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
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.
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.
Animal welfare conversation tool involves an open discussion about what animal welfare is and why it is important. The discussion starts by understanding how men and women and other community members view animal welfare, what they need to provide to their animals to ensure improved welfare and identifying the actors responsible for animal welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To improve understanding of animal welfare needs in terms of health, nutrition, behaviour, and environment. • To raise awareness and promote discussion about animal welfare issues • Understand community members’ attitudes, belief systems, perspectives and current accuracy of knowledge about animal welfare, including indicators they feel are important to their ability to understand their animals’ welfare needs
1.5 hours
Materials needed:
Cards, pens, markers, coloured powder, chalk, sticks, tree leaves, coloured cards, pictures different animal welfare conditions and or other locally available materials.
Keyword Search Tags
Project Phase: Initiation Phase, Planning Phase
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Development Approach, Community Engagement Approach
Behavioural Drivers (COM-B): Capability
Stages of Behaviour Change: Pre-contemplation Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Community Change Agents, Outreach and Communications, Compassion and Empathy, Animal Handling
Many factors constrain community members’ ability to improve the welfare of their animals. These may include, the Socioeconomic, cultural, and environmental conditions such as attitudes towards animals, community members’ knowledge and skills about giving care for animals, and resources and services determine the welfare status of working animals. Addressing these issues requires engaging community groups in active dialogues and social learning to discuss their animal welfare needs and to find solutions together to improve animal welfare. Figures T32 a, b, and c were images used to facilitate discussions about horse welfare needs in a community using this tool.
T32a Example of an animal with poor body condition.T32b Animal welfare umbrella representing domains of animal welfare important to meeting animals’ welfare needs
Animal welfare umbrella reinforces the fact that animals rely on people, everyone in a household, to provide care for them. In the same way, all household members rely upon healthy and happy animals to increase household members' wellbeing.
T32c Example of meeting animals’ welfare needs
Animal Welfare Conversation Tool
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the community conversations on animal welfare. Ask community groups if they have questions before proceeding.
After introducing the focus of the community conversations, facilitate a discussion about what community members describe as animal welfare.
You can prompt the discussion with the pictures in figure T32a above by asking the community members to discuss in pairs. Ensure men and women participate in the discussions separately to ensure their views don’t overshadow each other’s. Obtain feedback from a few men and women participants on the below questions:
· What can you see from the animal in image T32a? · What do you think this animal is feeling? Do you think the animal is cared for? Why or why not? · How might this image reflect the lives of animals in this community?
Using the picture in figure T32b, ask the community members to discuss this image in pairs and answer the following questions · What can you see from this image (T32b)? · What is happening to the animal in the image? What do you understand from each of the 4 domains? · How does the image reflect the animal welfare situation in this community? (General reflections/understanding on animal welfare within their community using the image)
Step 2
Facilitate a discussion around the responses received on what giving care means to men, women and youth. Take note of any additional resources people think that the animal needs. Discussion questions can include: Obtain feedback from a few men and women participants:
• In which of the images (T32a or T32b or both) do they think the animal is cared for? Why? • What is giving care to animals mean? • Is it important to help your animals feel good? Why? • What does an animal need to be happy, healthy, and productive for your family? • When your animal is not feeling good, how does this affect you and your family members? • What does animal welfare mean to you? • What do you do to care for your animals? • What are the social or cultural values related to giving care to animals? Is there any saying or expression in your community related to animal care giving?
Step 3
The next step is to take the community through a discussion which will enhance their understanding of what is needed for their animals to have a good basic level of welfare. The examples provided here can be used as a guide for the facilitator to discuss the most relevant animal welfare issues in the specific community. Use figure T32c above to facilitate the discussion using the discussion questions below:
• Thinking about your animals, what do they need from you to be happy, healthy, and productive?. • What care do animals need? Who gives this care in your household, within your community, or at your place of work? • What can you see being provided to animals in this image? Are these important? Why? Why not?
These questions will help identify the resources people think their animals need, and who the household members are who influence their animals’ welfare.
