Katie Chalcraft has been awarded a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship and is currently travelling in Malawi and South Africa, exploring the use of arts in programmes working with people living with HIV. This blog is the second in a series of journal entries from Katie as she travels.
Batteries Methodology Training at Temwa
Upon waking up in Kams’ house in Usisya we walked to the Temwa offices. Temwa in Usisya consists of two buildings – a community library with the programme manager’s office attached, and a community hall with an office for the rest of the staff. I am shown around the community garden where food is grown for PLHIV, widows and orphans. The produce is sold to the rest of the community. I am told that the people of Usisya at first only believed that cassava grew there, the demonstration garden was set up to prove otherwise. Seeing is believing. The villagers became despondent at first when they did not see quick results, to them reiterating that the lake soil was only good for cassava; however, there is now a wide range of vegetables available to them.
In the afternoon I ran the training with the Temwa staff in the Batteries Methodology. This approach was developed by CAFOD to support partners in assessing changes in the quality of life of programme clients, and to increase participation of clients in programme monitoring and design. It was developed in consultation with CAFOD community-based programme partners in Nigeria, Cambodia, Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.
The methodology provides a way of assessing the impact that programmes are having on the quality of life of people living with or otherwise affected by HIV. This information then supports organisations in providing a holistic programmatic response. The Temwa staff had an interesting brainstorm on quality of life. In response to the question “what does it mean to lead a happy and fulfilled life?”, answers ranged from: freedom and rights, sex, beer, access to good health services, peace, land, education, a sofa set, a good cell phone, fuel, a fat salary, etc. The answers were divided into 4 domains of change: Health, Emotional Happiness, Knowledge and Empowerment and Livelihood Security*.
Participants rated their energy level from 1 to 10 on pictures of batteries in the four domains of change mentioned above. This method can be used as a baseline before a programme intervention, or can be done retrospectively – how would you rate your QoL now in the domains of change mentioned above? Thinking back to before you were involved in the programme – how would you rate your QoL then, using the same domains of change. With Temwa the staff would potentially either be conducting research using the methodology themselves or training others in using it, so to enable them to practice this methodology we used the example of assessing their quality of life retrospectively since joining the organisation.
I used this merely as an example to demonstrate how to use the batteries tool and was not prepared for the heartfelt challenges that were aired in the group. The challenges of living in Usisya were exposed. A number of frustrations were raised about working in such a remote area however, it seemed that the desire of the staff to serve the community overcame the desire for a ‘fat salary’ and the ‘sofa set’.
The next step following the indication of energy levels ‘now’ and ‘before joining the organisation’ was to unpack the reasons behind the shift. Fuel and transport featured highly as well as the need for rural allowances. It seems the voices of those on the ground need to be heard by those in the Mzuzu office generally creating a better line of communication between the offices and ensuring that Temwa’s excellent standards of work are maintained.
