This is a simple community visit record template for change agents (or staff), to support them with documenting their work. The template captures key insights and observations, progress, challenges, and follow-up actions. The intention is to enable community change agents to easily record and track the projects. These templates are samples and they can be adapted to fit your context.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Community Change Agents
Community meeting discussion notes should include the following suggested report structure. This can be further adapted depending on the need. Depending on the literacy level of community change agents, these contents can also be captured in audio or audio visual mechanisms.
Introduction
Background
Objective of the meeting/visit
Name, number and Composition of participants (gender – males/females participants)
Name of Community change agent(s) or Staff member who visited
Date and venue of the visit
Was it a home to home visit or a group visit or event (The place of visit/engagement (for example, a health centre or school, etc.)?)
Process and Approach
Methods used to actively engage participants (ensuring men’s and women’s active participation)
Participatory/C4A Tools used (if any)
Key Discussion Points and Actions
Emerging themes from the conversations
What decisions were taken, who will be responsible for carrying out the decision, and by what date?
Future as follow-up actions
Summary Action points documented by visiting Community Change Agent or Staff member
Key discussion Points
Action points by community members
Action points by the change agent/Brooke (follow up)
Observations and key reflections by visiting Community change agent or staff member(s)
Did the place and time work well for the conversations? Why/why not?
What went well? What did not go so well? Why? How can this be improved?
Any notable story of change that require follow up or documentation by Brooke/Partner
The animal welfare practice gap analysis is designed to explore current animal management practices and activities which contribute to animal welfare. This tool identifies gaps and reasons for the gaps in terms of the main drivers of behaviour change: capability, opportunity and motivation. It has been adapted from other tools specifically to put the animal at the centre of the analysis. The first steps are very similar to those in ‘If I were an animal’ (T17). Consider conducting this activity separately with owners, users and carers, including both men and women, or other relevant groups that are likely to have different priorities.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify the gaps and causal factors contributing to people not meeting the welfare needs of their animals. • To identify actions people can take either individually or collectively to address gaps in animal husbandry and management practices to improve animal welfare. • To support gender analysis if conducted separately between men and women by identifying differences in factors contributing to gaps in practice. • To inform identification of community actions and/or behaviour change strategies to address the causes of people’s poor animal husbandry and management practices related to lack of capacity, resources and/or motivation. • When used repeatedly, results can inform monitoring by enabling assessment of perceived changes in participants’ animal welfare practices and underlying causal factors which constrain their adoption.
2 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk, stones, pebbles, local materials (leaves, seeds, etc.)
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Behaviour Change Diagnosis and Planning, Motivation
Stages of Behaviour Change: Preparation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Gender Analysis, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management, Community Change Agents
Animal welfare practice gap analysis
Figure T21a Animal welfare practice gap analysis carried out by animal owners
A group of animal owners analysed their current animal management practices. They identified 10 practices that their animal would expect from them and scored the extent to which they currently carry out these practices. The highest ‘in practice’ scores were for timely veterinary treatment and free access to water. The group discussed the most common reasons for seeking veterinary treatment and how changes in current practices could reduce or eliminate the need for the treatment altogether. The lowest scores were for ‘shelter from the elements’ and ‘time to interact and play with other animals’. After a discussion, the group identified quick wins and collectively:
Purchased more nutritious and balanced feed by buying food in small groups instead of individually. This means spending less money, but also having better quality feed.
Identified a location to make a rolling-pit for the animals to use after work that was cleared so it was safe for the animals; it was also near a place where the users could have tea and socialise together.
Identified 5 new water points and cleaned abandoned tyres to use as water troughs.
The group agreed to make these good practices a daily habit and to monitor each other’s progress against their individual action plans.
Start by encouraging participants to see the world from their animals’ point of view. Ask what expectations their animals have of them to have a happy and healthy life and experience a positive mental state. If they are struggling with this concept, ask them what they need as humans to be happy and healthy, then extend the question to their animals. At this point, the group should start identifying expectations animals have of their owners. Ask the community helper to write the expectations on cards for everyone to see or use representative drawings.
When participants have finished identifying their animals’ expectations of them, it is the facilitator’s responsibility to ensure that all welfare components have been considered. Use the following guiding questions as needed to facilitate participants to identify their animals’ expectations of them in terms of any of the following domains of welfare [Five Domains] which they have not yet considered:
• Health - What do animals need/expect of owners to be healthy? (Disease prevention, timely treatment, proper fitting equipment) • Nutrition - What do animals need/expect of owners for good nutrition? (feeding & watering) • Environment - What do animals need/expect of owners in their environment? (Comfort, rest, temperature, shelter) • Behaviour - What do animals need/expect of owners to express their natural behaviours? (Freedom of movement, social interaction with other animals)
Please note: The facilitator should group/organise similar expectations into one category and explain the reason for the grouping (only if the anticipated effects of the expectation not being met are the same). For example, if the community identified ‘free access to water’ and ‘clean water’, consider consolidating the two examples into one ‘free access to clean water’ category.
Once the list is complete, ask the community helper to record the group-identified expectations on cards using words, symbols, or local materials.
Step 2
Next, ask the helper to draw a grid or matrix on the ground using coloured powder, chalk, or a stick, with at least 5 columns in the matrix to start. Place the group-identified practices (cards in step 1b) along the first column.
Label the second column ‘in practice’ (like the matrix in step 1a).
Step 3
Facilitate the group to fill in the second column of the matrix labelled ‘in practice’, by asking participants to what extent their animals’ expectations are fulfilled by each of the identified practices. Scoring from 0 to 10 (0 = not in practice, 10 = completely in practice).
Any remaining stones (out of ten) can be kept aside or in the first column, next to the identified practice.
Step 4
Ask the group to identify at least 4 of the most important factors contributing to gaps in their animals’ expectations and current practices. Have the helper write the factors on a card using words or symbols.
They may identify factors (causes) such as:
Place the cards with the factors as column headers along top of the matrix, adding more columns to the matrix if necessary.
Step 5
Ask participants to use the remaining stones (out of ten) to score the gap factors (causes). For example, if one of the expectations was ‘timely veterinary treatment’, five stones out of ten may have been used for ‘in practice’. The remaining five stones would need to be divided amongst the different causes of gaps in practice e.g. two stones for ‘lack of knowledge’ and three stones for ‘not a priority’.
Please note: Coming to an agreement on how the factors (causes) should be scored will raise a debate amongst the group. These discussions create shared learning opportunities, as participants learn from one another as they discuss and agree on final scores. As a facilitator, you should allow and encourage this discussion without inserting your ideas.
Step 6
Once all the causes of gaps in practice have been scored and the matrix is complete, ask a community member to help summarize the results with the group.
Use the following guiding questions to facilitate a discussion amongst participants:
• Where gaps in practices exist, what are the specific skills, knowledge and/or resources preventing participants from meeting their animals’ needs?
• What are the effects of the animal husbandry and management practice gaps on both animals and animal-owning households? If the group has already completed T17 ‘If I were an animal’, ask them to come up with some of the effects that they identified in this activity.
• Which practices do you perceive as most important to ensuring the welfare of your animals? Please note: This question can provide an opportunity to raise awareness of how practices often considered less important can still have significant impacts on animal’s welfare.
• What actions can participants take, either individually or collectively, to address these gaps and mitigate the negative effects on animals and animal-owning households?
• What technical support is required to support participants in acting?
Step 7
If participants have identified specific actions to address gaps, have the helper record the actions and specific activities in the community action plan. Make sure to include who will monitor it and a realistic timeline. Add any opportunities to capacity build or project plan into your project action tracker.
Facilitator’s notes: Animal welfare practice gap analysis
It is helpful for participants to have a general understanding of animal welfare and related animal husbandry and management best practices when undertaking this activity. Consider conducting one or more of the following activities as time permits to raise awareness of animal welfare needs prior to conducting this exercise:
T17 ‘If I were an animal’: raises awareness of what animals’ need and how they depend on people experience positive welfare states
T18 Thriving not surviving: promotes understanding of the five domains of animal welfare and how people can promote positive welfare states
T19: Animal feelings analysis: helps promote understanding of animal feelings and related physical expressions and behaviours indicative of those feelings.
T20 Animal body mapping: helps identify animal-based indicators of welfare status which can be used in the transect walk, and can serve as a useful sensitization exercise improve understanding of indicators of good and bad animal welfare.
If individual participants come up with a below standard practice (e.g. watering 2 x per day when free access is best practice), the facilitator can use this as an opportunity for them sensitize each other by reaching consensus.
This exercise can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group. If the activity takes more than two hours, consider action planning in the next session.
Encourage everyone to express their own views and avoid bringing in your own examples while the matrix is being populated. Do not allow it to become a facilitator-driven exercise.
Consider having a designated note taker to document the insights (e.g. info on knowledge, skills, beliefs, resources) that emerge from participants’ discussions during this activity.
It is common for participants to identify only a few main effects on animals (step 6), especially when animals are not viewed as sentient beings. It is the facilitator’s role to use this as an opportunity to promote understanding of animals’ experience of these gaps.
T15 Cost benefit analysis when motivational factors have been identified as reasons for participants’ not meeting the expectations of their animals or when no consequences have been agreed by the community to address gaps
The facilitating organization may consider one or both of the following actions to address the identified gaps:
Capacity building trainings to promote knowledge and skills related to implementing animal husbandry and management practices that promote animal welfare:
Humane handling techniques
Proper feeding methods
Basic wound management
Benefits of grooming
Benefits of stable care
In-depth assessment or care practice research to identify:
Who needs to practice and who influences the desired behaviour
To identify main barriers to adoption of the promoted behaviour
Sustainable livelihood and/or community development-related projects to improve access and availability of resources important to animal welfare
This resource is to support project teams in structuring their regular meetings with animal owning community members/change agents so as to promote reflection and learning, generate motivation for change, support community members’ progress through the stages of change, and generate opportunities for peer-peer learning.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Implementation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
To maximize on the meetings with the community, the community change agents can follow the following ideas and adapt as they go along.