Step 4
After image T32c has been discussed, follow up by asking: “Do all animals in your household need the same things or feel the same way?” Prompt the discussion to make sure you have asked questions about: • Healthcare • Feed and water • Behaviour (human – animal interaction and behavioural interaction among animals) • Shelter/shade (depending on your context)
Step 5
After the discussion has progressed, handout the 'animal welfare umbrella', Figure T32b. Explain to the group that this image helps to convey that giving care to animals involves consideration of their health, nutrition, behavioural, and environmental needs. It is important to acknowledge that all animals need this care, and that good animal care benefits the animals as well as people. Ask participants to discuss in pairs: • To what extent are you currently able to provide each of these things for your animals? • Which of these things do you find it easiest to provide for your animals? Why? • Which of these things is it difficult for you to provide for your animals? Why? • What things on this image didn’t you know animals needed? Are any of these things new ideas for you?
After the discussions, ask for feedback from both female and male participants. The question below can be used to prompt feedback: 'What did you learn from the picture and the discussion?' Ask a few participants to share their responses and write them on a flip chart.
Step 6
Use the responses from step 5 to highlight human animal relationships. • Ask the participants to share what they think are the benefits to the animal owners and their livelihoods when the animals are provided with care as depicted in T32b?
Summarise by sharing with the group that whilst animals rely on people to provide them with the things they need, doing this well means that animals are better able to help us with the things that we need from them. If our animals are happy and healthy, they can better help us at work, at home, and in our community.
Step 7
Once the discussions are 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.
Facilitation Notes
Identify the local term for animal welfare and consistently use the term throughout the discussion. Pay attention to differences in terms among men, women, and youth, and agree on one term.
Pay attention to differences in perspectives/understanding among men, women, and youth about animal welfare. Listen actively and probe as necessary.
Depending on the conversation topic, you can substitute other images or stories to facilitate the discussion.
You can also use this tool by focusing on one domain in one meeting (using separate meetings to discuss each of the domains) (Figure 32b) and repeating steps 4 – 7. E.g. focusing one session on behaviour you can encourage the community participants to reflect on their interaction with their animals including focusing a discussion on their observations of good and bad animal handling practices, and the impacts of these practices on both the animal and its owner/carers/handers, users and service providers. This is provided that communities are willing to meet frequently and/or prefer to focus on one animal welfare domain at a given time and have deeper conversations, reflection and learning.
Next Steps
Continue building on these initial conversations about animal welfare by supporting community members to identify their priority animal welfare issues and the individuals responsible for meeting their animals’ different welfare needs using tool T33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis.
The tool supports discussions with community members about their animals’ welfare needs, the challenges they have in meeting them, and potential actions that may improve their animals’ welfare.
The tool enables the community to identify specific animal welfare issues, and the constraints they may experience when addressing these. Animal welfare issues are ranked in terms of their importance, to enable the community to decide on actions to be taken to address them. This tool builds upon initial discussions introducing animal welfare, which can be facilitated by tools such as the T32 Community Animal Welfare Conversation Tool and T5 Gender Roles and Responsibilities. The tools is also a precursor to community animal welfare action planning (T34) tool as it provides the platform/ a pathway to planning to take action to improve animal welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• To identify resource constraints influencing the welfare of their animals, the issues it causes, and how this affects both animal welfare and households. • To help with prioritizing the most important issues affecting animals and households in terms of severity and frequency, disaggregated by gender. • To understand the similarities and differences in gender perceptions of priority welfare issues. • To Promote understanding of the animal welfare domains.
2 hours
Materials needed:
Different counters, e.g., beans and corn, graphic of animal welfare needs (e.g., T32b/or five domains of welfare graphic, flip chart or clear ground, marker pens.
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services; Community Change Agents
An example is provided below of a sample of community identified responsibilities related to animal welfare (Table T33a) and an example of community prioritization ranking (Table T33 b).If you have done T5 Gender Roles and Responsibilities, T8 Pairwise Ranking and Scoring or T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring, you can also remind the community participants to the findings of the discussions and the priorities identified by them provided they want to continue to work on those priorities.
