Evaluation Workshop of ACV Project

Mukti has participated in the evaluation workshop of the ACV (Amplifying Community Voice) project organized by “OAK Foundation” at BMS (Baptist Missionary of Society) – 44AJC Bose road, Kolkata 17 from 12th to 14th September 2022. On behalf of Mukti Mr. Sankar Halder, Mr. Apurb Karan, Ms. Nandita Jayraman, Mr. Pinaki Naiya, Mr. Shibu Das and Ms. Krishna Bodhak participated in the workshop. With Mukti other organizations like Praxis, ISWS, BTS, NCAS, Prajaak, Rupantaran and DRCSC have also joined.

ACV project started in 2020 January and due to the pandemic, it has been interrupted for some time. Again when the situation became normal it has been started in June 2021 and has been extended till September.

This workshop has been organized to reflect on how members associated with the ACV project worked during the pandemic.

The workshop topics have been listed below –

• To make the members aware of the Right Based frame of the ACV project.
• The framework includes indicators that were set by the ACV group members at the beginning of the project to reflect the active participation of all group members or the inclusion of people from vulnerable communities in the process of the group’s development activities.
• ACV is a community-led project that means those who belong to the vulnerable community will recognize their problems and together they will solve the problem themselves. Through mapping, it has been monitored how ACV members have been able to achieve this indicator.
• The fourth topic is the project’s sustainability. This project will end in October 2023. When the ACV members will leave their training area after the completion of the project, it has been notified how successful the ACV members have been in achieving the goal or objective of the project – to produce some community leaders who will take the whole right-based approach or community approach forward in the future.
• Scoring has also been done on the extent to which the vulnerable community has been able to progress or failed in the field of the above indicators or right-based advocacy (perhaps policy level changes, some systematic changes, etc.).

The scoring of each of the participants on average comes out as 4-5. ACV group members think that there are various challenges, risks, political situations, negative impacts on stakeholders, lack of awareness among vulnerable community people and many other things that are preventing ACV members from reaching their specific goals. Apart from this, some of the members have skill problems. Maybe the way the entire process should be facilitated is not appropriate.

The overall discussion that took place in the workshop among the participants is that a roadmap will be made later keeping the indicators in mind, what will it be like, which principals will it follow, which factors will be completely negotiable, etc. The concept of how the whole participatory activity can be, how the community can be involved is developed and to give everyone a basic and common understanding of community leadership. During this three-day workshop, ACV members discussed among themselves the said topics and evaluate the issues.