For meetings involving community change agents:
Start the meeting with each person having a chance to talk about what is going well – this starts you out with a positive tone.
Have people pair up and spend 5 mins each talking about 1) what goal they set for last period and status of achievement, and 2) about their experiences and critical learnings over the past month without being interrupted and without being given advice (This provides people a period to follow their own train of thought from beginning to end). Each person who listened must summarize interesting points to share with group when finished (1 minute summary, use timer for cut off) (good for promoting listening).
Use the following questions to guide group discussion:
What have you accomplished in the last month? / What’s happened since we last met regarding…
What has worked for you in terms of motivating people to change their practices/adopt new behaviours?
What is the status of your target peers? – Stage of change, what are they succeeding with – why?/where are they facing challenges - why?
What things have you been asked that you don’t know answer to or have found challenging in carrying out your role?
What support or knowledge/skills would support you in being able to address this?
Where do you experience difficulties affecting change? - greet failure as an opportunity to build understanding, and focus on affirming the effort rather than the result
“If we consider failure to be unacceptable, then learning is not possible – and then failures will continue.”
Ask for group input on how they have dealt with similar challenges successfully
Discuss solutions to trial
Negotiated behaviour change – what are things people are resistant to changing despite your/their best efforts? – why do you think this is?
If no change is believed possible, discuss potential alternative behaviours that could be promoted/adopted instead to meet their animals’ welfare
Discuss skills/capacity building need requests for next meeting – vote on priority
After trainings - make action plan for applying lessons learned.
In follow up meetings, reflect on the experience of applying previous training to address specific issues/challenges discussed, and
Set action plan and goals for next month – can do as group and/or individually if different, ensuring they share back to group if done individuals.
The figure below provides key areas that the community facilitators can harness to engage the community and promote lasting behaviour change.
For meetings involving change agents + their peer groups:
Start by asking for community members to share testimonials about their/others behaviour change experience. Consider focussing on sharing one or more of the following topics:
RELATIVE ADVANTAGE: how advantageous/disadvantageous is new behaviour
COMPATIBILITY: how is this ask/new behaviour compatible with personal or societal values and beliefs, availability of resources (time/fits w/in routing, money, equipment)
COMPLEXITY: what is the level of real or perceived difficulty - how overcome?
TESTABILITY or OBSERVABILITY: provide first-person experiences or first-hand knowledge/experiences have you observed
Compare results of Animal welfare transect walk (T22) – highlight most significant change, no change – discuss why successful, why no change, and identify motivation/barriers to adoption if not known (consider brainstorming activity). If this tools is not used by all but other tools have been commonly used, alternatively depending on the specific welfare issues/owner’s behaviour they have been following up, compare results using that.
Discuss solutions – what can people change, set new goals as group
If no change is believed possible, discuss potential alternative behaviours that could be adopted instead to meet their animals’ welfare needs (refer to the five domains)
Prioritize new indicators for action if some already addressed
Individual changes – changes in level of awareness, attitudes, behaviour
Societal level changes – aggregate changes, most significant change, less outbreaks of disease, infrastructure installed/improved/managed, collective actions
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Engagement Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Community Change Agents
It is important for the community change agent to plan beforehand when going to the community. This provides them with the framework to effectively engage the community and document the process, while also indicating the action points for future follow ups. The table below is an example of a template that the community change agents can prepare beforehand when going to the community. One of the roles of the community change agents is to organize the community. The process of organizing the community entails.
Step 1: Mobilizing and orienting the community
Step 2: Building the relationships, trust, credibility, and a sense of ownership with the community through planning.
Step 3: Inviting the community to fully participate
Then, in step 4: Form the community action group (CAG).
The table matrix below can be used to plan for community mobilization by the community change agents.
Date
Venue
Activity
Objectives
Resources required
Responsible person
Indicators
After community mobilization, the change agents need to plan with the community orientation/engagement process. The table below can provide a guide on how the community change agents can plan for the community engagement/orientation process in advance.
Community planning
The goal of the community planning__________________
OBJECTIVES
BARRIERS/ OPPORTUNITIES
STRATEGIES
ACTIVITIES
PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE
RESOURCES
TIMELINE
INDICATORS OFSUCCESS
What do we want to achieve specifically related to the animal welfare issue
What challenge do we think we will face in trying to achieve this result?
How are we going to achieve our goal?
What are we going to do to achieve the result?(Activities)
Who is responsible for each activity (ADD HERE NAMES OF PERSON[S])
What resources do we need to achieve the result?
When? How long is needed for each activity?(From____ to_____)
How will we know when we have achieved the result?(Measurable, observable outcomes)
At a personal level, the community change agents can use the below template (adopt as necessary) to plan for their activities, either in the community or at the household level.
An adaptation of a traditional transect walk [48], this animal welfare transect walk can be used as part of a participatory animal welfare needs assessment of the welfare status of animals. It encourages participants to make direct observations of the animals themselves by looking at the animals, the resources in their environment and the owner’s, user’s, carer’s handling and management practices. This is a useful tool for exploring animal welfare conditions and the realities of resources available to animals within a community.
The findings from this exercise, coupled with analysis from the contributing root causes for any welfare problems (T21, T25and/or T26) can be used to prepare animal welfare improvement plans for individual or groups of animals. It can also be used to monitor changes in animal welfare over time if conducted at different points in time, and recorded observations compared to assess change.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify which animals are in the best/worst condition and have the best/worst welfare. • To identify the most common animal welfare problems within the community • To understand which welfare issues owners, users, carers prioritize. • To inform community action planning and target capacity building activities to address community-identified priority welfare issues. • To identify which owners, users, carers may be good candidates to target as animal welfare champions in the community, when used in conjunction with the results from T1. Using these two tools together should identify individuals with the highest potential to be exemplary champions and potential mentors to others.
5-10 minutes for each animal in the walk + 1 hour for discussion
Materials needed:
Sheets of paper, pen, coloured markers (red, yellow, green)
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Needs Assessment, Monitoring and Evaluation
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings, and Needs, Animal Husbandry and Management; Community Change Agentsnts / Resilience
Animal welfare transect walk
The animal welfare transect walk gives a more complete and detailed view of animal welfare because the animals are present for the group to examine, whereas the previousanimal welfare mapping exercise (T1) or body mapping exercise (T20), only gives an overall ‘bird’s-eye’ view of the animal conditions in a community, as described by their owners without the animals present. In this way, the transect walk can strengthen or triangulate the information from these mapping exercises.
An animal-owning community carried out an animal welfare transect walk using a green, yellow, red traffic light system to score 25 animal welfare indicators that they had identified during their previous discussions and exercises, including 5 that directly relate to owner and carer behaviour (environmental factors). In this example, environmental factors were included because participants’ had a good understanding of animal welfare issues at the activity was carried out. However, it is also possible to modify this tool by using only animal condition indicators, which may be helpful in when participants have not yet gained a good understanding of factors contributing to good animal welfare.
Figure T22a Animal welfare transect walk recording sheet using traffic light signals
After the walk, the owners sat down together and analysed the score for each individual animal by summarizing the vertical columns on their recording sheet. In this example, Ahmad’s animal was found to be in the worst condition, with 11 red (‘bad’) and 2 amber (‘medium’) marks, followed by Walia’s animal which had 6 red and 2 amber welfare issues. After looking at all the individual animals, the group then summarized the horizontal rows to find out which welfare issues were most common in their village. Shelter cleanliness was the biggest issue in the community, with five of eight animals marked red. The group followed this exercise with a root cause analysis (consider using T25andT26) and inserted the results in the community action plan for action by individual owners and collectively.
Animal Welfare Transect Walk Using Traffic Light Signals
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the animal welfare transect walk to the group and involve all participants in the process of decision-making about which indicators of good and poor animal welfare are going to be observed. Create a safe learning environment at the start of this activity if this tool is being used as entry at Initiation phase to nurture positive motivation for further engagement.
To facilitate discussion and identification of observable animal welfare indicators, consider referring to the outputs of one or more of the following tools if already conducted:
Depending on participants’ understanding of animal welfare issues at the time this activity is carried out, it may be appropriate to focus only on indicators of animal body condition and consider adding indicators related to environmental/owner practices as the tool is used repeatedly and community participants’ understanding of animal welfare improves.
Alternatively, as the facilitator, you have an important role here: to check that the list represents all aspects of animal welfare as sometimes we find that the owners’ checklist only contains signs of physical welfare. If you notice this, it may be helpful to ask probing questions to encourage them to think about observable indicators of their animals’ welfare in terms of the five domains of animal welfare (e.g. nutrition, health, environment, behaviour, and mental state). After the group has finalized their list, sit together with them and check whether all aspects of welfare are covered.
Discuss the agreed animal welfare indicators thoroughly with all members of the group as well as the animal owners and carers from each household visited and agree a score for each one.
Step 2
Once the group has decided which observations to make, agree how the observations and discussions will be captured or recorded and who will take responsibility for this. Ask the community to decide what symbols will be used to record the result of each observation.
Examples include:
• Traffic light signals: good/best animal condition shown with green dot, moderate issues with animal condition with amber/yellow dot, worst condition with a red dot. Sometimes just red and green are used. • A tick/check mark might be used for good and a cross for bad. • Instead of a traffic light system, numerical scores might be assigned. For example: Red/cross = 0, Yellow/amber = 1, Green/tick/check = 2. If only red/green are used, then Red = 0 and Green = 1.