Animal Welfare Need
Who is responsible for meeting the need
Comments
Adult Men
Adult Women
Young Men
Young Women
Feed and Water
○○
○○○
○○○
○○
Adult women and young do most of the feeding responsibility
Providing Shelter
○○○
○○
○○
○○
Adult men are mostly responsible for providing Water
Wound care and seeking medical services
○○
○○○
○○
○○
Adult women do most wound care related issues
Allow the animals to be free and express their natural behaviour
○○
○○○
○○
○○
Adult women tend to be responsible for taking care of behavioural issues
Table T33a. Example of animal welfare needs and who is responsible for meeting them
Welfare issue
Men
Women
Comments /reasons
Feed shortage
○○○○○○
○○○○○○
Water shortage
○○○○○
○○○○○
Lack of veterinary services
○○○○
○○○
Poor shelter
○○
○
Diseases
○○○
○○○○○
Table T33 b. Example Animal Welfare Issue Prioritization Ranking
Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis
Step 1
Explain the purpose of the activity is to discuss the needs of participants’ animals, the challenges they face in meeting their animals’ needs, and who in their households is responsible to meeting these challenges/animal needs. Depending on the number of equine participants in the meeting, divide them into sub groups of 3-4 and have them discuss at least the priority 3 animal needs that have been identified and share the discussions in plenary. This should allow the rest of the participants to input into the presentations of the smaller sub groups.
Begin by asking participants: ‘What problems do your animals experience?’ Probe further to ask why this is a problem for them and their animals. If the challenges identified are many, let the community members prioritize the most common animal need by the community. Pick this to discuss the following discussions.
Examples of probing questions could include:
• Does the problem cause their animals to stop working? • Does the problem take a long time for their animals to recover from? • Could this problem cause their animals to die? • Does this problem change their animals' behaviour? • Is the problem challenging or expensive to manage, or do they find it unpleasant?
Step 2
Then, ask participants, ‘Who in your household cares for your animals’ needs?’
Draw a matrix, and list all given household members along the top row, or if conducting this activity with a large group instead of a household, list categories of household members e.g. women, youth, men etc.
Next, ask participants ‘What do your animals need to be happy and healthy?’
Encourage them to consider their animals’ needs in terms of their health, nutrition, environment, and behaviour. List their ideas in the matrix in the first column.
Then ask: 'Who in your household is responsible for meeting these animals’ welfare needs?’
Encourage responses from both men, women, and youth (see facilitator notes below on who to conduct this session with). Explain that to see how much each household member contributes to meeting the households’ animal welfare needs, you will use scores. Use different counters to represent men's, women’s, and youth's scoring. For example:
• A score of 3 means most of the time. • A score of 2 means sometimes. • A score of 1 means occasionally. • A score of O means not at all.
Refer to the table T33a above for an example of how this can be done.
Step 3
Ask participants:
'How well do you think you're meeting the needs of your animals right now?'
Ask for a show of hands to demonstrate ’poor’, ‘OK’ and ‘very well’. Ask a few men, women, and youth participants to give examples of good animal welfare actions that they have undertaken.
Record responses on a flip chart. Probe further and encourage a discussion around what good and poor animal welfare examples they see in the community. Find out differences among the participants.
Step 4
Then, ask participants:
'What is preventing you from meeting your animal's needs?'
Invite men, women, and youth to share their challenges in meeting the needs of their animals. Write responses on a flip chart. Possible responses could include resource limitations, lack of awareness, attitudes about animal welfare etc.
Encourage a focus on good handling, feed, water, and wound care if needed.
Step 5
Extend the discussion further to specifically cover the issues and constraints participants face in the areas of:
• Health/disease • Feed/Water • Footcare and lameness • Shelter and shade • Wound care and injuries (E.g. from tethering, etc.) • Harnessing, compassionate handling and training • Veterinary services and euthanasia • Time/need, etc.
Capture the commonly given issues and constraints within each of these themes. As issues of nutrition, water access and wound care come up, share extra information with the group as needed.
