"The Earth is but One Country
and Mankind its Citizen"
– Bahá'u'lláh



China Program Report 2003


Environmental Action Program (EAP):
Systematization of Learning Experience

The Badi Foundation is a learning organization. The process of planning, action and reflection with continous improvement is a key feature of both course development and project implementation. In this way, we learn from experience and ensure that every project's progress leads to sustainable community development.

Maintaining Geographical Focus - Manageable Village Groupings Participating in Area Selection together with local leaders Systematically Selecting Participants
BEFORE 2003: From 2002, the EAP expanded geographically to areas more distant with many distinct geo-graphical differences. This put tremendous stress on avail-able human resources and our ability to provide follow-up visits and monitor progress.

DURING 2003: We focused on manageable receptive areas within the region and extended our reach from these clusters. This approach allowed us to maximize our resources and ensure a consistent level of follow-up, guidance and support.

Our learning process begin from the pre-training survey

 BEFORE 2003: The selection of villages was based on the recommendations of our collaborators and partners.

DURING 2003: Consultative meetings with provincial, county and township leaders were held prior to the selection of villages for the program. This began in Tianshui County, Gansu Province and subsequently in Mizhi County, Northern Shaanxi. In Mizhi, jointly with township and county representatives, our team visited several villages and based on an agreed set of criteria, selected the villages for the program. In this manner, we were able to foster relation-ships and understanding with local leaders and this provided an initial impetus for the project. 		BEFORE 2003: The selection of participants was by local leaders. Participants did not always have the prerequisites to follow the course and understand the purpose of the training course and it took them a stressful one to two days to get used to the training methodology and the content of the course.

DURING 2003: In Mizhi County, an initial attempt was made to meet with all the women from the selected villages who were able to read and write and to explain to them the purpose of the course. The women were then asked to consult amongst them-selves and to select those who would attend the first training course, with a view that many from this group would be invited to train as facilitators in the future. Although this procedure needs improving, the beneficial result of this participatory selection process was apparent. Participants were able to take part actively from the beginning, thereby enhancing their learning.
Reviewing Impact of Critical Number of Participants Evaluating Performance & Impact Guiding, Supporting & Working Alongside Local Facilitators
BEFORE 2003: We learned that there was a need to have more than four persons in a village to form a group to carry out their project.

DURING 2003: We invited 15-20 women from the same village to participate in the training course. The energy unleashed by the enlarged group provided us a glimpse of the way community transformation takes place. Through this size group the necessary momentum for the next step of community development can take place.

 BEFORE 2003: We attempted to identify indicators to quantitatively measure performance and evaluate the impact of our program.

DURING 2003: We defined the success indica-tors and experimented with different evaluation tools. We developed a pictorial evaluation template which proved to be most easily understood by our participants and which provided us with a statistical record for assessing the impact of the program.

Zhang Qiaoling from Suoluo town learned to facilitate in small group

 BEFORE 2003: Our pool of trained local facilitators, while hesitant, attempted to facilitate the EAP Level 1 course to small groups within their community.

DURING 2003: In Pingliang City, friends, relatives and neighbors were invited by local facilitators to an intensive 5-day workshop in Suoluo Town, organized by the Foundation. Here, our local facilitators were guided to facili-tate the EAP course in small groups. In Tianshui and Hui Counties, we experimented with guided training at a village level in the homes of local facilitators. With guidance from a more experienced facilitator from the Foundation, local facilitators practised facilitating the course. As a result of this guided training experience, the local facilitators felt confident in carrying out the training in small groups by themselves.


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