EVALUATION-REPORT-of-SIEMENPUU-FOUNDATION
http://www.siemenpuu.org/en/news/review-south-siemenpuu-much-more-funder
Siemenpuu Foundation has commissioned an external assessment on its work in supporting the Environmental Social Movement in the South between 2010 and 2016. The review was made by Badayl from India in cooperation with Grip.Consulting from Palestine.
According to the review, the support provided by Siemenpuu means a lot more than just funding support to Southern civil society organisations and communities: cooperation is based on partnership. Siemenpuu knows and understands the local context and organisations in most cases already before the funding cooperation. The cooperation approaches are flexible and Siemenpuu also supports the cooperation among the Southern partners also on the global level. This South-South and South-North cooperation is important both in strengthening the civil society and reaching the environmental targets.
Despite the flexibility, Siemenpuu calls for accountability and adequate reporting from its partners. However, the reviewers brought forth the partners’ concern, that increased emphasis on result-based management may lead the partnerships to change towards typical donor-recipient style relationships.
Commissioned review is not a typical evaluation on Siemenpuu’s work and results, but it aimed at bring about the views of Siemenpuu’s Southern partners on the cooperation, and find out whether this partnership has strengthened the environmental movement in the South. More assessment on Siemenpuu’s work results will be received in August 2017, when the Evaluation of the Programme- based Support through Finnish Civil Society Organisations, Foundations and Umbrella Organisations, commissioned by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, will be ready.
Download and read the Review of the Siemenpuu Foundation (pdf, 1,7 MB) from here.
Consultant – Alternative Tourism group, Palestine (2005-ongoing)
The Alternative Tourism Group (ATG) is a Palestinian NGO specialised in tours that present a critical look at the history, culture and politics ofPalestineand its complex relationship withIsrael. Located in Beit Sahour, nearBethlehem, the ATG was founded as a non-profit tourist agency in 1995, when many Palestinians felt that their contemporary culture and the political realities they were living did not find adequate expression in conventional pilgrim-oriented tourism.
ATG’s programs are both critical and experiential in nature. They include:
- Toursled by specially-trained guides throughoutPalestineandIsraelhighlighting issues of cultural, historical, political and social importance;
- Encounters with Palestinians and Israelis, including local people, community leaders, government officials, political figures and academics;
- Accommodation in Palestinian homes, which offer an opportunity to experience local life and interact with families.
- Interfaith encounters including meetings with Muslim, Christian and Jewish personalities;
- Specially designed programmes to meet the needs of study groups and fact-finding missions.
Badayl-Alternatives support ATG through consulting services in the field of justice tourism. A special initiative entitled ‘Pilgrimages for transformation’ has been in progress since 2005, and Badayl-Alternatives has put together concept papers, working documents, reports of international consultations, and advised on the global network that has now been firmly established.
Consultant- Palestine-Israel Ecumenical Forum (2009-ongoing)
The “Palestine Israel Ecumenical Forum” (PIEF), established in 2007, is an instrument to “catalyze and coordinate new and existing church advocacy for peace, aimed at ending the illegal occupation in accordance with UN resolutions, and demonstrate its commitment to inter-religious action for peace and justice that serves all the peoples of the region.” The scope of the PIEF is worldwide because the crisis in theMiddle Eastand its solutions are increasingly global in scope. The PIEF works towards increasing solidarity between and among churches committed to peace and justice for communities living under occupation. Its inter-faith dimension invites people of other religions in theMiddle Eastand elsewhere to join the search and struggle for a just and comprehensive peace.
PIEF’s consultant mainly supports the communications processes of PIEF but also engages in assisting in matters related to advocacy and strategy.
Consultant-Advisor to FXB-Goa (January 2009)
FXB is an international trust working with rural and urban poor around the world. InGoa, their work is focused on HIV-AIDS in one slum area. Alternatives/Badayl was invited to serve as advisor/consultant on:
- Organizational Development
- HR/OD strategies for the future.
- Project Development
- Developing projects and PME systems for the ongoing work and future plans
Consultant-Advisor to the Human Rights Law network (HRLN)
(2008-2009)
HRLN – Goa Unit has been at work in Goasince February 2008.
