Our Story - A Participatory Video Monitoring Process Using "Our Story" in Indonesia and Namibia

"Video has proved to be a useful data collection tool to engage communities and to capture their feedback on the impact of projects and programmes."

This report looks at the results of a pilot project that used a mobile video application (app) called "Our Story" to gather participatory community feedback for two projects - one in Namibia and one in Indonesia. The Participatory Video Monitoring (PVM) approach and app were developed by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC)'s PMER (Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting) Unit in Geneva, Switzerland, in cooperation with Newcastle University's Open Lab, a research group that investigates how technologies can be designed for (and by) local communities, with an emphasis on participatory and bottom-up approaches to design and innovation.

The purpose of this joint collaboration was to look at novel approaches that would use the community's voice and their stories to influence IFRC programming. As stated in the report, "Community engagement and feedback within the context of monitoring and evaluation can be a complex process in view of the numerous stakeholders involved, organizational processes, resources available and project/programme deadlines."

The pilot combined the use of the app with the Most Significant Change approach and was implemented with the communities of Tumbit Melayu (Indonesia) and Blikkiesdorp (Namibia) in 2017-18. Stories were planned, collected, directed, and edited by the elderly, men, women, and youth on a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) promotion project (Indonesia), and on an HIV/AIDS orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) project (Namibia). The report offers a brief diagrammatic overview of how the methodology works - from community selection, planning, story creation, and the gathering of stories, to story editing and presentation. One of the advantages of this methodology is that the costs are minimal, as the app is easy to use (with visual prompts and "templates"), which means that there is no need for external consultants or expensive equipment. The process and mobile app can also be easily accessed/used at no cost by different stakeholders and in different field contexts with varying wifi connectivity. It was, therefore, seen as offering an inexpensive and self-sustainable model for IFRC programming.

The report includes case studies of both pilot projects using the approach and app. For the PVM initiative in Indonesia, the focus was on a WASH project being implemented in the district of Berau. It was expected that through the community voices collected, this PVM could contribute useful information from different community representatives on the project's Outcome 1: "The risk of water, sanitation and hygiene-related diseases are prevented/reduced in the target area." The disaggregated data collected through the stories would highlight any issues that needed to be addressed - not only at the community level but also among the targeted groups. The stories shared in Berau demonstrated that "the community was aware of the water, sanitation and hygiene promotion (WASH) activities being carried out by PMI [Indonesian Red Cross]. The level of WASH knowledge varied amongst the groups as evidenced by the stories, for example, from the elderly and the youth. It was apparent also that at times culture and gender also played a role, for example, with the elderly women preferring to defecate in private near their home, rather than using the family latrines which had been built for them nearby."

In Namibia, the HIV/AIDS OVC project being conducted in Otiozondjupa region was selected for the pilot. It was intended that this PVM could contribute useful monitoring information, particularly to Outcome 1 of the project: "100 OVC in Otjozondjupa and 150 OVC in Zambezi and Otjozondjupa region are provided with psychosocial material and educational support through the OVC Kids Clubs." From the stories, it was apparent "that the orphans and vulnerable children in the community did receive psychosocial, material and educational support; but that more support was needed in order to address the continued and unmet needs of OVC in the community, as well as to improve the current conditions of the school in Blikkiesdorp. The stories also highlighted that the community is aware of the importance of food safety and proper hygiene in preventing infections for those people living with HIV, and overall, for maintaining good community health in general."

As stated in the report, since the initiative, the PVM has been used to: 1) debrief within the programme to see how to address community recommendations; 2) provide feedback to donors; and 3) introduce similar initiatives to new communities.

The report highlights a number of lessons, which include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Gatekeepers: Buy-in and engagement from community members and relevant stakeholders is key in ensuring the ownership and the sustainability of new methods/tools.
• Respecting local culture: For example, when working with a Muslim community, it was important to respect their cultural practices such as daily prayer times. Different groups with different schedules also need to be respected (women had household duties, children had school, men had jobs).
• Familiarisation with participatory media: Some members of the community pick up media skills much quicker than others, but when conducting familiarisation sessions together, the community can help teach each other. They learn much more quickly as a result of the peer learning, and this facilitates communal feedback as well.
• Adapting technology to the local context: The Our Story app required little media knowledge and taught good film practice on the fly using visual prompts and "templates", removing the requirement for facilitators and/or community participants to have media training and facilitating the capture process when unexpected events arose. However, there were some technical challenges related to connectivity failure that needed to be addressed.

The end of the report includes YouTube links to the videos that were produced as part of this pilot project; one example may be viewed below.