Step 3
Decide whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and the surroundings.
Step 4
The community group should walk the route together, visiting all the households where animals are kept and the surrounding areas to look at each animal carefully. The group will often wish to make additions and alterations to the agreed observations. Any animal welfare issues which have emerged from other tools and exercises may also be discussed with the group during the walk.
Step 5
After returning from the walk, ask the group to summarize and analyse their record sheets:
• Have the participants add up the scores or numbers of red, yellow/amber, and green dots vertically to give a summary of the welfare problems of the animals. This can be used by the group to formulate individual action plans for owners. • Adding up the scores or dots horizontally will give a score for the whole community or group for that welfare parameter and add identified welfare issues to the “issues” column of the Community Action Plan. • Come to a consensus on the animal welfare successes and problems and discuss possible contributing factors. Discussion questions might include: - What welfare indicators are most in need of improvement and which are best performing? What are the reasons? - Why did some participants score higher than others? What are they doing differently than others who had lower scores? - What are the implications of these welfare issues on their animals’ physical and mental state, and on the lives of different household members? For example, do these welfare issues impact women, men, boys, or girls differently? - What could feasibly be done to improve their animals’ current welfare situation and replicate successes?
Record any identified ‘actions to be taken’ in the relevant column of the community action plan and have participants agree on a frequency to animal welfare transect walk activity to monitor progress (monthly, quarterly, etc.).
Facilitation Notes
If there are large numbers of animals, carry out the same exercise over several days so that all animals or a representative number of animals and households are covered.
This exercise can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group and agree a suitable time to set aside for doing it.
If this exercise is planned to be undertaken in the project initiation phase or to support rapport building, it is imperative to create a safe and learning environment and build understanding about why scoring is part of the exercise.
It is helpful for participants to have a general understanding of animal welfare and related animal husbandry and management best practices prior to conducting this exercise. Consider conducting the following activities to raise awareness of animal welfare, feelings and needs, and help inform the identification of animal welfare related indicators to use during the transect walk:
T17 ‘If I were an animal’: raises awareness of what animals’ need and how they depend on people experience positive welfare states
T19 Animal feelings analysis: helps promote understanding of animal feelings and related physical expressions and behaviours indicative of those feelings.
T20 Animal body mapping: helps identify animal-based indicators of welfare status which can be used in the transect walk, and can serve as a useful sensitization exercise improve understanding of indicators of good and bad animal welfare.
Decide with the community in advance whose animals will be visited and the route of the transect walk. Fix a time when the group will go on the walk. It is essential that the owner and family of each animal visited are present when the group is visiting his or her animal and surroundings.
Animal welfare transect walks may be repeated at regular intervals and the results compared with previous walks. This enables participants to monitor and evaluate changes in the welfare status of individual animals, and changes management practices and availability of animal-related resources.
Next Steps
Once the participatory animal welfare needs assessment is complete, you can prioritize issues to address using one of the following tools:
Alternatively or in addition, you can explore the causes and effects of welfare issues by following the transect walk up with one of the following activities
Project Phase: Planning Phase, Implementation Phase, Exit and Evaluation Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach
Stages of Behaviour Change: Preparation Stage, Action Stage, Maintenance Stage
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Group Formation/Strengthening
The community will go through a process of identifying the different animal welfare issues, prioritizing them, and using the template provided below to document the results of their reflections and decisions.
Facilitation Notes:
The table can be filled after
· After communities identify and ranked them in order of importance, pick the prioritized animal welfare issue. Document the identified major root causes and let them discuss and identify the actions/behaviours or solutions. Such actions need to be owned by the community members to tackle them at community/group level or at each group member’s household level. Ensure appropriate participatory process of exploration, learning and reflection takes place before coming into agreement and developing/populating the community action plan. The developed action plan needs to be monitored, and members should be encouraged to be accountable and also express challenges they encountered.
It is important to note that some of the proposed actions may have been tried out previously by the equine owners with minimal or no success, hence the facilitator should probe further to ensure participants reflect through any previous actions and what was the gap and settle on the actions with greater chances of realising the changes anticipated.
· This document will serve as a living document to plan action as well as to continue to re-prioritize actions to be taken by the group on their own or in conjunction with other external stakeholders that will support them to execute the actions they have identified. It is thus important for facilitator’s to frequently remind community members to review developed action plans and report back or adapt them based on emerging needs and changes.
· *one prioritized issue can have more than one action; so add rows to identify and each action can be monitored by different stakeholders and have different success indicators
· * Actions – could include a specific behaviour/actions they agreed to take individually and/or collectively.
· *frequency could include community members checking/supporting each other as part of peer support to provide practical or/and emotional support to one another
· Timeline – when the identified action is done and when it needs to be reported
· *who is responsible is taking the action and they need to report back when the group meets again/in the group meetings; this could also be used as a behaviour change technique of monitoring each other’s practice of a desired behaviour
Storytelling and guided testimonials can be used to connect with communities and encourage individuals to act. Stories are entertaining, are easy to remember, and allow people to identify with the characters. Stories can move people to action by inspiring and showing solutions to a problem. For the purposes of this guide, this tool has been adapted to animal welfare related stories.
T24a: Closed-Ended Story
A closed-Ended Story is an account of an event (true or imaginary) that is intended to promote a specific animal welfare behaviour to solve a particular animal welfare problem.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To support communities to act on animal welfare issues, by promoting a specific behaviour. • Provide communities with solutions to different animal welfare issues they face in the community.
1.5 - 2 hours.
Materials needed:
pre-preparation of a closed ended story, handouts of the story, flip chart paper
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation Stage, Preparation
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Community Change Agents
The following are examples of closed ended stories which were created to encourage donkey owners to adopt the desired behaviours of cleaning and drying their animals’ pack saddles before using them with animals (Example 1) and cleaning their donkey’s hooves after work (Example 2). Refer to steps below for instructions on crafting closed ended stories relevant to your own context, using these example stories for reference.
Closed Ended Story Example 1: Caring for animal equipment before use
Bibek was the owner of a donkey who carried bricks by pack in the brick kilns in Nepal. Each day, Bibek would prepare the animal for work. First offering some food and water. Next, looking over his animal and brushing off the excess dust from its body. One day Bibek noticed his donkey flinching in response to the brushing. When Bibek looked more closely at his animal, he noticed a few red, raw wounds. The hairs around those wounds were dirty and matted. It took a few attempts to get the pack saddle on his donkey. Bibek could tell his donkey did not want to wear the saddle, it kept moving away. But they had to go now or risk losing money!
Bibek felt pressure and forced the saddle on. He wished it were not so hard! During a tea break, Bibek asked other workers whether their animals had wounds. They all said yes. The wounds were hard to see during work because they were hidden by the pack saddles. At the end of the day, Bibek took off the sweaty pack saddle and dropped it to the dusty earth. The donkey was left to wander, flies swarming around the sweat and open wounds.
Bibek went to the local shop. Other men were having tea outside the shop, with their donkeys tied up nearby. Bibek noticed these donkeys did not have any wounds. Yet, everyone in this area of Nepal must work in the brick kilns. How did their donkeys not have wounds, when all the donkeys in his village did? He greeted the men and said, 'your donkeys look very good, they have no wounds.' The men explained that there was a time when all their animals had wounds. One day, Hari, a man in their village, made changes to the pack saddles they all used. Hari was also trained in first aid and because of this he understood the importance of keeping the pack saddle clean and dry each day and keeping the donkey's coat clean too. This kept away the flies and reduced any infection.
Because of this, Bibek said 'wow, I would like to meet Hari!' And so, they arranged to meet. After their meeting, Hari supported Bibek's community to make changes to the pack saddles. And why it is important to keep clean the sweaty saddles and animals. Slowly the wounds reduced and went from all the donkeys. Ever since seeing that change, Bibek felt so happy to realise he had helped his whole community and their animals all because he started a discussion about why other donkeys did not have wounds.
Closed Ended Story Example 2: Hoof Cleaning
Amina lives in rural Kenya. She is married and has two daughters. Amina recently began working as a water vendor in the nearby market and entirely relies on her two donkeys for her livelihood. Amina is part of a women's group. Everyone in the group uses donkeys to make an income. Amina looks forward to their meetings. It is so nice to talk about life with others! Her daughters, Neema and Zawadi are responsible for the donkeys before and after the market trips. Neema did not like the donkeys. To her, they are big and strong. Neema had seen the donkeys together. Sometimes the donkeys were calm but sometimes they look to be fighting! It made Lela afraid. Neema is happy to clean the stable, fetch food and water when the donkeys are away but because she is scared, she does not want to go near the donkeys.
Amina had learned at her recent group meeting the importance of picking the dirt and debris out of her donkey’s hooves 1-2 times per day, especially after journeys. Excited with her new knowledge, she told Neema to clean out their donkey’s hooves twice a day, especially after journeys. This made Neema feel very bad. She thought ‘how can I do this when I am afraid of our donkeys?’ Neema told her mother how she felt. Amina then realised she was not sure how to do this new task either and it made her nervous too. Amina knew a man, Baraka who always talked about his donkeys. He values them, they look in great condition and are easy to work with. Shani wondered what his secret was. She asked Baraka to join one of her woman’s group meetings and demonstrate how to clean out her donkey’s hooves so that everyone was able, and nobody was afraid. She brought Neema and Zawadi to the meeting.
