PoPular Education ProgrammE - dvv-international.de · their vision is to unleash the potential of...

PoPular Education ProgrammE

Report 2013

PoPulaR Education PRogRammE Report 2013

PE is “not to keep things for yourself but speak up about them. And it also means to be a voice for other people, so don’t keep things in, try to be a voice for your community and see where you can help and where you can get people together.”

PE is a “space where everybody is learning. For me it’s about building a new culture, bringing all the cultures together, f inding a common ground.”

PoPular Education ProgrammE Report 20134

OverviewIn 2013, the Popular Education Programme (PEP) grew some more, and rooted more deeply. In particular, the popular education development (PED) initiative mushroomed: we worked with over 100 educators and activists in popular education both locally and nationally, in a concerted effort to increase the pool of experienced and skilled facilitators. At the same time, we ventured into new territories: working with a partner organisation, the Chrysalis Academy we ran week-long courses for approximately 180 male and then 180 female youth (x2). This was a deliberate expansion into exclusive youth-based work. Other popular education school (PES) courses also included youth (as in the past) and, outside the work in Delft, saw an increase in male participants in Vrygrond and Ottery.

Furthermore, we developed existing and new alliances with other community-based organisations. As part of developing a profile and creating awareness about the power of popular education, in 2013 we connected with national organisations through the national PED.

We also took a lead role in participating in a major research project (sponsored by the Department of

Higher Education and Training, DHET) investigating ‘traditions of popular education’. Expanding through research (historical and current) about popular education and doing conceptual work is deepening our understanding and grounding and directly benefits the practical work. The ‘Traditions’ research links us strategically with the State to inform policy directions that should benefit the working class in the future.

There were four German students doing their internship programmes attached to the PEP, this year. Their research made useful contributions to our work – in particular a small ‘tracer’ study that gauged some of the impact of the programme.

This report begins with documentation of the work of 2013, and in particular, how the PED grew beyond expectations to include a 5-day residential national workshop drawing together some 50 practitioners.

In the second part we offer an overview of the first 3 years of the PEP as we have come to the end of the first funding cycle. Finally, we look ahead into the future and itemize some of the proposed activities for the next cycle of 3 years.

“When horses wear blinkers they must just look in front of them. What the popular education programme did for me is the blinkers was removed and I looked left and right and up and down.”

Meeting and greeting

Practicing collective leadership

PoPular Education ProgrammE Report 2013 5

Popular Education Schools

delft

Voorbrug library in Delft served as the venue, and participants consisted of unemployed adults. The first sessions focused on ‘reading the world’: economics and values. These sessions raised strong sentiments of resentment in people who were exploited for most of their lives in the work in factories and households. One participant commented “if I knew then what was revealed to me in the sessions I am sure my circumstances would have been different. I had never looked at the world this way.” These insights resulted in a request for education that would enable participants to engage in income generation activities, by starting co-operatives.

This led to sessions that concentrated on trust building and co-operation and examination of the causes of mistrust. Critical reflection on services available in communities generated the idea of creating ‘party packs’ that include educational toys and games for children, to be sold along the lines of waiting people, in particular women, on ‘all-pay’ days (social grant days) and outside clinics and day hospitals. The idea gave rise to manufacturing educational toys and games, puzzles and books made from recycled materials such as scrap paper, baubles etc. and producing attractive packets.

One incidental learning arose from a reading exercise and discussion around ‘1 billion rising: participants

made posters and organised an impromptu march and awareness raising session with people in an all-pay line opposite the library. This experience revealed the ability to act publicly and to speak up and out.

An outcome of the process was that the group divided into subgroups and engaged in income generation activities that enabled them to pay for the transport in order to attend computer classes held at the University of Cape Town. Further action were a Woman’s Day event attended by thousands, and cooperation to provide education on health and raise awareness against abuse of women and children, as part of the 16-days of activism campaign.

These actions of co-operation continue as the group is embarking on an activity for community women on Mother’s Day, in 2014. The focus is the vulnerability of young children and the need to act.

