify, in groups, a modern slavery situation and assign radio production roles. They were then tasked with creating a radio programme on the topic they chose.
The next section introduces the scenario-based PLW method.See the drop-down menus for further details.
Community Media 4 Kenya 