Step 6
From the discussion, create a list of the commonly given animal welfare issues and constraints, and collate these into their overarching topics/categories such as health, feed/water, shelter/housing, wound care, handling etc. You will use this list to help the community to prioritize their welfare issues. The example provided in T33b above illustrates what this may look like. To conduct the prioritization, divide the participants into groups of men and women. Explain and demonstrate the ranking exercise before starting, and ask participants if they have any questions. Follow the steps below:
• On clear ground or on a flip chart, draw a matrix with the common animal welfare issues topics/categories identified during the previous discussion written on the vertical axis. • Community members in the meeting must agree on a maximum of seven issues – ensure that both men and women have participated in this discussion and agreement. • Write ‘men’ and ‘women’ on the horizontal axis, as indicated in the example T33b above. • Split men and women into two groups and give each group 20 counters. Ask each group to distribute the counters across the issues. The group should agree on the relative importance of each animal welfare issue, and allocate counters to the issues to represent this importance. • When each group has given their scores, probe for reasons for the highest scores and the lowest scores. Take note of the groups' justifications for their scoring. Probe if their prioritization is affected by resources or seasonality. • This tool will reveal similarities and differences in gender perceptions of priority welfare issues.
Step 7
Discuss the importance and relevance of the issues prioritized. Some issues may not be identified by participants as the most serious, but they are likely to affect a very high number of animals, are relatively easy to manage and will affect both welfare and productivity. However, ask about the scenario in this village as resources or seasonality may affect how common or severe these issues are and how they can be addressed. Make sure to reflect back if such factors were not considered so that they are considered in the ranking activity.
Discussion questions:
• Which issues affect the most animals/are most common? • Which issues are the most severe (not necessarily for the greatest number of animals, but which conditions cause the most suffering)? For example, disease outbreak may cause mortality in a per cent of the herd, but undernutrition may affect more animals for a longer period. In this scenario, disease outbreak may be uncommon but severe, whereas undernutrition may be more common but less severe.
From the ranking exercise, encourage a discussion about important welfare issues that cause suffering for animals. This will invite a discussion amongst community members which can help motivate and inform their development of action plans to improve the welfare of their animals (e.g., using T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning).
Step 8
Finally, record the community discussions on the prioritization and the justification given along the different gender perspectives into the actions plan into your project action tracker, and support the community by supporting them to develop action plans using T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning to linking them to any necessary stakeholders.
During this session, reinforce the learning points of prior conversations on animal welfare e.g., T32 Animal Welfare Conversations Tool, Be sure to ask questions and prompt for the impact the issues have on an animal's behaviour or their feelings.
Provided you have the time to frequently meet with the community groups or households, once they have identified and prioritized issues, you can do step 4 to 8 for different issues in subsequent meetings. E.g. if you have done the first meeting on Health/disease focused issues provided it is prioritized by community members or households, then you can follow up with the second prioritized issue in another meeting
It is important that this conversation is presented in a way that encourages and supports community members to improve their animals’ welfare, but not solve all problems at once. To accomplish this, focus on activities that community members are doing well, highlighting positive examples of animal welfare that they gave. Ask probing questions when these are identified e.g. How common are these to the community? If it is not common, how easy would it be for more community members to adopt activities that have resulted in better animal welfare?
Ideally, conduct this activity at the household level, and with men, women, and youth present – as they may have different roles, perspectives and priorities which it is important to capture. If it is not possible to conduct this activity at the household level, you may wish to consider conducting the exercise with separate groups of men, women, and youth, as they may influence each other’s responses if the activity is conducted as a large community group. If you are conducting this at a group level, ensure that you have divided the large group into smaller groups to enable everyone contribute to the discussion. If not possible to do together as a group or household, then consider doing it separately at different time convenient to respective groups.
Next Steps
Continue to build on these discussions and support community members to address identified priority animal welfare issues by conducting community action planning using the T34 Community Animal Welfare Action Planning tool.
Meet one to one with individuals recommended as potential animal welfare champions by their peers, organizations (whether INGOs, NGOs or CBOs) you have met with, and/or whom you observed to be highly motivated and potentially good community change agent candidates during previous discussions. In addition, consider utilizing existing respected animal welfare champions from established community-based organizations as change agents if you are undertaking this community engagement approach in the same areas as the Community Development Approach.
