Simon Koolwijk

How to explain why certain media products (television, radio, printed media, internet, social media) trigger an answer from powerful actors, and why do others not? This was the key question Valérie Pattyn , University Professor at the University of Leiden applied, when she conducted a Qualitative Evaluation for the Hivos Media Program in Kenya and Tanzania. The goal of this program was to increase the accountability of the government and the powerful actors.  The assumption behind the intervention logic was that, if you strengthen investigative journalism, the accountability will be increased. The program intervention was focused at financing critical investigative journalism and providing mentoring programs by coaching and learning by doing to journalists in Kenya and Tanzania. Valérie Pattyn  Which factors have an influencing role on the outcomes of the program and which others don’t? Valérie Pattyn applied for her research, the Qualitative Comparative Analysis...

As part of its communication, monitoring and evaluation strategy, the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2, organised a participatory video, a most significant change story and social accountability committee hero competition. In each category around 25 organisations each participated. The final award ceremony took place on the 4th November, 2015 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The event gave a platform for the actual social accountability implementers to be awarded. The event was attended by more than 250 participants and representatives from national and international media. Watch the video;  

On the 3rd and 4th November, 2015 the final event for the second Participatory Video Oscar Award was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Twenty-seven organisations participated in this competition for becoming the best participatory video maker 2015 in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program. Between May and September, 2015 the Social Accountability Implementing Partners implemented participatory video interventions to initiate dialogues on social accountability. On the 3rd November, 2015 the organizations had an opportunity to exchange experiences with each other. The four best nominated organizations competed for the PV Oscar Award. On the 4th November, 2015 the price winner was awarded. This PV Oscar competition is part of the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2. It stimulates dialogue between service users and service providers for improving service delivery in the sectors of education,health, water & sanitation, rural road infrastructure and agriculture. Watch vid...

‘Outcome harvesting is an excellent tool for evaluating projects, that operate in a complex environment and that do not have a pre-defined strategy!’    This was one of the comments from one of the participants, who participated in a workshop conducted by Ricardo Wilson Grau, one of the founding fathers of the Outcome Harvesting method.  The workshop was hosted on the 23 rd June, 2015 in The Hague by the Nedworc Association and OXFAM Novib ,   participants were Nedworc consultants and MEL-officers of OXFAM Novib. Outcome harvesting is an evaluation approach, involving all stakeholders in a project,  in a program context where there are no clear relations between cause and effect.  Especially projects that involve lobby and advocacy,  fast changing contexts and unpredictable situations can benefit from the Outcome harvesting approach. In 2013, UNDP selected Outcome Harvesting as one of the 11 major Monitoring and Evaluation innovations. Th...

This video shows on how stories are visualized through participatory video stories in one week. From story board development to filming, to editing and then finally presenting and discussing the videos at a community dialogue meeting participants from social accountability partners learn to apply participatory video for dialogue with the community in discussing the progress on educational service delivery in Shashemene, Ethiopia. The training took place from 23 – 27 March, 2015 in Hawassa and Shashemene, Ethiopia. The participants inteviewed and involved 6 stakeholder groups in the discussion on the progress of educational services in Shashemene, Ethiopia. Both user groups, students, and service providers, teachers were involved in this participatory process. As experiment, also control groups from both students and teachers were involved in the PV process. The control groups came from schools, who did not participate in the social accountability process. The training was implemen...

From 18th – 20th March, 2015 twenty participatory video facilitators and practitioners attended a three day advanced training in participatory video. The twenty pv facilitators are representing 10 social accountability implementing partners (SAIPs), that are involved in implementing social accountability processes in the sectors of health, education, agriculture, water & sanitation and rural roads in the whole country of Ethiopia. The pv facilitators conducted pv interventions between October 2014 and February, 2015. This training gave them the opportunity to share their experiences and update their knowledge on participatory video, to learn to work with advanced software in video editing and to learn how to use the participatory videos for monitoring and evaluation and to discuss the opportunities and challenges on how to sustain participatory video in their organisation. Between May and July 2015, these SAIPs will continue to implement new participatory video interventions and ...