Areas of consultancy have been in the following issues:
• Organization Planning and Development. This included developing an entry plan intoGoa based on issues that include: Students for Human Rights, Impacts of Mining, Impacts of Tourism, Communalism, Minorities, displacement of coastal communities,
contesting the establishment of large hotels with detrimental effects to local livelihoods/culture.
A major initiative in which Alternatives/Badayl advised HRLN was the process to develop a strategy to contest the illegalities of the mining industry– a powerful economic block in Goa. Advice has been in the areas of public education, mobilization, and litigation strategies. The two major initiatives so far have been:
■ Preparation of a Citizens Guide to Mining
■ Developing a stand on the mining industry and its negative impacts on mining.
The Citizens Guide Book provides an accessible introduction to mining for lay people.
Two fact finding delegations coordinated by Alternatives/Badayl arrived at a two-fold strategy:
• To reach out to non-mining communities across Goa, to educate them about Goan mining and its impact on the environment (demystifying the myths) and on mining communities, through dissemination of “The Citizen’s Guide to Mining”, posters and awareness-raising events such as a “Students for Human Rights” forum on mining to take place before the end of June;
• To continue to accept ad-hoc requests from communities for assistance in mining litigation and to use the relationships so established as the basis for broader consensus building in the future.
Consultant/Advisor – Inter Faith Dialogue for Life (IFDIL)
(January 2007 – 2011)
IFDIL is an inter-faith initiative involving citizens across the State ofGoawho unite to address peace and justice questions in society – local, state wide, and national with a view to bringing faith perspectives to resolving issues of injustice. It works for religious minorities and seeks to empower them to achieve injustice and confront authorities who discriminate against them because of religion and ethnicity.
IFDIL has, inn the main, dealt with:
- Religio-cultural affirmation and pluralism as a matter of celebration.
- Dialogue on issues affecting individuals and groups.
- Lobby and advocate at governmental level for policies that rectify injustices especially religious rights.
- Create mass awareness through public rallies and publications on issues of conflict transformation
- Develop leadership student leadership for work on inter-religious harmony and co-existence for peace with justice.
- Involve academia and intellectuals in spreading the message of peace and justice through multi-disciplinary teaching and studies.
IFDIL has been successful in fields such as:
- Restoring the livelihood rights of meat traders when their licenses were unjustly revoked.
- Trained 200 students as animators on the subject of Inter-religious Harmony
- Trained 150 teachers as Peace Animators
- Organized public rallies
- Advocated with the government for the just claims for Muslims to burial spaces and worship spaces.
- Opposed police excesses against Muslims on the basis of prejudice through legal interventions.
- Celebrated religious festivals across the religious divide as a way of promoting understanding.
- Public lectures on combating Communalism
Centre for Responsible Tourism (2007-2011) – Consultant-Advisor
Tourism and its impacts on Coastal Communities
The Archdiocese of Goa has been working on issues pertaining to the negative impacts of tourism for many years. Since 2007 a comprehensive programme was launched which engaged people living in the coastal areas to oppose the negative impacts of tourism and foster patterns of leisure travel and recreation which are rooted in values of justice, peace, and development for all. This vision accorded primacy to the notion of mutually beneficial encounters between visitors and hosts for a sharing of goods, for rich cultural exchanges, for approaching natural or artistic beauty, for a comparison between different mentalities, traditions and religions and ultimately for the enrichment of the human spirit. The vision is also based on the understanding that tourism must seek to instil stewardship values of God’s world of people, the mountains, seas, islands, the air, the birds, the trees- indeed all of God’s precious creation. The intent was to build a just and sustainable tourism inGoarooted in the Christian teachings of love and caring for all of God’s peoples, and to demonstrate in the arena of tourism the spirit of caring and responsibility for human dignity.
Programmes developed included:
- Cultural identities of host communities are affirmed and protected.
- People centeredness counts (Host community as the architects and proponents of tourism)
- Nature is seen as an essential part of God’s creation and the obligation to protect and respect it from extinction or abuse is viewed as a vital precondition in tourism.
- Solidarity and Advocacy- especially with and for those who become victims of the tourism industry’s exploitative ways- is affirmed.
- Cultural integrity so that people can protect their cultures from being commoditized
- Economic benefits of tourism accrue to local communities first and last.
- Women, children, and workers are accorded their human rights as a matter of justice.
- Criminalization of tourism spaces are opposed and a climate of goodwill takes its place.