Baraka demonstrated how to safely approach the donkey and how to gently ask the donkey to lift its leg. ‘Who would like to try now?’ Baraka asked. He knew from Amina that Neema was afraid. Baraka wanted to show Neema how to work with a donkey gently, safely, and confidently. Baraka said, ‘how about you Neema? I can help you learn that donkeys are very nice and can be easy to work with – you just need to learn how.’ Neema thought to herself that Baraka had made cleaning out the hooves look so easy! Maybe he was a magician! She found the courage to try. Baraka explained how donkeys like to be approached and how to restrain them safely for husbandry tasks. He shows Neema how to ask the animal to lift its leg. Then he showed her how to clean out the hooves. First the front legs, then the back. Baraka explained to Neema that it was perfectly normal to be nervous around donkeys. Once you learn how to move around them and ask them gently to do things, working with a donkey can be very nice.
Baraka checked in on Amina’s family a few weeks later. Ever since his demonstration and mentoring, everyone in the family can gently, safely, and confidently lift the legs and clean out the hooves of the family’s donkeys twice a day. However, Neema always wants to be the one to clean the hooves. She is not afraid anymore and feels proud doing the task and of her donkeys.
Closed-Ended Story
Step 1
You need to prepare a story beforehand. Refer to the closed ended story examples provided above for ideas when adapting your own to suit the context and issues relevant to the community. Consider the following guidelines in developing their own context specific story:
• A closed ended story should aim to identify animal welfare issue and associated problem behaviour. • Highlight the impacts on the animal and its feelings because of the problem, consider including elements about societal perceptions of the problem (and these could be framed positively to encourage desired behaviour (e.g., neighbours’ frown on the poor condition of animal and judge owner), or be reflective of the reflect reality even if negative and a barrier to change), • The Story should link to the consequences for people/owners/target actors whenever feasible, and include the subject identifying problem/developing awareness, reflecting on problem and their role in it, weighing pros and cons of change which should reflect local perceptions. • The story could be crafted in a way that it is used to raise doubts about current beliefs/practices which are hindering willingness to act, and then contemplating potential solutions, deciding, and preparing a course of action, and reflecting on benefits of having made the change. • The story should have a final verdict at the end where all the details are wrapped up and leave the reader knowing how it ends.
Step 2
Ask participants how many of them have recently heard or told a story. What kinds of stories? Where did they hear or tell them? Then explain that in this session, they will talk about one type of story, the closed-ended story, sharing the definition of a closed-ended story with community participants so they are clear on what it is.
Explain to the participants that you will now read a closed-ended story. You may wish to distribute handouts of the story if helpful.
Step 3
Discuss the story in small groups or in plenary by posing questions that promote reflection, learning and action in relation to the story you read. The following questions are provided for general guidance; however, you are encouraged to adapt them and create your own to ensure relevance to your story:
• What was the main problem in the story? • What happened to animal in this story? What symptoms did the animal have? • What did the subject(s) think cause the problem/symptoms? • What did others in the story think about the issue and/or express about tissue? • What was the solution to the problem? • What did we learn from this story? • Do you know anyone who has ever had a similar problem? And how did they solve it? • How could this issue be prevented or resolved in your context? • Could the problem be addressed by doing something like what was done in this story? • What would you do in this scenario? • What commitments to action can you make from the lessons gathered from this story?
Step 4
Record any key insights from the community’s analysis and responses in your project action trackerwhich may be relevant to your project planning and implementation (e.g., community members’ stages of change and identified to support their progress, potential barriers, and motivators to change etc.), and consider adding any key actions communities identify to take within theircommunity action plan as appropriate.
Facilitation Notes
You are encouraged to craft a story that is relevant to your context and which community members can easily relate with and refer to the example stories provided for ideas on how to design a story that promotes reflection, learning and action.
It is recommended to review the example reflection and learning questions provided within the steps and adapt them as needed to ensure they reflect your own story prior to undertaking this activity to save time and ensure the activity runs smoothly and generates effective discussion when implemented.
Consider asking both men and women, and other relevant social or marginalized groups to provide their reflections on stories separately. Different participants may draw different conclusions from the same story that is ok as this reflects their different views and lived experiences of the topic discussed. This is important as it will provide insights on different groups perspectives which can help you better understand these groups and how best to work different groups and tailor your interventions to support them in improving their animals’ welfare.
Next Steps
The tool can be supplemented with T24b. Animal Welfare Before and After Story, to support with determining the next steps to take in addressing the animal welfare situation.
T24b: Animal Welfare Before and After Story
This tool uses a ‘before and after’ story to stimulate discussion about how to change from a situation of poor animal welfare to a situation where welfare is improved.
The Animal welfare story with a gap uses a pair of pictures, to show a ‘before’ situation relating to a working animal and the other showing an ‘after’ scenario where the animal’s welfare has improved.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To elicit discussions on animal welfare issues; showing the situation as it was and how it has improved. • To Understand the Steps to a Desired Change • To help the community come up with strategies for improving animal welfare issues by identifying the steps that would need to be taken to achieve what is represented in the improved picture.
2 hours.
Materials needed:
large paper, note cards, markers, and pre-prepared pictures of animals before and after welfare issue has been resolved.
Stages of Behaviour Change: Contemplation Stage, Preparation
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Community Change Agents
The illustration below shows a community engaging using the animal welfare before and after story. The discussions include comparison of two different set of welfare situations presented in pictures. The participants are discussing both drawings and filling in the gap in the story by identifying the steps that would need to be taken to achieve what is represented in the improved picture.
Figure T24b Community members discussing welfare.
Animal Welfare Before and After Story
Step 1
For this exercise you need to prepare the pictures beforehand: use drawings or photographs of existing animal management situations or practices in the community.
Step 2
Divide the participants into several small groups and give each group the same set of ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures. Ask each group to begin by considering the ‘before’ picture, such as a picture of a animal with wounds, and to discuss why the situation has occurred. Next, ask each group to discuss the ‘after’ scene of the improved situation, such as an animal with fewer or no wounds. Then ask the groups what steps they think they might take to get from the ‘before’ to the ‘after’ scenario (in other words how they would fill the gap in the story), what obstacles they might have in their way, and what resources they would need to do this.
Step 3
Bring the different groups together and ask each group to tell the stories they have created. Encourage the groups to weigh the benefits of each suggestion for improving animal welfare and discuss more ways to overcome the obstacles. Use the following questions provided as a general guide during the discussions, however you are encouraged to adapt them and create your own to ensure relevance to your story:
• What steps would you need to act and make this change a reality in your context? • What resources or support exist to support you in taking these steps? If necessary, resources or support are lacking, what alternatives exist or how could you investigate or learn more about how others have overcome this issue or go about securing these resources/support?
Step 4
Record the community’s analysis and responses in your project action tracker and follow up with the community later if/when you start action planning together.
Facilitation Notes
You are encouraged to consider asking both men and women, and other relevant social or marginalized groups to provide their reflections separately.
Facilitate the discussion of ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenarios by ensuring that the animal welfare context is clearly shown.
More interpretations and suggestions can be gathered by dividing the participants into several small focus groups (for example of women and men, young and old people, or other categories) and giving each the same set of pictures. After analysing the drawings, the focus groups can come together to report on their discussions and compare their views.
Ensure to document the experiences of different community groups views as it may be unique to their intersecting identities and lived experiences.
T24c: Open-Ended Story Telling
Open-Ended Story is an account of an event (true or imaginary) that talks about a problem but does not explain what to do about it. In an open-ended story, listeners are asked to generate as many as possible solutions to a complex problem. In the context of animal welfare, the community may be asked to suggest as many as possible solutions to an animal welfare related story.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To promote discussion and support identification of ideas for solution to a complex issue or problem for which no clear strategy has been identified.
1.5 -2 hours.
Materials needed:
pre-preparation of an open-ended story, handouts of the story, large paper, note cards, markers.
The following are example of an open-ended story were created to help communities identify solutions for addressing heat stress in their animals. Refer to steps below for instructions on crafting an open-ended story relevant to your own context, using this example for reference.
Open-ended Story Example: Providing water to animals
Heat stressed animals — all species [behaviour — immediate: cool the animal down; longer-term: provide animals with free access to water without interruption, disturbance, or distraction]
Temperatures are starting to rise. Nobody looked forward to this time of year when temperatures would reach 40 Celsius / 100 Fahrenheit in the day. It is not comfortable for people and animals alike — especially when there are market trips to do. Abha and his wife Kanti set out in the early morning to reach the market by 6am. The trip would take 3 hours in each direction. They travelled by cart, pulled by their horse, who had recently given birth. Her foal either ran alongside or joined the family on the cart.
The marketplace was very busy. There were many families, with livestock and things to sell. The goods for sale were organised in different sections. Abha was selling grain. The marketplace was hot, open without any natural shade. Some families were clever! They brought poles and material to create their own shade. Water was available at a few locations around the market. When Abha and Kanti arrived at the market and began preparations to sell their grain, Kanti noticed their horse breathing very heavy. Her nostrils were flaring/widening, her head was held very low, and her stomach was moving in and out very fast. Kanti also noticed her foal was trying to nurse and struggling. Kanti got distracted by an interested buyer.
An hour later, Kanti noticed their horse was still breathing very heavy. Kanti then remembered seeing bullocks in the village doing the same thing and the local healer insisted the animals were cooled down. It was dangerous the animals were so hot that they were no longer sweating. They needed to recover from the heat outside and heat generated from working. Abha and Kanti wondered what options they had to cool down their horse. They worried they would not be able to travel home if their horse was sick.