Assess these potential candidates’ level of interest in being change agents, as well as the existing condition of their animals and related animal care and management practices. Explain to any high potential candidates what their role as change agent would involve, the level of time commitment and general activities they would engage in, as well as the type of support the project is willing to provide them in their role. In addition, assess their existing understanding of animal welfare issues and stage of behaviour change, the number of peers and general sphere of influence they believe they could reach, and whether they have key characteristics helpful to inspiring others to adopt changes along with them (e.g. good listener, empathy). It is also important to get an idea of their skills and any trainings they may have already had, to identify potential training needs. Furthermore, ask for feedback about what you have proposed in terms of the role, and use their input to help you adapt the collaborative working arrangement and project plan as needed to address their concerns and ensure expectations for the role are reasonable and feasible within the local context.
Select desired candidates based on your predetermined change agent selection criteria, using quotas as needed to promote representativeness of different groups to ensure the project is not gender blind and further promoting existing systems of discrimination. Ensuring proper policies and standard operating procedures are in place for safeguarding, as well as sufficient capability within the implementing team to uphold them is recommended to protect and create an enabling environment for potentially discriminated and vulnerable groups to take on leadership roles within their communities (e.g. women as change agents).
If the number of candidates meeting criteria is more than needed to support the project, consider asking members of the animal owning community to come together to vote on their preferred candidates based on your shortlisted selection of candidates. Once selected, convene a community meeting, or organize communications to announce the appointment of the newly selected/elected change agents throughout the community.
Once change agents are selected, organize meetings in the communities where they will be working, inviting animal owners and carers, local leaders, local service providers, and selected change agents to help develop the selection criteria for selecting households to work with change agents to improve their household’s animal welfare. At this stage it is important to be clear about the process of engagement, and potential benefits and commitments/investments expected of target peer groups.
Once criteria are agreed by community, select no more than 10-20 households for each CCAs to support, depending on the time availability of change agents, geographic proximity of households, and scale of the project, to prevent overburdening them.
The resource Guidance on Listening for Change Talk may be helpful to support your assessment and selection of change agents and their target peer groups.
1.3.2 Develop training plan and begin building capacity of change agents
If the project is working with CCAs to undertake community engagement activities rather than your project’s staffs, remember that supporting them to take on the role of leaders of change within their community is an important means through which the project can empower CCAs and their communities beyond the animal welfare objectives of the project. The knowledge, skills, and experience they gain working with you and their peers to plan, implement, monitor, report, reflect and learn throughout the project has the potential provide benefits to their communities long after the project ends. It is therefore important to consider how you can create value for CCAs and their communities by involving with the project through the sharing of transferable knowledge, skills, and experiences.
Identify potential training needs of change agents based on your assessment of change agents existing knowledge, skills and capacity derived during previous interactions with them. Refer to the Recommended Core Competencies for Community Engagement Approach for potential training module topics. In addition to building their foundational understanding in animal welfare, it is recommended CCAs develop skills in how to listen for change talk, have conversations for change, and know how to properly respond in ways that motivate their peers continued progress throughout the stages of change. Furthermore, it is important that CCA’s understand how to support their peers and implement community engagement activities in ways that it upholds safeguarding protections and are non-discriminatory nor gender blind/gender exploitative. It is recommended to include training on how to promote gender equality/intersectionality through the support they provide their peer groups, as well as consider gender or other status’s (e.g. migratory status) needs when planning and implementing community engagement activities.
Draft a training plan and taking into consideration the following elements when planning and developing training modules:
Identify the learning objectives of each training in terms of what learners are expected to do, accomplish, or retain because of training
Identify indicators for assessing whether learning objectives have been met.
Identify how to evaluate the extent to which learning objectives have been met and are being sustained over time. This requires assessments be ongoing rather than one-time events.
Identify effective training strategies to promote learning of the given topic to the targeted CCA learners as well as strategies for supporting sustained learning and application of lessons learned in accordance with learning objectives e.g. scheduling time to follow up and observe applying lessons learned to others and providing feedback and reflection and learning opportunities, creating peer support networks between change agents to learn from and support one another in applying lessons learned.