On the 29th August, 2014 the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2 (ESAP2) organized the Participatory Video Oscar Reward ceremony in Addis Ababa. Fifteen organisations had submitted each 5 videos for participatory video interventions, they had conducted between March and July, 2014. Five organizations, who were nominated, had to compete prior to the PV Oscar Reward ceremony. Finally the winner was selected and rewarded in the Washington Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In this video some of the participatory video facilitators and a community member comment on how PV impacted and influenced their work. The PV Oscar competition brought some surprising result for them.Watch:

The training participatory video, applied in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program , consists of 7 steps on how participants from social accountability partners learn to apply participatory video for dialogue with the community. The third training took place from 1 - 5 September, 2014 in Hawassa, Ethiopia. The participants inteviewed and involved 7 stakeholder groups in the discussion on the improvement of health care in Meki, Ethiopia. Both user groups and service providers were involved in this participatory process. The training was implemented by a team of participatory video trainers coming from Ethiopia and The Netherlands. Between October and December, 2014 the participants will apply the participatory video in their own workplace and social accountability projects involving their communties. The participatory video training and program is part of the Ethiopian Social Accountability Program Phase 2 .  Watch the video:  

Good stories sustain. From scientific research it has been proven, that people remember powerful stories best. Especially if stories are true-ish and told with emotion, people do not tend to forget them. In the course ‘Facilitating Storytelling’ held on the 15 th April, 2014 participants got acquainted with some major principles on how to tell and share powerful stories. Powerful stories are used for: Branding/ marketing; Organizational change; Knowledge transfer; Lobby, campaigning and awareness raising; Games   An example of a powerful story, you can watch at Specsavers Emergency Drone Delivery: Through the application of some useful tools, such as the symbol, the river, the Little Red Ridinghood and the Bad Wolf practice was gained on how to develop a powerful story. By the end a stripcartoon was designed visualizing a story abou t the added value of education.   Read strip cartoon about Education . The next training on ‘Facilitating St...

From 9 th to 14 th February, 2014 Simon Koolwijk conducted a participatory video training for 20 representatives from 10 social accountability implementing partners in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Programme Phase 2 (ESAP2 ). This program aims to improve the communication and relations between local stakeholders such as local government (Woredas and Kebeles), civil society organisations, local citizens groups and service providers in the areas of health care, agriculture, water & sanitation, education and rural road construction. The process of better communication aims to help to improve the services of service providers (the suppliers) so that citizens needs (the users) are being met. The participatory video was initiated to help to stimulate and support the dialogue on social accountability and the improvement of social services. In the one week training, participants got the opportunity to apply participatory video in Metehare and Adama City.   In Metehare Cit...

Last week I facilitated a workshop with the aim to harvest funny fictional stories. I applied the facilitation method of the ‘Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf’ .   After sharing the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf , I explained the main characteristics of a good story. Definition of a story : A story is a representation of events that are associated with each other. A story has the following characteristics: ·          Is self-explanatory and has a beginning, middle and end; ·          Contains narrative elements; ·          Is authentic: true or true-ish; ·          Is personal; ·          Calls on emotions and / or is told with emotion. Narrative elements are: 1.        A main character (protagonis...

From 16 th to 20 th December, 2013 Simon Koolwijk conducted a participatory video training for 10 representatives from 5 social accountability implementing partners in the Ethiopian Social Accountability Programme (ESAP2). This program aims to improve the communication and relations between local stakeholders such as local government (Woredas and Kebeles), civil society organisations, local citizens groups and service providers in the areas of health care, agriculture, water and sanitation, education and rural road construction. The process of better communication aims to help to improve the services of service providers (the suppliers) so that citizens needs (the users) are being met. The participatory video was initiated to help to stimulate and support the dialogue on social accountability and the improvement of social services. In the one week training, participants got the opportunity to apply participatory video in Gulele Sub City, where they interviewed key stakeholders ...

Most Significant Change is an excellent evaluation tool for measuring behavioral change with beneficiaries during a project period. MSC has a step based approach where personal stories from key stakeholders are collected, analyzed and verified. One of the key steps is the phase of defining the 'Domain of Change' and collecting the stories. This is the phase where the MSC-question is asked for a specific change in a domain. For example: (1) Looking back over the last 2 years, (2) what do you think was, (3) the most significant (4) change (5) in the development of your business (6) in your community? Generally, three to five domains are a manageable number for conducting a MSC-evaluation. The stories are collected, analyzed, and verified from and with a selected group of beneficiairies. An important part is the process of drawing conclusions, lessons and recommendations. Involvement of the right stakeholders determines the quality of the outcome of the evaluation. Since ...

Collecting personal stories can provide some interesting insights on what is going on in a project or a community.   In june 2013, I worked for two weeks with O2Zone.tv .   This organization, based in Salon de Provence – France, aims to strengthen organisations and structures of social work in applying participatory video for building social cohesion amongst people or communities. O2Zone.tv trains social workers, teachers, trainers who work with groups or communities. Their work is mainly based in France, but also participates in projects in Africa and Canada. Video productions are disseminated through their webtv channel at http://www.o2zone.tv/ Storytelling   by local entrepreneurs Marseille – Provence has been designated in 2013 as cultural capital of Europe. Under the name MP13 various cultural activities are organized in Marseille and neighboring cities (Aix en Provence, Arlon, Salon de Provence) to promote the region in France and to other European countri...