Vrygrond and environs

The need for the PES Course was motivated by those attending the Celebration – Graduation in the first half of the year. The PES 2 involved mostly those who completed PES 1 earlier. After the two sessions of orientation, three areas of focus were identified:-

Economic Literacy• Housing and campaigning• Health and our Rights•

Activities 2013

Awareness raising along Allpay line

Delft library


The approach to the economy sessions resembled an education with production approach. These appeared to be highly successful as four co-operatives were set up and are presently being registered. It appears that these areas require a new and innovative way of doing things, somewhat departing from the traditional popular education PES.

The health session was highly successful as a follow up to the personal or body literacy conducted in 2012. The partnership with the People’s Health Movement (PHM) and Department of Health in conducting the sessions offered variety and Dr Cairncross, Chair of PHM, being a popular educator inspired and provided depth about issues of prevention around cancer and so on. The introduction of testing and measuring blood pressure/ diabetes / weight – obesity/muscle strength / muscle power and flexibility took place after consultation with the Sport Science Institute.

The Housing input sessions by Mike Blake of International Labour Research and Information Group (ILRIG) again provided incisive analysis about the gap between the rich and poor and roots of the housing crisis. These sessions helped Sakkiesdorp immensely in their campaign linked to housing. The introduction of specialists into the PES course indicated that it is possible to balance relevant content with creative processes based on radical alternatives.

ottery

This PES was organized and coordinated by one of our ex-participants who work with young people who have collided with the law or found themselves in trouble socially, often resulting in substance abuse. The PES was a broad introduction to ‘reading the world’ – i.e., coming

to better understand the socio-economic and political dimensions of communities torn apart by violence. Participants were extremely receptive to exploring causes and effects of their contexts. However, due to a lack of clear follow-up and an often shifting population of participants the work suffered from insufficient coherence and follow-through.

chrysalis academy

The Chrysalis Academy aims to be the leading youth development programme in South Africa. To this effect their vision is to unleash the potential of youth through mental, physical, emotional and spiritual empowerment, enabling them to become positive role models and productive citizens of the Republic of South Africa. PEP decided to partner with the Academy by offering two 1-week courses for their students: one, in ‘anger management’, the other in ‘problem solving’. We ran both courses for two separate intakes of approximately 200 students each – one group male, one female. Both comprise youth between the ages of 18 and 25, from rural and urban, Afrikaans, English and Xhosa speaking backgrounds. All youth are considered ‘at risk’ in the sense that they live in volatile, often violent and dysfunctional communities where gang activities, crime and substance abuse are rife. Most have been unemployed since leaving school.

The courses are extremely rewarding; the youth are receptive to new ideas and a different pedagogical approach; we learn about their concerns and hopes while assisting them to explore the causes of their troubled contexts and lives and chart new ways of tackling the challenges confronting them. We have committed to continuing this work, in the future – broadening our contributions to include issues of gender, race /culture and class.

Ottery graduants

Chrysalis women participants


introduction: why we need a comprehensive PEd (beyond 2013)

In a dialectical pedagogy teachers are learners, and learners are teachers – and all are active participants in the construction of ‘really useful knowledge’, that is, the knowledge needed to change the unjust structures of the world for the benefit of all. Such pedagogy, clearly, is not simply a matter of technique, of applying particular methodology – but it is informed by ethical and moral principles and purpose. Learning to facilitate popular education and dialectical pedagogy happens through processes of engaged learning and practicing. Respectful listening, critical reflecting and productive building on experiences are not learnt overnight, nor through simple transfers and transactions. Processes to facilitate such listening, reflection, production are often tangible, rooted in deep experience and experimentation and the energy required to make it happen is most often fuelled by strong beliefs, passion and the belief that alternatives are not just possible, but urgently necessary. Hence, we all learn much from experienced, seasoned activist facilitators!

There are multiple traditions of popular education in South Africa and elsewhere. Experienced facilitators, animators, social actors / activators have continued to practice their craft in the interest of change. Unfortunately, there is a serious tension between the

scale of popular education necessary on the ground, and the number of people willing and available to offer such facilitation of learning. While some learning to facilitate can be acquired through (formal) processes of studying, much of this is learnt in practice. With the demise of NGOs / CBOs on the one hand, new social action groups and movements, on the other, there is a serious shortage of popular educators able to activate critical consciousness raising, organising and action.