- Common spaces such as beaches, forests, wild life habitats are treated as belonging to the commons and not privatized for the self aggrandizement of a few.
- Where heritage – wherever positive in orientation and scope- is viewed with pride and preserved for visitors as well as hosts.
In summary, the actions included:
- Opposing the urbanization of coastal villages
- Fighting paedophilia
- Protecting local livelihoods
- Environmental management – including garbage/waste management geared to coastal protection.
- Promoting local entrepreneurships
- Studying alternative patterns of tourism – sites that are rarely visited but have grassroots significance.
- Promoting nature tourism
- Advocating for preserving heritage as cultural affirmation as opposed to allowing traditions to be discarded in preference for modernity.
- Affirming cultural identity as a solid base for mutuality between hosts and visitors
An important initiative within the scope of the work described above is to campaign and strategize for a Responsible Tourism in and through which the local communities benefit from tourism- not external operators. In other words, the attempt to skim away profits (income leakages) is avoided. In line with the above, and in addition to organizing the village community groups, CRT has organized unions in various sectors including the Taxi Drivers, Shack Owners, and Small and medium Guest Houses.
The Centre created a Code of Ethics for the Industry inGoa.
Two major publications include:
- The challenges and prospects of tourism inGoatoday
- Claiming the right to say NO
The centre also served to empower and organize people to oppose the government attempt to clear the coasts of traditional occupants through protests, interventions in the gram Sabhas and through support in litigation.
HIV-AIDS in GOA-Founder and Consultant to the Peoples Collective on HIV and AIDS (December 2007-2009)
The Collective brought together a cross-section of people drawn from among NGOs, lawyers, PLHAs, researchers, community representatives, and religious community leaders. A total number of 35 NGOs and individuals were members. This Collective’s objectives included:
- To bring together NGOs and people concerned about and involved in addressing issues pertaining to HIV-AIDS and to explore the links between HIV-AIDS and the Law.
- To examine how the law can be utilized as an instrument to protect and enhance the rights of PLHAs,
- To develop networks of NGOs and persons within Goa and between them and other states inIndiaso as to advance the efforts to gain recognition for the basic right of PLHAs,
- To utilize the collective as a rallying point for developing lobbying and advocacy strategies at governmental level in favour of PLHAs.
- To plan for collective action on issues related to HIV-AIDS and the Law including community mobilization, awareness among students (especially students of Law)
- To organize workshops for students with a view to generating commitment among this crucial sector.
- To organize ‘Press sensitization’/Police sensitization/Medical Professional sensitization initiatives with a view to do away with discrimination and prejudice faced by HIV Positive persons.
The Collective was successful in carrying initiatives in all the above categories of objectives.
Evaluation of the Yakkum Emergency Project (YEU) in Indonesia (2006)
Badayl Alternatives Director evaluated the project YEU established in 2001 on the religious-ethnic conflicts inMoluccas Islands,Indonesia. The evaluation examined the nature of relief-rehabilitation-development initiatives through a participatory and community-based approach. The final report was first discussed in a study workshop by Yakkum’s governance body and then by YEU staff. The report made recommendations of an inter-disciplinary nature including:
- Capacity building for staff in the area of moving from relief-to-development.
- Adopting rights-based/justice approach to religious-ethnic conflicts utilising relief as an entry point.
- Community building for a justice-based reconciliation in the affected areas.
- Development interventions and economic justice approaches as a conflict-pre-emptive step
Evaluation of relief-rehabilitation project in Ingushetia for Chechnya refugees (2006)
Completed a team-evaluation for ARD/DENAL an organization engaged in medical, psychosocial and educational programmes in 2 IDP tent camps, as well as in 24 spontaneous settlements of Ingushetia. The evaluation assessed how:
- Psychosocial support to people affected by the conflict was being rendered
- Specialised medical services for women and medical aid for the IDP population was being carried out
- Education and recreational activities were being implemented
- Supplementary food products to vulnerable IDP categories with specific nutritional needs were being distributed including the provision of basic hygienic items and clothes for newborns
- Establishing support systems for the IDP community especially IDP children, youth, women and men in Ingushetia and residents inChechnya
Proposals about how the programme could be upgraded through additional staff skills, and increased peoples’ involvement were provided with detailed ideas of mechanisms that could be utilized.