Open-Ended Story
Step 1
You need to prepare a story beforehand. Refer to the open ended story example provided above for ideas when adapting your own. An open-ended story should include: • A story should aim to identify animal welfare issue and associated problem behaviour. • Highlight the impacts on the animal and its feelings because of the problem, consider including elements about societal perceptions of the problem (and these could be framed positively to encourage desired behaviour (e.g., neighbours’ frown on the poor condition of animal and judge owner), or be reflective of the reality even if negative and a barrier to change), • The Story should link to the consequences for people/owners/target actors whenever feasible, and include the subject identifying problem/developing awareness, reflecting on problem and their role in it, weighing pros and cons of change which should reflect local perceptions. • The story should not have a final verdict at the end, and allow the listeners to provide what the imagine should be the end of the story and well as opportunity to suggest what needs to be done Once you have the story ready, ask participants how many of them have recently heard or told a story. What kinds of stories? Where did they hear or tell them? Then explain that in this session, they will talk about one type of story, the open-ended story. Then share with the community the definition you prepared in advance of what an open-ended story is and explain the definition. An Open-Ended Story is an account of an event (true or imaginary) that talks about a problem but does not explain what to do about it.
Step 2
Explain to the participants that you will now read an open-ended story. See an example of the story in figure T24c below. Distribute the story Handout: Open-Ended Story. Read the story with the participants. Discuss the story in small groups or in plenary by posing the questions for the story you read:
Step 3
The discussions can be guided by the following questions. • What were the main problems in the story? What went wrong? • How could these problems have been prevented? • Have people in your community ever had these kinds of problems? • How can we prevent this problem?
Step 4
Ask participants when they might want to use a closed-ended story and when might they want to use an open-ended story. Allow participants time to answer. Summarize the discussion in your project action tracker and follow up with the community later if/when you start action planning together.
Facilitation Notes
The stories provided are examples, and you are encouraged to craft a story that is relevant to your context and which community members can easily relate with. You may refer to the example stories provided for ideas on how to design a story that promotes reflection, learning and action.
It is recommended to review the example reflection and learning questions provided within the steps and adapt them as needed to ensure they reflect your own story prior to undertaking this activity to save time and ensure the activity runs smoothly and generates effective discussion when implemented.
Consider asking both men and women, and other relevant social or marginalized groups to provide their reflections on stories separately. Different participants may draw different conclusions from the same story that is ok as this reflects their different views and lived experiences of the topic discussed. This is important as it will provide insights on different groups perspectives which can help you better understand these groups and how best to work different groups and tailor your interventions to support them in improving their animals’ welfare.
This resource includes three example trackers you may wish to use to support your work. These are designed for community engagement staff, as a way to record key discussions from community visits, track progress, and capture outcomes. Using trackers will help you to:
Be accountable to the communities you work with
Provide the support requested by communities during your visits
Keep track of actions and ensure that they are completed on time
Evidence progress and requests for further support from your organisation or potential partner organisations
Report to donors more easily
Each of these trackers are suggestions only, and should be adapted and used as is appropriate for your team and context. It may not be appropriate or required to use some of these trackers for all projects so you can pick and choose as is helpful for your work.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach, Societal Outreach and Campaigns Approach
Project Support: Facilitator Resources, Documentation and Reporting
1. Team Action Tracker
The Team Action Tracker keeps a record of actions to be taken by staff/partner staff teams to support identified animal welfare issues. The tracker is informed by PLA activities and directly supports the community action plan.
The tracker should be populated and updated by community engagement staff. It helps to track which animal welfare issues were identified, using which PLA tools, and captures the follow up actions to be taken by the team to both support the community action plan.
Invite a vet to sensitize on colic (1st priority) during next community meeting.
2. Project/Regional Action Tracker
The Project/Regional Action Tracker is designed to collate information from across communities to inform project/regional planning. Information included within the tracker is populated with information taken from PLA activities and community action plans from within the project/regional operational area. The Project/Regional Action Tracker can support with identifying the scale of different issues, tracking different actions/strategies planned, and recording ideas for actions to take/improvement which should be further explored. The goal is to help teams keep track of outcomes of activities with communities for greater strategic coordination and support for planning and development of projects. The utility of this resource will depend on the scale of the project/programme and may not be needed in all project contexts.
Animal Welfare Issue
Regions & communities where issues was identified as priority
Key actions / strategies to take
Person responsible
Timeline / Deadline
Additional actions / Ideas for improvement
Status / Update
Feeding
Halaba: 17 communities
Regional training on proper feeding practices scheduled for 30th May 2019
Drought (water shortage)
Dodola: 14 communities
· Speaking to WaterAid about opportunities to link communities with water savings programmes
3. Staff Action Tracker
The Staff Action Tracker is designed to support community engagement staff to document their community visits, activities, and action points for follow up.
Staff Name: Community/site:
Visit/ Meeting Date
Number of participants and equines targeted
Community engagement activities Key topics/issues discussed (incl. follow up on progress of action points/results identified in previous meeting/visit)
Identified action points and results expected to be achieved by community Persons responsible + expected achievement date
Identified actions for staff Person responsible + expected achievement date
Action point: 1. Sensitization on hoof care & possible handling for women 2. Follow up on how sharing of stable cleaning activities are going Staff responsible: Expected achievement date:
07/06/2019
# Participants: 10
# Equines:
T15 Cost-benefit analysis – not over-loading · Implementation costs · Cost on animal · Cost on HH if adopted or not · Benefits of mixed feed
Action point/result expected: 1. Reduce from 10 quantal/3 trips to 8 quantal/4 trips 2. Buy wheat bran in bulk to reduce cost (10 birr to 8.6 birr / kg) 3. Focus on balance loading Person responsible: Fanos & Azamach Expected achievement date: Meet to discuss in one week
Action point: 1. Check with animal welfare team that reduction in amount over more trips is good welfare 2. Make plan to collect money for bulk purchase of feed 3. Support selection of money managers 4. Provide support/training on cart balancing & feed mixing 5. Sensitizing shop keeper about over-loading 6. Identify feed sellers who are willing to sell in bulk for reduced cost 7. Revisit for support planning in 15 days Staff responsible: Expected achievement date:
07/06/2019
# Participants:
# Equines:
T14 Group inter-loaning
Action point/result expected: 1. Carry out activity in smaller groups
Action point: 1. Evaluate seed money strategy – focus seed money on direct equine-benefited activities
07/06/2019
# Participants: 10
# Equines?
T15 Cost-benefit analysis – not over-loading: · Implementation costs · Cost on animal · Cost on HH if adopted or not · Benefits of mixed feed
Action point/result expected: 4. Reduce from 10 quantal/3 trips to 8 quantal/4 trips 5. Buy wheat bran in bulk to reduce cost (10 birr to 8.6 birr / kg) 6. Focus on balance loading
Person responsible: Fanos & Azamach
Expected achievement date: Meet to discuss in one week
Action point: 1. Check with animal welfare technical support staff to evaluate potential welfare implications of community’s proposed action. 2. Revisit for support planning in 15 days
Staff responsible: TBD, consult with AHM and UK AW team
The purpose of the implementation phase is to help community members either build on existing community-based organizations (CBOs) or start to build their own CBOs to implement their community action plan, monitor it regularly and reflect on their findings and experiences together.
3.1.1 Community Based Organisation Formation and strengthening
At this point you will have found several people with shared interests in improving their animals’ welfare who have taken part in activities together. Ideally it is easier to facilitate and encourage already functioning CBOs as they have already developed their own systems of working together towards the achievement of a shared goal, and their relationships and procedures will already be in place. Group stabilisation and strengthening is an ongoing process using the resources 14. Overview of community group formation process, and common challenges and factors influencing group success, and 15. Templates for supporting community group governance can aid development of community groups as they contain useful templates and checklists for guidance. The use of facilitation resource T28 Group sustainability mapping can be used to support group strengthening.
It is recommended that CBOs show the following:
Fair leadership
Good governance
Are inclusive both in terms of promoting gender equality, and not discriminating against marginalised community groups
If CBOs exist which do not meet the above criteria, you may wish to explore opportunities for strengthening these groups to address any identified gaps. If no functioning CBOs exist amongst the community members you are working with, you will need to facilitate the formation of new CBOs, this a crucial step, which needs your support and experience. The CBO can be composed of men, women and children, or separate groups may be formed as appropriate.
Following the four-stage plan for CBO formation will aid the group development process, as outlined in Figure 40 below:
Figure 40: Stages of Group Development [70]
Key Characteristics of Community-based Organizations:
A CBO is not just any collection of community members. It is those who come together with commitment to improving animal welfare, with shared objectives, goals or purpose and a plan.
Members work together to design plans for collective action to improve welfare.
Communication between members is open, supportive and all voices are heard.
All members are aware about the membership criteria, the rules, procedures, rights, and responsibilities of members.
Regular meetings are held with active participation from members.
The size of the CBO allows all members to participate actively, small enough to not overwhelm and large enough to ensure effectiveness of any collective actions and sustainability of the group. As a rule of thumb, 15-30 members should be considered the maximum membership range for group functioning.
All members understand the reason for the CBO and have a shared sense of responsibility.
There is identified leadership, the members recognise the leadership and the leader/s lead actively.
Leadership is accountable, transparent and is on a rotational or election process.
Promote representativeness (including the leadership) of different CBOs to ensure they are not gender blind/gender exploitative and are inclusive of all people within the community, including those known to be marginalised. The groups must not promote existing systems of discrimination and must uphold safeguarding protection by ensuring they do not promote or engage in any forms of harm to people or the environment. Safeguarding needs to be considered by the project in terms of how they organize meetings and to ensure safety and security of members. Any activities must do no harm, it is essential to ensure there is due diligence so that when encouraging participation and empowering members they are not put at risk. Initial steps may involve working to promote equality and acceptance to mitigate harm that could be caused by sexual exploitation, abuse, harassment and bullying because of their work with the project. Sometimes it can be difficult to initiate collective action by some genders or social groups, in which case organizing CBOs with the opposite gender or other social groups may be easier, as other CBOs will often come together after seeing the success of the first. In some cases, it might be necessary to meet with the men or community leaders before forming CBOs with women or other traditionally marginalized groups, to be sensitive to cultural protocols, and explain the benefits that working with such groups can bring to families and/or the community.