At the same time, experienced popular educators are threatened by burn-out from the pressures involved in the work. Presently, there are very few informal processes and opportunities for debriefing and ‘re-fuelling’: working under often extremely stressful and emotionally charged conditions facilitators/educators lack regular exchange mechanisms that encourage both de-stressing and imaginative creation of new educational tools. Thus, while experimentation with co-facilitation, ‘shadowing’, mentoring and the like have improved the capabilities of community educators this has not sufficiently addressed the need for inventing and recharging on the one hand, the increase of a pool of popular educators able to work independently and confidently, on the other.

Furthermore, a key lesson learned from our experience is that consistent exposure and participation (the more, the deeper) at different levels and the opportunity to practice through co-facilitation and then assuming leadership, are one of the most productive ways of ‘growing’ experienced

Popular Education Development (PED)

Conceptualising popular education

National PED discussion group


facilitators! Hence, running a comprehensive programme of workshops interspersed with ‘homework’ and applying new insights and skills was suggested as the most productive response.

The PED programme was in two parts: PED programme in Cape Town1. National PED Workshop for popular 2. education practitioners.

Cape Town-based Popular Education 1. Development course

Purpose:To ascertain the level of experienced and capacity • of local educators / facilitators and identify their most urgent areas of development with a view to designing future curricula To broaden the experiential base and improve the • capacity of local facilitators in popular education strategies and practicesTo offer a platform for critical reflection on • practice and theory, and introduce resources for further study and experimentation

target group: Participants were practicing popular educators from organisations involved in popular education.

recruitment:The starting point for recruitment were a number of meetings with key organisations. Going out strategically to meet NGOS and CBOs was one way of preparing the ground for PED which was to be organisation-based facilitator training. In addition, in Vrygrond, we invited people interested in PE to an ‘assembly’. On the basis of responses from these consultations we designed an information

pamphlet and actively approached a range of other local CBOs and NGOs inviting them to apply for participation in the forthcoming PED. The response was overwhelming – and we ended up repeating the course, twice more.

Structure of PEd: The PED course comprised the equivalent of 15 sessions and a practical; in scale it is more extensive than PES. Furthermore, given the intensity of twice 2 full days followed by a single day and a 2 hour practice session, all interspersed with homework, this is a substantial course. The curriculum was as follows:

Workshop 1: Focus on Popular EducationIntroductions; the basics of the popular • education approachThe what and why of PE• The politics of PE: focus on power• From experience to learning; focus on reflection • and knowledgePE in the context of power, values and • economicsEducation for change; working with race, class • and gender

Workshop 2: Focus on FacilitationReview of PE approach• Reading Freire and dialogue about horizontal • relationshipsGroup work and group dynamics• Communication and facilitation• Working with / surfacing attitudes and values •

Workshop 3: designing PEReview: principles of PE• Principles of designing for participation and • learning

Class positioning/consciousness

Problem analysis


Recommendations• Design task•

Practical: design and facilitate a 2 hour session on an aspect of ‘power’, as part of the ’16 days of activism’ against abuse. Participants worked in groups of 5 and designed and facilitated 2-hour sessions with participants in Delft, Philippi, Lavender Hill and Athlone. Sessions were organised by members of The Women’s Circle and coordinated by Vanessa as part of a larger initiative involving TWC.

On the 9th of November groups of PED participants ran popular education sessions around questions of power as they present themselves in the context of abuse. Members of The Women’s Circle had organised groups of mainly women to attend sessions in Delft (Leiden/Blikkiesdorp and Voorbrug), Stattice Heights / Bokmakierie, Phillipi and Lavender Hill). The sessions were impressive testimonies to their engagement with popular education and their commitment to making a difference in communities.

Some responses:“It was an eye-opener. What was inspiring is the • spirit became one.”“I have learnt a lot. I like to observe – not talk too • much. Due to the strategies it was so interesting that I came back today! The way you present, you make it clear. You have made us to be one.”“Everyone’s opinion was valued; we could share • openly and honestly. Often it happens that facilitators dismiss people – it was nice not to be made to feel small.”“I appreciate the attention to process: breaking it • down into the what, how and why – I appreciated learning from everyone.”“I have seen co-facilitation being modelled! This •

Vanessa – Pic’s?

is a reflection of the knowledge and experience you have. People (normally) stick to a plan – you are flexible and respond.”“In the future, I plan to use the experiential • learning cycle in my personal life and work, be open to new ideas and change, and communicate with other facilitators who participated”.