Identify a training delivery schedule that is considerate of change agents unpaid and paid care work responsibilities/burdens and time and availability. Consider adopting measures that reduce barriers to participation, especially for groups who may be disproportionately burdened by unpaid care work responsibilities that affect their attendance i.e. adopting safeguarding measures for the participation of any vulnerable groups (e.g. safe transit options), childcare provisions for mothers, mitigating any costs/losses that result from participating in the training.
Once developed, discuss, and seek feedback from change agents on the training plan, adapting as needed to ensure it meets the projects and change agents’ needs. Once agreed with change agents, initiate trainings to begin building their capacity to effectively undertake their roles and responsibilities.
Tools and resources relevant to CCA’s community engagement work which you may wish to consider including in their capacity building are recommended below; however, these are not intended to be substitutes for training:
This community action planning tool supports communities in developing actions to address their priority animal welfare issues and has been adapted from Community conversation on animal welfare: A guide to facilitators [71]. This tool can be informed by outcomes from other tools such as:
Once animal welfare issues are prioritised, this tool can be used to facilitate discussions with community members to identify strategies and actions to address priority animal welfare issues, and help them identify knowledge, skills, and/or resource they required to enable them to take action to improve their animals’ welfare.
Tool purpose:
Time needed:
• Support community to reflect on their identified priority animals’ welfare issues and identify actions they can take to address them. • Identify the knowledge, skills and resources communities need to take action to improve their animals’ welfare.
1.5 hours
Materials needed:
Chart paper, note cards, markers, or other locally available resources, pre-printed pictures, or visual aids of priority animal welfare issues (optional), pre-printed pictures or visual aids on improved animal welfare practices relevant to identified animal welfare issues (optional).
Approaches for Working With Communities: Community Engagement Approach; Community Development Approach
Stages of Change: Preparation Stage, Action Stage
Project Support: Participatory Learning and Action Tools, Documentation and Reporting
Specific Topics: Animal Husbandry and Management; Animal Handling; Animal Welfare, Feelings and Needs; Animal Health and Services Community Change Agents
Community Animal Welfare Action Plan
Table T34 below shows an example of a community welfare action plan developed to address priority animal welfare issues identified through discussions using T33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis.
Priority Animal Welfare Issues
Actions to be Taken (Household and / or community level)
ExpectedChanges /Indicators of Success
Resources / Support Required to implement planned actions
Who Monitors / When?
Feed shortage
Community grow fodder for donkeys
Owners then feed the donkeys the recommended portions as needed throughout the day (as donkeys do not feed a lot at once)
Improved donkey health indicators: • Increased feed volume available • Feed available in all seasons • Improved body score condition • Happy and productive animals
Fodder production requires seeds.
Training on fodder production and storage
Improved understanding of donkey feeding best practices e.g. what types of feed, when/frequency of feeding, and how much to feed
Owners do the monitoring monthly
Animal welfare team assessing body score condition quarterly
No access to veterinary services (for preventative treatment and prevention)
Community mobilization based on scheduled vaccination/ deworming programs.
Owners supported by each other to seek veterinary services whenever their donkeys are sick.
Owners vaccinate donkeys on recommended schedule
Improved Health Indicators: • Reduced incidence of donkey’s sickness • Reduced time lost by owners due to animals being unable to work
Animal health providers have access to vaccinations.
Information on how to identify illness in donkeys and when they should not be worked
Owners assessing how their animal is feeling if it is sick or not daily, while ensuring that the animals are vaccinated yearly
Donkeys have access to water
Owners provide their donkeys with water at regular intervals during the day
Improved donkeys’ health indicators: • Improve body score condition/ health • Improve hydration
Access to safe drinking water for donkeys
Daily monitoring of donkeys status, if its thirsty or okay by the owners.
Table T34a: Example of Completed Community Animal Welfare Action Plan
Work with the community to rank 2-3 of the most important issues one by one. T8 Pairwise Ranking and Scoringor T9 Matrix Ranking and Scoring can be used to support identification of priorities, or results from these activities may be used if previously conducted.