If the experiences or interests of interested members are very mixed, they may not form a strong CBO. In this case, forming smaller groups of similar people) may be more effective than larger mixed groups. These smaller groups can then decide how to associate and network with others to form a larger organization, when they wish to manage broader issues of common interest.
Ask CBO members to select individuals to be ‘animal welfare advocates’ and encourage them to ensure representation of marginalized and vulnerable groups within these key leadership roles, potentially through the adoption of gender quotas as needed to ensure women’s’ representation in leadership roles. ‘Animal welfare advocates can then form a link between the CBO and service providers such as local animal health or resource service providers and may also be trained through the project as change agents, promoting understanding of animal welfare best practices amongst the broader community, and/or to provide basic animal first aid as appropriate. They can also stimulate enthusiasm and action by the group and lead processes such as participatory welfare needs assessments. As time goes on, ‘animal friends can take over some of the roles of the facilitator, which makes the process of withdrawal easier.
This community-led collective action will enable the CBO to sustain animal welfare interventions over long periods of time. A well-organized CBO will continue to function even after the withdrawal of your supporting agency and will provide a strong, stable institutional base from which to meet the requirements of the community and its animals.
Encourage the CBO to frame and review their own set of norms, rules, or by-laws. We find that these usually include:
Membership: who may join the CBO, what the CBO size should be and what happens when a member leaves or their membership is terminated.
CBO structure: how will the CBO be arranged such as chairperson, vice-chairperson, committee and their accountability level, general assembly, board and chairperson accountability and transparency levels.
Meetings: what is a quorum for the CBO, what happens if people are absent from meetings or turn up late to meetings.
Representatives: who represents the CBO, how representatives are chosen, whether they are rotated periodically and if so, how often this occurs?
Sanctions: what sanctions are needed for violation of the rules, and when exceptions may be made?
Common contribution: if membership of the CBO involves a common contribution or savings fund, what is the minimum amount to be contributed, whether withdrawal of savings is permitted, whether and how interest is paid on savings?
Loans: if loans can be taken from the CBO savings fund, how these are prioritised, what interest rate is charged, how the use of loans is monitored, and how defaulters are penalised for overdue loans.
Formalization of the group: when feasible it is recommended as formalization or legal registration of a CBO can enable it to advocate for its rights and needs, and potentially improve access to resources and/or services for the benefit their CBO or members.
It will take several meetings over a period of two or three months for the CBO to have a definite membership and up to a year for a strong and stable group to be established. By sticking to the agreed rules or norms, making collective decisions on a common action plan, and carrying out these actions either individually or together, the CBO becomes increasingly strong and effective.
3.1.2 Empower community based organisations to improve their capability, motivation and opportunity (COM-B) to achieve their vision of improved animal welfare
You should support CBOs to develop their capability, motivation, and opportunity (COM-B) to improve animal welfare. Your role as the facilitator is to contribute to the creation of an enthusiastic atmosphere and enabling environment where the CBO members can help each other with their agreed actions.
This includes:
Regular meetings to review individual and collective activities against the community action plan.
Generation of the resources needed to support their actions, for example through regular contribution of money to a common fund, or by creating links with other agencies, resource providers and government support schemes.
Generation of other external forms of support to implement their activities, if needed
Maintenance of a record or register by the group in which they record all their decisions. At the beginning you might need to initiate this process of recording and gradually hand it over to the group representatives. Where none of the group members are literate, they may decide to ask for help from a literate person or from school children in the village.
It is important to remember that change is a process, and that people can progress and relapse through the stages of change for any desired behaviour at any time. As a facilitator you will need to gauge the CBO’s stage of change with every interaction by listening for change talk, asking open ended questions, using reflective listening, and supporting the change process throughout the implementation phase. Refer to the recommended facilitator resource 6. Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change for guidance.
Figure 41: Mechanisms for Supporting Behaviour Change
Harness Commitment to Change
Encourage CBOs to set small, incremental, and achievable goals for action. It is more effective to set short term objectives for action that lead to results rather than setting objectives for achieving the results themselves [71].
Communicate the vision for change in terms of what the community members’ value frequently and consistently to help erode resistance to change [71].
Provide Positive Reinforcement
Develop social networks amongst stakeholder groups as geography permits, or within or between households, by helping them see how their interests and needs are interconnected and encourage them to provide support and encouragement to each other. By putting peers in a position of being accountable for one another, they reinforce their own progress through helping others [71].
Set up a system whereby members compete against a target achievement, and all those who achieve the target “win”. People are more likely to help one another win when they are competing against their own progress as opposed to competing against one another in a system where there is one “winner”, which can generate a lack of cooperation [71]. For example, set a target for individuals to improve their individual animal welfare results when the Animal Welfare Transect Walk (T22) is repeated. Consider providing households with a monitoring results tracker that they can keep, ideally posted someplace they will see it, to provide them with feedback on the impact of their behaviours and enable them to track their progress over time and serve as a motivating reminder for them to continue making progress.
Provide frequent, encouraging feedback to let the CBO members know how they are doing, ensuring people feel praised, supported, and encouraged.
Promote Self-efficacy
Elevate self-esteem by recognizing their attempts and celebrating their efforts to change even if unsuccessful, and ensure they are never made to feel less than or bad.
Role model behaviours helps demonstrate what is possible and helps them to believe they can make the desired changes. In addition, it is helpful to get members to encourage and support each other to harness social diffusion [31].
Draw Attention to the Feeling of Change
Draw their attention to the benefits and positive impacts of the adoption of desired behaviours over the behaviours it replaces based on their direct experiences [71]. Consider using the before and now analysis (T11b) tool to support this process.
Help members to feel change in terms of intrinsic satisfaction by connecting changes with what individuals’ value [71].
Help people connect with the consequences of their choices by telling meaningful stories. Consider using the Closed Ended Story Telling (T24a) tool to promote the adoption of desired behaviours.
It is important to remember that in almost all successful change efforts, emotions rather than facts are the most effective agents of change [20]. It is therefore important that reflection and learning opportunities are created to enable group members to feel something about the changes they are making and experience the benefits that the adoption of desired behaviours brings to their lives and the lives of their animals [20]. We recommend using the adult learning cycle whenever feasible as it focuses on facilitating processes for reflection and learning by focusing on:
Direct Experiences: drawing on participants personal experiences related to animal welfare improvements and behaviour change, and/or by conducting participatory learning and action activities, participatory demonstrations or presentations through which participants experience/feel new information for discussion and learning.
Facilitating Reflection: helping participants think about how experiences make them feel, analyse new information, and develop their own ideas about the specific topic or issue.
Generating Conclusions: encouraging participants to generalize lessons learned to draw broad conclusions for themselves about their experiences.
Promoting Application: enabling participants to visualize how they may apply their experience/new knowledge in their own lives in the future.
Figure 42: Reflection and Learning Process [7]
Incorporating reflection and learning through periodic meetings with the group/s to discuss and reflect on progress and monitoring results is useful for the following reasons:
Promotes accountability and improves community members’ commitment to adopting desired changes. Specifically, seeking voluntary commitments in these public forums and/or seeking group commitments can improve adoption of desired behaviours [31].
Generates peer pressure and peer motivation to influence individual actions, as well as opportunities for building social networks amongst peers to support change.
Generates increased knowledge about actions that work or don’t work in their action plans, leading to corrective action or improvement.
Better understand the barriers and motivators to adopting desired behaviours, and identify additional resources, support, and/or capacity building needs to address them.
Creates a sense of shared responsibility for dealing with challenges.
Promotes greater understanding of their animals’ welfare and their related behaviours that support or hinder its improvement.
3.1.3 Facilitate tiered organization of community groups to support collective action where appropriate
Depending on the number of CBOs, consider facilitating the formation of associations from amongst multiple community groups. This can be particularly helpful to supporting larger collective action, enabling better access to resources and resource providers, greater sustainability of change, and the ability of animal owning communities to advocate for their needs and rights more effectively through a broader unified voice. In some circumstances, a further level of organization may be helpful, with the formation of federations formed from amongst several associations. However, associations and larger federations are only effective when there is sufficient motivation and need to address collective issues of concern, otherwise they can become directionless and inactive and perceived to be a waste of time due to lack of utility.
Brooke Pakistan partners Sindh Rural Support Organization model of group organizing uses a tiered approach to social mobilization around human development priorities. In this approach “Local Support Organization” (LSO) acts much like a federation comprised of smaller “Village Organizations” (VO), which act as associations comprised of smaller Community Organizations (CO) acting as self-help groups. They are effective as they seek to address priority issues of communities, which is not always the case in the context of focusing on animal welfare issues.
Figure 43: Example of Sindh Rural Support Organizations Three Tiered Social Mobilization Approach
In a project in South-East Asia, a community identified that a key reason why their pony carts kept losing wheels, which in turn caused animal welfare issues, was that a key road through their community developed dangerous potholes after each rainy season. A group formed to work together to address this issue. The group organised their members, and others in the community, to each fill the holes in the road outside their dwellings so that all together the road was repaired. This group is convened after each rainy season to coordinate the road repair activities.
There are many examples worldwide where groups of people who give tourists rides in horses and carts have formed groups. Examples of activities of such groups include working together to negotiate the authorities to provide amenities such as shelter for their animals while waiting for customers and water points to allow their animals to drink; and working together to create rules that promote fair competition regarding attracting customers, for example, a queuing system.
In Kenya, Brooke East Africa (BEA), works with partners to engage the community. At the community level, BEA support the communities to form animal welfare groups. The community animal welfare groups then elect a representative to a county/or sub county umbrella group. Kenya is currently divided into 47 administrative areas (called counties). The county umbrella groups engage the county government to ensure county by laws support animal welfare, and resources are also allocated at the county level for improving animal welfare. From the county umbrella groups each county elects a representative to a national coalition (from the 47 counties), which is referred to as the Association of Donkey Owners of Kenya (ADOK). ADOK is responsible for engaging national government, including successfully petitioning the national government to ban donkey slaughter in Kenya.