The National Popular Educator 1. Development Workshop

A national workshop for the training of popular educators took place at the Grail Centre in Kleinmond, Western Cape, from 22-25 August.

Purpose:to increase the ‘pool’ of experienced /skilled • popular educators. to provide popular educators with an opportunity • to discuss and strengthen national networking

target groups: The target groups were people at the beginning of their facilitation experience, on the one hand, and others who have vast experience in organising and community mobilisation, but wished to improve their capabilities in facilitation skills and network, on the other. Participants came from Gauteng, Eastern Cape, KZN, Northern Cape and Western Cape.

recruitment: This happened through a process of ongoing dialogue and negotiation, over 5 months. In the final instance numbers increased beyond the original planned 28 because there was a high demand for participation and we wanted to ensure representation from different sectors, provinces and experience-levels.

Kleinmond National PED

Star Power


numbers: 51 people participated (29 women plus 22 men)

Structure of Workshop: The workshop encouraged participants to bring their whole person to the activities of the workshop. The mind, body and heart were activated and drawn on. The range of activities were designed with different purposes in mind, all of which included a time for reflection afterwards on the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the activities, fostering consistent reflection on the work of popular educators. The mind was used, for example, in conceptual work on the nature of popular education and on how to make political economy concepts accessible… the body in energisers, political games, artwork… the heart in laying bare participants’ vulnerabilities, wounds, encouraging emotional risk taking and impassioned dialogues regarding the nature and purpose of popular education work. As one participant reflected afterwards:

“The popular education I have experienced … is sometimes too rational, and some of the practitioners I have worked with forget the strong component emotions have in it. The workshop has strengthened my understanding of Popular Education as a holistic process.”

day 1: Welcome / process / icebreaking• Definitional dialogue• Narrative theatre workshop•

day 2:Warm-up and review• Circle of Life / networking• Women and Gender / Power, institutions • and transformation

Design group formation•

day 3:Definitional Dialogue• Walking the floor exercise• Case studies and definition of PE• Design Logo (what’s the image of praxis?)• Preparation for presentations/ facilitation• Review•

day 4:Review• Working with power• Evaluation / closing process•

comments / responses:Asked to name what was particularly useful at the workshop, one participant wrote: “The dialogical definition activities. Language, words and terms have meaning. How we use them is important to build understanding, to act and to reflect. So it is important that we assess our and others’ understanding and if possible develop common understanding.” Another reiterated this, saying “To consider language as power and how it is a powerful tool to learn and deconstruct notions of oppression and exploitation”.

“I was pleasantly surprised that we all face similar difficulties (to a greater or larger extent) when it comes to conceptualising and designing popular education programmes. The pressure in society to conform is very strong and working together helps to bring to the fore certain blind-spots we have as well as alternatives.”

“ It clarified and reinforced for me that there is an urgent need to push back against the tendency for PopEd to be de-politicised, treated as a disembodied “methodology” of indeterminate political orientation and affiliation.”

Exploring power

Anne Hope and Sally Timmel


How would you use what you have learned? “I am more critical of our educational work and want to shift the philosophy closer to what I have learned about and from popular education. It has become an even more important tool for me as its fundamental goals are in line with the organization’s objectives.”

“PE has been part of my (our) work through co-operatives education and I always felt the need for popular education in the country as an instrument in conscientisation, mobilization of the poor working class. “

Some Statistics for 2013

Date/s Area Program Type Male Female Youth Totals Completed

March - April Vrygrond PES 3 10 8 10

March - April Vrygrond PES 3 14 13 17

March - April Delft PES 2 21 6 23

April - May Ottery PES 14 4 18 19

April - May Tokai PES 190 190 190

April Sea Winds M.Unite PES - 10 - 10

May - Nov Cape Town PED 1 (Local) 8 14 18 10

July - Nov Cape Town PED 2 (Local) 7 22 7 20

September Cape Town PED 3 (Local) 10 21 14 9

August National PED National 22 29 37 51

Woodstock PEPC 11 39 10 50

Aug - Nov Vrygrond PES 2 5 28 15 16

Aug - Nov Delft PES 1 20 - 21

Tokai PES - 170 170 170

TOTALS 286 402 506 616

Remarks: A total of 616 participants were involved directly in our programme. Of these, 65% were women, and 82% youth.

