In recent years, work on development issues has been moving towards more participatory and collaborative approaches. The traditional top-down approach has rightly been criticised for disempowering communities and not including them in decision-making processes that affect them. The learning circle methodology emerges as a response to this challenge and is designed to enable advocates to learn from each other in an accessible environment, where they feel accompanied and supported by their peers.
Between 2022 and 2023, the Coalition for Human Rights in Development facilitated four sessions of a learning circle involving more than twenty organisations and collectives from Latin America. These are organisations fighting for human rights and environmental rights and facing common challenges such as lack of resources, lack of access to technologies, risks and threats. All organisations and collectives share the purpose of strengthening their capacities to communicate their causes and to do so in a more effective way. The learning circles were an opportunity for them to move forward together to achieve their goals.
The themes of the four sessions facilitated by the Coalition were:
- Creating Narratives
- Building Capacities
- Creating Videos for our Communication
- Visibility and Protection of Human Rights Defenders.
These were some of the outcomes of the sessions:
- Network building
The sessions connected organisations from different countries with similar causes. In this format, participants shared communication experiences, knowledge and points of view. In addition to the practical learning, the building of this network helped participants to feel accompanied in their struggle.
- Improve communication skills
Effective communication is essential for any organisation fighting for justice. The focus of the sessions was to improve the skills to communicate their causes: learning how to build narratives, how to elaborate communication plans and how to create simple videos with online tools that they can use to spread their causes on social networks.
- Resources and knowledge sharing
The organisations that participated in the sessions have limited resources and the learning circle provided a platform to exchange useful tips and a space to discover relevant information from the experiences they have had. In at least two of the sessions a dedicated space was opened for this purpose.
- Building Resilience
Organisations face significant resistance when they have a voice in public affairs, including harassment and persecution by those who oppose their work. In the last session of the circle, participants learned together and with an expert facilitator how they can take care of themselves in the face of these risks.
Despite these positive results, the four sessions revealed some areas of opportunity for improvement in the facilitation of future learning circles, including the following:
- Lack of infrastructure
Lack of internet access and reliable devices was a major challenge. The learning circle sessions required good internet connectivity and that participants had access to devices at the time. This was a constraint that in some cases meant that some people did not attend or had to interrupt their participation during the course of the sessions.
- Time constraints
It was not possible in the sessions to address all the concerns and resolve all the doubts that the organisations had about the topics. In a feedback exercise, several organisations expressed that they would have liked to go deeper into the topics and hear more case studies.
- Difficulties in assessing satisfaction
Although an online survey was distributed at the end of the four sessions to receive feedback, it was not the best way to get a complete picture of how the exercise was perceived and whether it met the objectives set out in the sessions.
Conclusions
These Learning Circle sessions enabled organisations and collectives in Latin America to connect and learn from each other, to share valuable knowledge and resources, and to develop new skills and resilience in the face of threats. However, there are significant areas of opportunity to improve the facilitation of future sessions. With respect to infrastructure limitations, an asynchronous format could be considered to enable participation by those who do not have a good internet connection or access to devices. An additional step to resolve doubts and respond to the need to go deeper into the topics could be the creation of virtual learning communities, where the exchange can continue. For evaluation, experience would suggest adopting a less structured and more informal methodology to measure the impact of this effort.
[This blog was written by Bárbara González, Communications Facilitator at the Coalition for Human Rights in Development]