Creating associations of groups of animals owning community members at levels beyond their immediate locale is an important method of sustaining momentum after you (the facilitator), your organization, or other external forms of support are withdrawn. However, it is important not to wait until the exit phase to begin work in establishing such associations as they will require time and capacity building to establish and are most sustainable when they are linked to supporting prioritized collective action or benefits for all.
3.2.1 Participatory monitoring of animal welfare and human behaviour change
Getting communities to monitor their progress is important to show tangible results for their efforts which in turn will encourage further support and effort for future improvements. This process helps indicate whether a community has all the resources it needs, how effectively the group/s are working together and whether they have something important they should share with other communities to disseminate information learned.
It is important to understand all the stages of change, anticipating that groups may be in pre-contemplation regarding some issues, and are likely to be in contemplation and preparation stages of change early on, developing into action and maintenance at the later stages of this process. Be aware though that behaviour can relapse backwards at any stage so refer to the facilitator resource 6. Techniques for Supporting Progress through the Stages of Change for support with this.
Participatory monitoring of animal welfare and behaviour change enables group members to feel proud and good about themselves, therefore more likely to maintain the changes they’ve adopted. Repeating the Animal welfare transect walk (T22), at intervals of one, two or three months, enables the group to monitor changes in the welfare of their animals. Their scores for each animal welfare issue are recorded on the same monitoring chart each time.
Group members then sit together again to reflect on their findings, both positive and negative. Improvement in scores shows the effect of the actions they have taken to improve management of their animals and to prevent welfare problems from occurring. If there is no improvement, or if scores decrease, possible reasons for this need to be discussed. They may identify gaps in their current practices, decide if further actions or closer monitoring are needed and record all relevant details to refer to as they progress.
3.2.2 Participatory review and reflection on monitoring results, community action plans, and lessons learned, adapting as needed
It is essential for the group to critically appraise the performance of both the individual members and the group collectively, for the animal welfare interventions to succeed. These positive, constructive appraisals translate action into learning which in turn translates into further action. The depth of reflection has a major effect on the quality of the action that follows.
Periodic tracking of progress can help group members to:
Build their interest in the intervention and their commitment to making it work.
Assess the roles of different stakeholders.
Understand the changing dynamics in their environment.
Generate increasing knowledge about actions that work or that are not effective in their community action plan, leading to corrective action or improvement.
Share responsibility for dealing with challenges.
Bring peer pressure and peer motivation to influence individual actions.
Trigger greater understanding, sensitivity, and care for their animals.
This will also enable you and your project to understand their situations and constraints more clearly. Two types of participatory monitoring are essential for the success of the action and reflection process:
Monitoring of group activities to check that group members and other stakeholders are doing what they agreed to do in their action plan. It is recommended this be a regular activity conducted every group meeting.
Monitoring of changes in animal welfare and related husbandry and management practices, which can be achieved by repeating the Animal welfare transect walk (T22).
During this process:
Organize regular group meetings to review individual and collective efforts towards welfare improvement.
Check and record the activities agreed in the community action plan to ensure that they are carried out.
Generate resources needed for implementation of the plan, through collective contribution and by forming links with other resource providers.
Initiate support for implementation of those activities that need external support.
Analyse the results of the Animal welfare transect walk recording chart.
Take corrective action to keep the plan on track and/ or to develop new action points.
We have found when refinement of community action plans occurs, it commonly occurs in two ways. First, as the group increases its sensitivity towards its animals, the members choose to use a longer list of welfare changes that they want to measure, and they create more detailed scoring systems for these. They will do these themselves in time. If they do not, you should not introduce more complexity because it is important that the community decides what they feel is useful to measure. Both the animal-based indicators and those relating to resources or management practices increase in number and complexity. Second, group members start to come up with more root causes and the associated welfare-promoting actions that need to be encouraged, and they include these in their community action plan and recording system.
Holding meetings for reflection and learning, lead the group in collectively looking at their activities, to find out whether they were carried out as agreed and whether they led to the desired change in a welfare issue. Have group members sit together to reflect on findings from their participatory monitoring, both positive and negative. The group will find that some issues can be resolved quickly (e.g. within three months), while others take longer, and some will not change despite the group’s action. This stimulates further discussion, which can be further supported through root cause analysis on these specific issues, using the Problem animal tool (T25) or Animal welfare cause and effect analysis (T26). This second level of root cause analysis is an essential step in the process of solving the more difficult or long-term welfare problems facing animals. In addition, the Animal Welfare Practice Gap Analysis (T21) may be useful to use here as it can enable the group to assess its’ progress against initial results of activity if previously conducted, explore the extent to which they have been able to change their animal care practices to meet their animals’ needs, and highlight potential constraints they may be facing in adopting these new practices.
If improving the quality of animal health service providers was an issue the group prioritized to address, implementing the Community Score Card (T35) activity anew and comparing results can help inform the group’s reflection and learning as it will enable them to evaluate changes from initial results. To aid reflection and learning and development of collective actions the following facilitator resources are useful: Dependency Analysis (T12), Income, expenditure, and credit analysis (T13), Group inter-loaning analysis (T14). In addition, the Cost Benefit analysis (T15) can generate motivation to act by enabling communities to weigh the costs and benefits of action vs inaction for both animals and people.
In addition, it can also be useful to the group’s reflection and learning to ask the group to look back further, comparing the situation before they started to implement their community action plan with the situation now. Using the Before and Now Analysis (T11b) tool can support this process. The group analyses which actions have been most effective and which less effective and the reasons why. This helps participants to learn, to change their interventions if necessary and to plan for continuing action. Matrix ranking (T9) can be used to compare the relative success of the activities taken up. During this part of the analysis, it is also useful to discuss the achievements and difficulties faced while working together as a group, with reasons for these, and how any difficulties were overcome. The resource 14. Overview of Community Group Formation Process, Challenges, and Factors Influencing Group Success has a section on Common Challenges and Solutions Related to Community-based Organizations/ Governance which can support this process. When groups are faced with complex problems, they have yet to be able to solution, consider using Open Ended Story Telling (T24c) to help them to brainstorm possible solutions to the complex issue they are facing.
Community groups will go through an iterative planning process adapting their action plans throughout the course of the project. Upon achievement of desired results, encourage the group to decide whether to initiate community action planning to address new priorities or issues. In this case, support the group to identify new priorities and enable all participants to progress through the stages of change for any new behaviours they decide they wish to adopt to improve welfare issues. This is one of the key measures that can show that a group has become successful in institutionalizing behaviour change and taking collective and individual actions to see improvement in animal welfare in their communities/members. When groups add new issues and behaviours to their plan this is also an indicator of a successful group.
You are likely to find that in the early stages the animal-owning group needs a lot of support and capacity-building, which relies heavily on your skill as a facilitator. As the group becomes more familiar with animal welfare issues and confident in solving them, they will drive this action-reflection-action cycle themselves. This is a sure sign of the success of your work. This is also the stage where you start to discuss how long they will need your support as a facilitator and over what period you should withdraw from the group. Planning for your eventual withdrawal is essential to support the growth of a self-reliant group and not increase its dependency on you. In our experience it takes the group 12 months to reach this stage, and a further 12 to 18 months of strengthening until you finally withdraw.
Throughout these discussions, record any key insights in your Project Action Tracker for use in reflecting and adapting your own project plans and strategies as needed to support the group’s continued progress. Update your Behaviour Change Planning Table and refer to Guidance on Identifying Effective Behaviour Change Strategies as appropriate to supporting your adaptive management process based on lessons learned from these monitoring, learning and reflection processes.
The animal welfare cause and effect analysis is sometimes called a problem tree, in which causes are depicted as roots of the tree and effects as branches. This adapted version of the tool provides a visual representation of the relationship between the causes of specific priority animal welfare issues, and the effects of the issues on both people and animals [48]. This tool has proven to be one of the most important and effective participatory tools in this toolkit, as the improved understanding and awareness that results from discussions and outputs of this activity have effectively motivated participants to take action to prevent animal welfare issues, as well as respond to them when they do occur. In particular, the effect analysis portion of this tool can be a key motivator of behaviour change. Consider conducting a pairwise ranking (T8) or matrix ranking and scoring (T9)prior to this one to identify the priority welfare issues.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify and promote participant understanding of the root causes of a specific priority animal welfare issue and their implications for humans and animals. • To generate participants’ motivation to take action or change their behaviour, either collectively or individually, to prevent or respond to animal welfare issues • To identify root causes of animal welfare issues and potential implications on the livelihoods and well-being of animal-owning households.
1.5 - 2 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards or other locally available materials
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings, and Needs; Livelihoods; Compassion / Empathy
Animal welfare cause and effect analysis (or problem tree)
The animal welfare cause and effect analysis is used to analyze an animal welfare issue or problem by identifying the complex contributing factors and any relationships between the factors, as well as their effects on animal-owning households and animals alike. In the context of working animals, this tool has been used to help identify the causes of priority welfare problems such as wounds and overloading, and to discuss the effects of these welfare issues on animals and the people who depend on them. For example, discussing the causes of wounds on specific parts of a working animal’s body may highlight causal factors such as the size and structure a harness or saddle, or the design of a cart or carriage. Effects on the animal could include pain, weight loss and reduced working capacity. Effects of the animal’s wounds on the owner could include less income (from reduced work and increased expenditure on treatment) or lower status in the community.