Footprints to the future

Future action


Research 1: Exploring and ‘mapping’ current popular education in Sa.

A new contribution to popular education is coordinating and participating in a research project led by Prof S Walters at the Division for Lifelong Learning, UWC. Re-membering Traditions of Popular Education: Towards comprehending and informing community education policy and provision in South Africa is one of the ‘catalytic’ projects of the new Charter for Humanities and Social Sciences initiated and supported by the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). The project seeks to inspire alternative forms of education that benefit and support in particular working class people. It aims to achieve 3 things:

Begin a lively and productive dialogue on popular • education traditions both inside South Africa and beyond. A network of researchers and practitioners is committed to the praxis of popular education, that is, critical reflection on, and action for change.Begin to uncover and recover forgotten traditions • of popular learning and education amongst different groups of women and men, urban and rural, young and old. To this end, the project has undertaken a ‘mapping’ of existing collections of records and materials, organisations and people who were / are instrumental to traditions of popular education.Identify useful models and practices, both past • and present, that can feed into the design of a

comprehensive education provision accessible to all people and in particular, working class and poor people.

The project runs until November 2014 and will end with a collection of ‘good practice’ case studies, a theoretical/ conceptual document and an exhibition of materials and visual data as the framework for a 2-day dialogue with international guests. Data gathered will be available on-line as from March 2014 (www:populareducation.co.za )

Research 2: impact Study – Popular Education Programme

Eugenia Matz and Markus Hoermann, two ASA internship (Arbeits-und Studienaufenthalte) students from Germany, undertook a small ‘impact study’ of the PEP that would identify some of the strengths and weaknesses of the programme and inform future activities. They investigated, in the main, participants from the Lavender Hill and Delft areas and conducted interviews with members of The Women’s Circle, Mothers Unite, Philisa Abafazi Bethu, the Housing Assembly and iTemba Preprimary School.

Their findings showed clearly that participants were able to describe new insights with regards to economic and political conditions and relations of power that impact on those. Critical thinking and awareness raising were highlighted as key purposes of the PEP, as one participant explained “it opened our eyes for

Historical poster

Growing popular education


political issues, because it starts from the politics you know, it comes to the economy and then it comes down to the community”. Participants identified analytical thinking, the importance of history, the ability to speak up and out, an increase in confidence and attitude, in communication skills and organizational changes and improved networking skills as direct results of the PEP. Motivation to learn more and the confidence in individual’s ability to learn further emerged as direct results of the popular education approach. “Now with popular education, the work that I learned is that if you explain something to people in their language at their level and you get the message across they will start something and they can be productive.”

The study concluded with recommendations for study topics, practical suggestions to support learners and suggestions for further research.

Research 3: investigation of ‘Big issue Sellers’ as a potential constituency for PES

Nadine Rademacher, intern from Germany, investigated ‘Big Issue’ sellers as potential participants of PES. The Big Issue (TBI) organisation aims to enable homeless, unemployed and socially marginalized or even excluded adults to take their future into their own hands. TBI aims to guide and equip vendors and finally encourage them to move from the programme to the mainstream society.

Main problems identified by sellers were language barriers, no specialization, no access to computers as well as a lack of education, especially concerning reading and writing skills. One of the main challenges of TBI is to motivate the vendors, keep them moving on and showing them the bigger picture of their efforts. The study recommended closer collaboration between TBI and PEP, with a future possibility to host a PES for sellers, at a time/place convenient to them.

BocaEd (the Bonn conference on continuing adult Education and development, organised by dVV international)

Members of the PEP participated actively in the BoCAED, in three ways:

by writing and publishing an article in the special 1. issue of Adult Education and Development (Astrid von Kotze (2013) “A Pedagogy of contingency for precarious work”. In: Langer, K (ed) Technical and Vocational skills Development in the Informal Sector. DVV International: International perspectives in Adult Education. (IPE 68) pp 87-99by designing and creating a ‘poster’ that illustrates 2. the practice of popular education; the presentation of this poster at the conference was met with great interest and enthusiasm: there were many questions as to how PE contributes to skills training and unemployed people living/working in the informal economy;

A Pedagogy of Contingency for Precarious Life/ Work

Organisations in discussion

BoCAED Poster


by participating actively in all aspects of the 3. proceedings of the conference

collaboration with other organisations

Further specialised Popular Education activities were conducted in partnership with the following organisation:-