You can prompt the discussion with prep-prepared outreach materials if you have developed them to discuss possible actions for improvement and benefits of acting. An example is provided in figure T34(a) of how to go about manging wounds that you can refer to develop any other animal welfare issues you need to help the community to plan to address (refer to the steps for cleaning wounds in figure T34a as an example).
Step 2
Hand out the pre-prepared outreach materials (pictures or illustrations), illustrating the selected priority animal welfare issues, and ask community members to discuss them. Ask: what do you think about and what feelings do you have when you think about taking steps to improving these animal welfare issues? If communities struggle to answer this, you can use the steps below to prompt this conversation if helpful:
• Step 1 - Observe: Look at the animal shown and identify the welfare issue it is facing. (For example, the image illustrates an animal with wounds.) • Step 2 – Question: Ask yourself, what could an animal in that condition be feeling or experiencing? (E.g. Anxiety, confusion, struggle, pain, distress.) • Step 3 – Reflect: What do you think needs to be done to address the animal welfare issue shown? Do you currently have all the things you need to address the welfare issue? Do you need assistance in sourcing something to help address this animal welfare issue from somewhere else? • Step 4 – Discuss action: What could you try doing to address this animal welfare issue? (Such as cleaning the wounds using the available material within the household, such as salt and water). If these actions turn out to be successful – great. If they don’t – you will reflect and adjust the plan.
If you have prepared outreach materials on solutions to the animal welfare issues in advance, hand them out and discuss them for consideration (refer to the example on Figure T34a on wound management).
Step 3
Ask community members to share what they would do to manage the wound issues in step one in their animals. Or you can remind participants of the first prioritised animal welfare issue from the ranking exercise the community previously completed duringT33: Community Animal Welfare Needs Analysis .
Ask community members to share what they could do to address/respond to this priority animal welfare issue. Probing questions to guide this conversation include:
• Is there someone in the community who already responds to this animal welfare issue well? What do they do, to do this well? • What can be done at the household and community level to respond to this animal welfare issue? • What are the challenges that people face to solve this issue? • What are the benefits of acting on this animal welfare issue? • What are the potential costs or constraints to acting on this animal welfare issue?
Make notes of responses onto flipchart paper. Repeat Step 3 for each of the priority animal welfare issues previously identified by the community
Step 4
Use community reflections from Step 3 as prompts to facilitate completion of a community animal welfare action plan. Facilitate a discussion to identify the following key elements:
• Which prioritised animal welfare issues are community members committed to addressing at this point in time? (Not every animal welfare issue needs to make it onto the community action plan, if community members are not committed to addressing it yet). • What are the actions they realistically commit to taking (at both household and community level) to respond to the selected animal welfare issues? • What are the expected changes (indicators of success) that the community would like to see from their actions? • What resources and support do they require to implement these actions? • How/who will monitor whether these actions have been taken and when?
Document the plan into the community animal welfare action plan table (see example in Table T34a). Ensure that the community are left with copies of the plan in a language/format appropriate and requested by them. Finally, record the community discussions and their agreed actions into your Project Action Tracker
Facilitator's Notes
Ensure that as a minimum the following key elements of a community animal welfare plan are agreed by the community during this exercise, using participatory and gender aware facilitation:
What are the priority animal welfare issues community members are committed to addressing? E.g. some priority issues might have been identified, but there isn’t true commitment from the community yet for addressing these.
What are the actions that participants can realistically commit to taking (at both household level and community/group level) to address selected priority issues?
What are the expected changes/indicators of success of their actions?
What resources and support to they require to implement these actions?
How/who will monitor whether these actions have been taken and when? Be realistic.
Communities will likely require further support and input from you/other organisations in order to implement their action plans. It is vitally important that during the community action planning session you are clear with community participants about what it is realistic and appropriate for you and other organisations to provide, and that you ensure these provisions are sustainable. If a request doesn’t fit these requirements, explain this to the participants and help them to develop a more suitable request.
Next Steps
To support community members in implementing their action plans, it will be important to resources and support identified by community members as needed to implement their action plan are secured, and you may need to consider holding meetings with other relevant stakeholder e.g., local government officials, animal health and resource providers to secure their support as needed.