T26a Animal Welfare Cause and Effect Analysis diagram for an Animal-Owning Community
The above animal welfare cause and effect analysis was produced by a group of working animal owners in a rural community. They were particularly concerned about reducing and preventing wounds on their animals’ backs. Four major causes were initially identified: whipping by users, beating by children, bad road conditions and improper harness fitting. These causes were then continuously analysed to better understand why they were happening, until the underlying root causes were identified. The effects of back wounds on the animals were then discussed and identified as decreased energy, low appetite, pain and increased risk of infection. The resulting effects on the household were decreased income, increased expenditure on treatment and always feeling stressed and worried about where money would come from and whether the animal would recover.
This activity motivated the group to take action on the root causes that were within their influence.
This included:
Petitioning the local government for road repairs between nearby communities and major transport routes
Promoting more humane handling amongst members of their household to prevent wounds from whipping and beating
Making their own welfare-friendly harnesses from recycled materials
Animal Welfare Cause & Effect Analysis
Step 1
Ask participants to identify the animal welfare issues they feel are a priority and select one issue to explore in depth with this exercise. Consider referring to animal welfare issues and priorities previously identified using T25 Problem Animal,T8 Pairwise Ranking or T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring, if available. Make sure that the issue is not broad, such as ‘wounds’ generally.
Step 2
Have the community helper draw a circle on the ground or on a large piece of paper and ask him/her to draw or write the priority welfare issue in the middle of the circle using a symbol, picture, or word.
Step 3
Begin the discussion by asking the group what they perceive to be the major factors that cause this problem. As main causes are identified, each cause is added below the priority issue, using symbols, pictures, or words, and connected to the problem with arrows.
Step 4
Once all initial causal factors have been identified, start with one causal factor, and have participants identify the sub-causal factors by asking them why that causal factor happens? Show this sub-cause below the major cause it is associated with, connecting it with an arrow (see Figure T26). Continue asking why each sub-cause happens and continue adding sub-causes - spreading out like the roots of tree - until the group reaches a stage where no further sub-causes can be found. As a rule, these probing using “why” questions may need to be asked 3-5 times per cause, before the root cause is finally identified.
Please note: It is common for participants to discuss, and debate causes. These discussions often create shared learning opportunities, whereby participants learn from one another as they discuss and seek agreement on the true causal factors. As a facilitator, you should allow and encourage this discussion without inserting your ideas. However, you may need to ask probing questions or take the time to teach participants about the real causal factors if they get stuck or their lack of understanding prevents them from identifying true root causes. You may also need to intervene if they struggle to resolve their differences in beliefs themselves.
Step 5
Once all the root causes of the welfare issue have been identified, facilitate the same process to analyse the effects of the welfare issue on the animal and the animal-owning household. Start by having the helper add two circles above the welfare issue: one representing the animal and the other representing the animal-owning household.
Step 6
Ask participants to identify the effect of the welfare problem on the animal. As effects on the animal are identified, linkages to the animal-owning household will naturally emerge and the discussion can quickly turn to effects on the household.
Please note: The facilitator should allow the discussion to flow naturally, ensuring full exploration of effects on the animal AND household. It is common for participants to identify only a few main effects on the animal, especially in contexts where animals are not viewed as sentient beings. Here, the facilitator’s role is to ask probing questions to promote discussion around the animal’s feelings and experience of the welfare issue. It may be helpful to frame questions in terms of, “If you had this issue, how would you feel?”
Please note: When discussing the effects on the animal-owning household, encourage participants to consider potential effects on all household members, including men, women, and children. Ask: do the identified household effects effect all household members equally? Make sure effects on different household members are accounted for on the diagram.
Step 7
When the diagram is complete, ask participants to reflect on what they have discussed and mapped. Some discussion questions may include: Support the community to identify possible solutions if needed, either in this session or in a follow up session as time and resources permit.
Step 8
Once complete, take a photo or record the outputs on a piece of paper. Ensure that the community has a copy for their records and facilitator has a copy for future reference or planning.
Finally, have the community record any root causes and activities to address the causes in the community action plan. Make sure to include any resources/materials needed to achieve this, including who will monitor it and a realistic timeline. Record the actions, activities, and proposed linkages into your project action tracker, and support the community by linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
Facilitation Notes
The facilitator should have a good knowledge of animal welfare and be able to recommend solutions to address issues, including community-based collective action ideas. Participants may ask for advice on actions to address root causes.
Decide the group dynamics ahead of time and whether it would be best carried out with men and women (or other subgroups) separately or in a mixed group. This will depend on your rapport with the community, culture and local gender dynamics. This is important when their roles and responsibilities related to animals differ, and/or they use/depend on animals differently, as their perceptions and concerns may differ.
If conducted separately between men and women, consider bringing the two groups back together at the end of the activity to review the results of each chart and resolve any discrepancies if time allows and culturally appropriate.
If it is not appropriate to conduct this activity with men and women together in the local context, or if it could prohibit participation and freedom of discussion, consider conducting this activity separately.
This exercise can take considerable time, so discuss this in advance with the group and agree a suitable time to set aside for doing it.
Avoid using your own examples; encourage everyone to express their individual views.
This exercise requires patience from the facilitator in order for deepest causal factors to emerge from the discussion. Allow time for participants to discuss their experiences.
Next Steps
The cause and effect analysis is useful for action planning, especially when combined with:
Animal welfare transect walk (T22) to monitor changes resulting from actions related to animal body issues, resources and environment, and management practices
If the group is struggling to understand that animals have feelings and identify them as sentient beings, consider conducting the T19 Animal feeling analysis again.
If monitoring identifies that the solutions to root causes are unable to be adopted or behaviours go unchanged, conduct a T15 Cost benefit analysis to explore the cost of continuing negative behaviours or practices and benefits of positive behaviour change.
Follow up with resource or service providers needed to help the group carry out their activities. Revisit the activities in the next meeting to monitor progress and if further support is required.
Results may also be useful to informing inform project planning and/or identify potential for partnerships to support:
Identification of community capacity building support to address the root causes of priority animal welfare issues
Addressing priority root causes which may be external to communities’ e.g. changes in policy
Identification of potential livelihood or human wellbeing indicators which could be used in monitoring to assess changes in people’s lives as a result of actions taken to improve animal welfare.
Working animals’ (e.g., donkeys, horses, oxen etc.) welfare is often overlooked in comparison to other livestock/production animals who have a more direct and understood role in supporting communities’ livelihoods. This tool is specifically designed to be used to aid communities in realizing the critical role and importance of these often-overlooked working animals to improve their motivation to similarly meet these animals’ welfare needs.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
To increase community members' motivation for better meeting the welfare needs of working animals by understanding their valuable contributions to their lives and/or livelihoods.
2-3 hours
Materials needed:
chart paper, index cards or sticky notes, pens/markers, chalk and/or locally available materials.
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Motivation
Stages of Change: Contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Compassion/Empathy, Community Change Agents
Increasing perceived importance of animals
Step 1
Take the community through the process of identifying the general resources and services important to meeting their households’ needs and supporting their livelihoods which their animals either directly or indirectly contribute to obtaining (e.g., water, fertilizer, education, transport, health care, animal health services, agricultural products, income, food, feed for animals etc.). Write or draw these ideas on cards or paper until all are listed for all to see. The resources and services listed need not be limited to animal-related resources or services.
Step 2
Once these important resources and services are identified, ask participants to identify the animals which directly or indirectly contribute to obtaining them e.g., livestock/production animals, working animals etc.). Write or draw pictures of each animal on a card and place them on the ground. Then write the list of the resources or services they support /contribute to the family beside each of the animals.
Step 3
Then ask participants to identify which of the roles listed against each animal are important to them. They can rank them in order of priority. Each listed role should be paired with a picture of the animal that support that role in the household. To aid the participants in identifying these roles, ask participants to think about each animal’s relationship/contribution to all resources identified including(ability to support different resources identified).
Have the community write or draw the roles of each animal on cards or list them on a large piece of paper under each animal identified.
Step 4
Based on the roles and their importance, then ask participants to reflect on which animals they feel are most important/which they cannot live without and why based on the identified roles for each animal. Rank each animal in order of the agreed upon importance based on their roles.
Step 5
Next, support community participants to assess the value & contribution of each animal to their household through a cost & benefit analysis. Use the following discussion points to help facilitate this discussion:
• How much income do they get from their animals? • What are some of the uses of each of the animals? • What are the contributions of each animal in meeting household needs? time savings, social status, labour burden savings? • Prioritize how they spend income and savings from each animal based on the needs of the various household (Distribution of income expenditure at home) • Then consider how much is spent to meet each animal’s welfare needs and compare this to each animal’s contribution to the household income. • Then rank the animals in order of contribution to the household versus what is spent on the animal.
The process helps community members appreciate the value and importance of their working animals in relation to their contributions to meeting the household’s needs. Note which members of the community respond to the various contributions of working animals and lead the discussion for all views and lived experiences are taken, recognized and valued.
Step 6
Summarize the results of the activity and ask community members to reflect on their learnings and motivations for acting to better meet the welfare needs of their working animals. Agree on any actions and activities that that individual and/or the group identified they will take to improve the welfare of their working animals to add to the community action plan and agree on a date to repeat the exercise to assess changes in their perceived importance of their working animals and to monitor any actions taken.
Facilitation Notes
It is helpful to understand how to use processes which support communities in ranking or prioritising, as utilising a ranking process may be helpful to employ if communities’ members struggle to identify priorities through discussion alone.
It is good to note that the discussion/reflection doesn’t lead to the utilitarian assumption that undermines animal welfare.
![Figure 40: Stages of Group Development [70]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/image-4.png)
![Figure 42: Reflection and Learning Process [7]](http://communitiesforanimals.thebrooke.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Picture-1-1.png)