The Women’s Circles (TWC) based in townships • around Cape Town.Workers World Media Productions (WWMP) • nationally based.Initiative for Participatory Development (IPD) • East London based.Community Healing Network (CHN) based • in Vrygrond.Training for Transformation (TfT), at the Grail • Centre, in Kleinmond.Community Development Resource Association • (CDRA)

The Women’s Circle was linked to five PED practicals in Delft, Athlone, Phillipi and Khayelitsha involving 135 participants. Our popular education work with the Workers World Media Productions was included in four national two day workshops in Upington, Franschoek, Paarl and Kimberly as part of their media Courses. A total of 144 participants were involved. The Initiative for Participatory Development was partnered with PEP in a three day Course involving 32 participants drawn from rural and urban based

communities. The Sakkiesdorp Association (SA) attended a one day popular education leadership training at the New World Foundation in Cape Town. The PEP was involved in both the planning and formation of an education consortium with CDRA and TfT. This residential course will be conducted in 2014. A total of 977 participants were involved in our 2013 activities.

lessons learned in 2013

Reading the dynamic of movement in society: • responding to the times….providing the space, in communities, to channel energies towards strategic action. Realising how our work is linked to material reality….

The importance of seizing the moment / the • power of learning by doing: joining forces with other people / organisations and infusing them with education and learning opportunities, e.g., The Women’s Circle preparing for action as part of ‘16 days of Activism’ – and making sure this is also a learning experience! (personal, individual / collective / community development); and linking PED students with The Women’s Circle as an opportunity to practice what has been learned about design and facilitation in the PED workshops.

Learning from mistakes, critically reviewing our • actions for strengths and weaknesses, and realizing the importance of using the trust generated

Role play

Participant facilitation


through long-term engagement for further action. Being consistent in learning and action makes our work truly popular: thoughtful, mindful, caring.

Working consistently with where participants • are at: not pushing them into something they are not ready for, not setting them up for failure- but trusting them to work, preparing for success!

Realising that assuming solidarity / willingness to • work together has been a false assumption. There is some disappointment regarding cooperation, and practice has taught us that what pulls communities apart also pulls political educators apart: jealousy, competition! There seems to be contestation about ‘who owns PE? ‘ We try to get the traditions of popular education to intersect from a radical perspective for a common benefit – rather than compete for ‘ownership’.

We cast the net out widely – and learn who we can • work with (and who not so much). The ‘discovery’ of Chrysalis as a site of learning, and an exciting place for practicing popular education.

A highlight of 2013 is getting closer to Training • for Transformation. Recognising commitment to shared values, and building on opportunities as they arise – e.g., the TfT celebration, the Grail as residential venue for education work.

The challenge of PEPC: creating a focused • reflection place? Where do people process their continuous learning / development? What is the role of PEP in this? Can we turn PEPC into a mix of reflection on action, and further experimentation and learning. What are new ways of doing reflection and growing?

Organising a launch pad for the Popular Education • Programme: mobilizing people to celebrate the formation of our programme towards becoming an independent non-profit organisation, one day, and forming an interim committee was exciting. However, we realize that independence is premature – we need to consolidate our strengths and fiscal sustainability before becoming truly independent.

Social Movement Education: At best, popular • education is aligned to and derives from within social movements. It is a ‘tool’ of political education that lends strength through conscientisation to popular social movements. In 2013, we have aligned ourselves increasingly to labour /worker, health and housing initiatives supporting their work by offering education. In terms of the recognition that change comes through collective action we view this work as fundamental and important as members of organisations become more critical in their participation, and hence able to contribute meaningfully and strongly.

PE in Phillipi

PE in Delft


PEP– the f irst 3 years

Chrysalis Academy Problem Solving

091307Astrid’s Pics

clear: people enjoyed it, they learned valuable lessons about the importance of working together in order to affect change and begin to build another future, and they asked for more education. As one participant, interviewed as part of a small impact study conducted 3 years later, said, “You have to learn together to accomplish something that’s wonderful. You build relationships with people you didn’t know before.” Another explained how the motivation to study is a fire that must be kept burning.

