GENA
RDIS INCEPTION MEETING REPORT
March 17, 2009. Kaduna State
The inception meeting for Majelissa Matar Manoma project took place in Kaduna State. The project title Majelissa Matar Manoma means “Anyiko Awaniyi Ayazhiba”, in Gbagyi Language. The meeting started at exactly 9am and ended at 2.00pm. A total of ten persons participated: 3 community members from Gwagwada station, (2 males and 1 female); a theatre for development (TFD) consultant from the department of Theatre Arts, University of Jos, a research consultant from the Mass communication department, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, 1 radio station personnel and 4 ARDA staff. (See attached list of participants for names and contacts).
The meeting began with an opening prayer by Dr. Elizabeth Nyager, the TFD consultant. An introduction of participants was facilitated by Seember, ARDA’s program Assistant, Kaduna. This session was brief as participants swiftly introduced themselves and their organization. Participants’ expectation session was highly participatory. They were asked to express their expectations for the meeting on colored VIP cards distributed to them during the exercise. This written exercise was interesting as everyone shared their expectations. These were summarized by Data Phido, ARDA’s Executive Director who advised that participants note all the expectations shared during discussions so as to ensure that the meeting addressed and met each and everyone. She also stated the objective of the one-day inception meeting. (See attached the outcome of participants expectation exercise).
Mrs Data Phido gave an overview of the project and its objectives. She stated that ARDA has chosen to embark on this project in order to contribute its quota to women empowerment in Nigeria. She described the project strategy and expected outcomes as written in the project document, copies of which were made available to all participants. She then talked about the potential of ICTs for empowering rural populations particularly women farmers and the ways in which it can contribute to meaningful development in the community. She said that rural women need recognition and financial support for their work. She described the gender issues that the project planned to challenge: the unequal distribution of labor and resources. She illustrated this by comparing a community woman’s daily activities with those of a man using the daily activity diaries recorded during ARDA’s earlier needs assessment conducted in the community. She gave a typical example of how a woman’s daily activities started at 5.00 am in the morning and ended at 11.00 pm in the night while a man’s daily activities started at 7am with breakfast a woman had cooked and then farm work until an early evening return, dinner and relaxation with friends and bed time. The community men at the meeting couldn’t help but laugh but agree with her point. She pointed out that women’s efforts are often not appreciated and pointed out that the gender inequalities affected everyone in the community adversely and that equality will benefit the whole society. She also mentioned importance of micro-finance which is not readily available to women famers as another challenge. She therefore called on every participant to make effort to contribute towards the success of this ICTs project.
The call for support and contribution led the team to another session. This session was another active one. The participants were asked to write their vision and mission on more colored cards. These written expressions were shared among the team. (Attached is the list of vision and mission shared by the participants). Every participant expressed great hopes for a successful gender and ICT outcome for the project and identified critical roles they plan to play and contribution they will make in order to achieve their visions.
As this is an action research project undertaken particularly for its learning objectives, the monitoring and evaluation component is very important and needs to be integrated from the very onset of the implementation. It was decided that a combination of methodologies will be used to study the project (participatory action research, PAR, outcome mapping and Gender Evaluation Methods, GEM). The research consultant asked for the reports of the earlier study done by ARDA in Gwagwada to enable him check for gaps that should be covered during the baseline/formative study. The TFD consultant stated that she would wait for the outcome of the baseline /formative research in order to identify community-based performing groups for possible collaboration on that part of the project.
After a session of questions and discussions, the team drew up a work plan in other to know “who does what and at what time” bearing in mind the seasonal farming calendar for community women farmers. (See attached work plan).
It was impressed on the group that this would be a fast-paced project for which everyone must be ready to work hard and fast, keeping the timelines in mind. The mid-project report is due by July, 2009 and the final report is before November, 2009. Reports will be both narrative, audio-visual and financial including original receipts. In this regard, a video camcorder was left behind with the zonal staff for recording with permission community activities. Mrs. Phido downloaded the FOSS audio recording/editing suite, “Audacity” and shared with the zonal staff.
The Radio representative (who is a director of KSMC) invited ARDA staff to guest on a Saturday morning TV show to talk about the project. Binta and Seember were mandated to plan with her for a suitable date perhaps close to the launch of the TFD and radio programs. She also advised ARDA to plan an advocacy visit to the Radio station’s management to intimate on the laudable objectives of the project in order to elicit their support for a one hour prime time program in Gbagyi at a reduced airtime rate. She also suggested a producer that she felt would be ideal for the program who is Gwari.
After a group photograph and lunch, a participant from the community led closing prayers and the meeting ended with promises that the report and contact list will be made available in the next few days while the research consultant will plan the baseline.