Phase 2 - 2012: the year of the popular education practitioner circle (PEPc)

In 2012, we built on the experiences of 2011 by offering an ‘advanced’ PES course to previous participants. We responded to requests for working with particular groups in Seawinds and Delft and we also expanded our range of PES provision in Khayelitsha and Lotus Park, and more rural-based communities and groupings, including (as in 2011) in other provinces. A very popular ‘body literacy’ course was a response to the high levels of trauma experienced by people in the Lavender Hill / Vrygrond area, where violent and abusive gang activity is rife.

In an effort to multiply available facilitators able to work across different languages we ran a mentorship programme; however, building experienced and confident PE facilitators demands a longer-term commitment and, as we discovered, a more concerted effort. Another important learning from the second year was the need to strengthen the action component

Looking back, we realized that the 3 years are clearly different from one another in that the focus shifted to emphasize different aspects of the PEP. At the same time, we intensified and deepened relations and relationships in two areas: Delft and Vrygrond. And this year, we finally managed to connect the learning to action.

Phase 1 - 2011: the year of popular education schools (PES)

The first year saw us putting out feelers in different areas in/around Cape Town, and testing our popular education approach in various community-based groupings and /or with members of organisations, such as The Women’s Circle and Philisa Abafazi Bethu and Mothers Unite, in Seawinds. Links with many participants of organisations are still strong and participants have returned for more courses, in both 2012 and 2013. This was an important ‘grounding’ of the programme and confirmed our belief that sustained, longer-term commitment in particular areas / communities / organisations is a good way to build strong foundations.

We set up and conceptualized the PES largely through action, by actually doing it. In the process, we maintained the same approach albeit with different foci – depending on what various groupings had chosen as their main area of investigation. For many of the 160 odd people who participated in PES in 2011 this was the first experience of an exposure to popular education and for us, the message was

Stretching and de-stressing

Weaving hope


PEP– the f irst 3 years

Chrysalis Academy Problem Solving

091307Astrid’s Pics

of PEP – something we managed to do in 2013.

The biggest expansion of PEP in 2012 was through the PEPC programme: an ongoing collaboration with the Division for Lifelong Learning at UWC allowed us to run 6 sessions that were very positively reviewed by some 250 participants. Changing the format to ¾ day workshops contributed to this success.

All these activities led to PEP developing legitimacy on the one hand, rooting popular education as a vehicle for learning and action, on the other.

Phase 3 - 2013: the year of popular education development (PEd)

At the end of 2011 we had noted the urgent need to increase the number of available popular educators; in December 2012 we weighed up our capacity to respond to the increasing number of requests for PES and the value of an ongoing forum for reflection and further learning for practitioners. We also considered the challenge of retention of participants in the context of food and livelihood insecurity and a climate of ongoing violence.

We decided that building leadership in PE was a top priority. For this, it would be crucial to upscale the popular education development (PED) part of the programme, and do so strategically. Hence, we moved from ‘reproducing’ ourselves through shadowing processes to providing key support through PED workshops. Observing how exposure to / participation in ongoing learning opportunities leads to growth we recruited Vanessa as a third facilitator, on a part-time level... Nolundi Mshumpela who, like Vanessa Reynolds had been tutored in 2011 joined the adult education programme at UCT and is also now assuming

leadership within her community! As a result, we designed and ran a comprehensive PED programme – demands were so strong that we ended up repeating the first workshop twice, and then combined the 3 groups in workshops 2 and 3. (Details below)

We expanded the PES work by contributing to the youth training at Chrysalis Academy: this is a strategic partnership to support ‘youth at risk’ (local, and provincial, rural and urban , women and men) and learn more about young people’s perceptions and perspectives and interpretations of the world. This PES work helps us to better understand how to forge intergenerational links and relationships – an important component of alliance-building. Similarly, we built stronger relationships with unions and labour organisations thereby gaining insights into youth in leadership.

Praxis: learning/reflection and/in action is a central component of PE. In 2013 we strengthened the co-operative thinking / working in work and life through engagements in delft and Sakkiesdorp (e.g., stationary coop in Delft; housing coop ideals in Sakkiesdorp). Another key component of praxis was the close cooperation between The Woman’s Circle and PED participants. Realizing that leadership evolves from struggle we consciously created the conditions for leadership to emerge amongst women from The Women’s Circle, PED participants and communities.Finally, we considered the future of the PEP beyond our alliance with DVV International. Ongoing deliberations deal with questions of how to prepare for ‘independence’ as we search for the form to build an ‘entity’ / organisation that is community-based and self-reliant working towards alternatives (in form and content).

Negotiating obstacles

Juggling roles


What does the future hold?

We are committed to go beyond ‘building a collective future’ towards becoming it: working together for change by doing it, and modeling democratic practice as a way of creating experiences that show how it is possible to relate differently and hence produce more productive relationships towards alternatives. Some of the actions towards this aim are:

Consolidating and strengthening links and forging • new onesExperimenting with more creative art-based • approaches: bringing in the arts as a way of stimulating thinking towards alternatives (i.e., not just change but what to / what is the world we want?)Deepening attitudes/skills of PE and improving the • understanding of the nature of PE Providing organization-based PED courses on their • ‘grounds’ – e.g., Equal Education (EE) national and working geographically: PED in KhayelitshaContributing to movement-building: bringing • all three together: 1. PED organisation based, 2. PED Geographic based, 3. Cross-pollination: all togetherWeaving all three strands of the PEP together • and creating one strong rope to pull into the future….

PES in 2014

On the one hand, we will work through / with current PED participants, supporting them in organizing and running local PES courses in Khayelitsha (Theodora, SJC, EE), Delft (Blikkies) and Vrygrond (Overcome

Heights). We will also further develop our links with The Woman’s Circle, offering a PES in Athlone for TWC members. We will continue our work with the Chrysalis Academy – offering 2 modules in their 3-month residential courses for 200 men (x2) and women (x1)

PEd

In order to increase our capacity we will again focus strongly on developing popular educators able and willing to employ the PE approach in their organisations and communities.

PED advanced / intensive: a 5-day residential 1. follow-up PED for ex-PED participants and other experienced facilitatorsA 3 ½ day residential PED for ‘new’ / less 2. experienced facilitators / people holding education portfolios within organisations, including other members of participating organisations, followed by 2 x 2 day workshopsOngoing PE development with 2013 participants 3. through co-facilitation in PES, and hosting post- PEPC reflection sessionsNational PED: Follow-up workshop – focus 4. not on facilitation but approach / philosophy

Raise questions such as:explore different traditions (and their various • strengths) – link to researchmovement building: one movement, many • traditionshow do we work together in the best interest • of PE?

Celebration

Certificate ceremony


PEPc

Practitioner circle – reflection and new ideas for experienced facilitators1. Extension of PE learning - 8 seminars / workshops: 2. 4 reserved for circle, 4 open (incl. Nyerere lecture)Invite internationals to each do 1 lecture/seminar and a workshop3.

overview

PES PED PEPC

5 x 12 session PES courses

6 Chrysalis

5 day follow-up3+2+2 new 3 day national

8 PEPC workshops4 lectures / seminars

ConclusionAt a quantitative level a total of 1235 people were involved in our PES work, 575 in our PED activities and 310 in PEPC. This reflects a steady growth in the overall PEP thrust. Over the three year cycle an aggregate of 2120 participants were drawn into the three strands of PEP.

One participant, writing in his evaluation of the National PED, said “I have a sense that PE is taking root in the struggles of people in our country again after many, many years. Yes, there is a lot more work to be done and I am encouraged to be part of a growing network that will embark on this journey.”

Indeed, it appears that popular education is again gaining in popularity. While this is to be welcomed it is also somewhat worrisome – as ‘participation’ and ‘empowerment’ in the past, popular education seems to be the new ‘en vogue’ term that is increasingly becoming meaningless as corporates begin to use the term as a substitute for non-formal, or basic education. One challenge for us remains to build a deeper understanding that popular education is not simply a technology, a set of participatory tools applied for greater effect. It’s strength lies in the depth of underlying values of equality, fairness, the belief in the connectedness, interdependence of all life – and the commitment of educators to making the road of social justice by walking it!

contact uS

9 Scott Roadobservatory, 7925

cape townSouth africa

tel: 00 27 21 447 4828/98Fax: 00 27 21 447 4878

[email protected]

Supported by

Date post:	28-Sep-2020
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	1 times
Download:	0 times

PoPular Education ProgrammE - dvv-international.de · their vision is to unleash the potential of...

Documents