A Participatory Evaluation and Planning Process in New York
A Participatory Evaluation and Planning Process to collectively reflect and plan ATD Fourth World NYC’s vision, priorities and actions
After three years of pandemic, it was high time to take stock of our identity and actions as ATD Fourth World NYC and assess how these were transformed during uncertain times, when poverty and isolation reached new heights. In September 2022, we gathered a dozen members to evaluate the last few years and plan for the next two. Doing this work in a participatory and fun way was essential, as reminiscing the last couples of years—with the impact of Covid in our personal lives—could have been a heavy process for all involved.
The evaluation and planning process was led by a committee of three: Rosetta Savana, ATD Fourth World Activist, Virginie Charvon and Monica Jahangir-Chowdhury, both Volunteers Corps Members and co-leaders of the NYC team. As a first step, the committee sent out a survey to members and proposed to meet individually or receive their answers by emails. Together, Rosetta, Virginie and Monica then designed and facilitated two weekends to reflect on our actions in 2020-2022 and plan for 2023-2024.
Looking Back, 2020-2022
On September 24 and 25, a dozen of participants gathered at the Fourth World House for the first ever group Evaluation Weekend. After a morning of icebreakers to get to know each other better, the main afternoon exercise consisted of small groups (2 to 4 people) reflecting on the main actions of ATD Fourth World in NYC:
Local community in Brownsville: Story Garden, Festival of Arts and Learnings, Tapori at Gregory Jackson School in Brownsville, WALTER (the new eco-social business launched in partnership with ATD Fourth World) …
Building Knowledge Together: Co-Training, Peoples University, writing projects about the lives of people with the direct experience of poverty in New York City …
United Nations Advocacy: Commission for Social Development, Commission on the Status of Women, High Level Political Forum, International Day for the Eradication of Poverty …
Togetherness – community life: Holiday Party, Concert Fundraiser, Art Workshops …
Each group was asked to reflect on their strengths and weaknesses in the context of the pandemic and present their findings in plenary.
To access detailed notes about the lists of the strengths and weaknesses, please send an email to nycteam@4thworldmovement.org
Putting together all the strengths on one hand and all the weaknesses on the other, and looking at the similarities across actions was highly informative. Feelings of working together, supporting each other through teamwork and resilience were strengths that came back several times, as well as the creation of safe spaces and partnerships at different levels of actions. When it came to weaknesses, challenges faced in the new virtual times, the need to bring more families, activists, funders and members into our actions, and difficulty in building activism were some of common obstacles found across actions.
The first day ended with a festive time of dinner and karaoke that will stay in our memory!
The second day focused on the state of poverty in New York City today. Moving away from an evaluation lens, the group reflected on who the most vulnerable groups were today when it came to poverty and exclusion in the city. Various small groups exercises led the plenary group to identify two groups:
People experiencing street homelessness
Children and families living in the shelter system.
Following discussions included naming potential connections or partners we have or had in the past who could help us further explore and learn about homelessness and families in shelter.
Reflecting on these as a group during these first two days provided a solid base for assessing what to focus on both in terms of our organizational needs and future activity planning.
Planning for the future, 2023-2024
After a busy month of October with the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on October 17, the second Planning weekend took place on November 5 and 6, with fourteen members gathering at the Fourth World House. The main objective of this planning was to define a vision, priorities and future actions for ATD NYC, in other words, to build a common understanding of what we wanted ATD to achieve in NYC in the years to come. The main exercise used to this effect was to work on a ‘dream cover page’ of the New York Times in 2030. First in small groups and then in plenary, a passionate discussion emerged about the vision (the main title of this cover page), based on the following guiding questions:
What success do you dream of for ATD NYC?
What are the changes you want to contribute to?
What would be different if ATD NYC was successful?
Bringing together individual and group reflections, the final cover page title/vision agreed upon was:
Vision: NYC took up the fight: poverty has expired
Short Paragraph: ATD Fourth World and its partners led the way to solutions to tackle poverty in all its dimensions.
The next steps consisted in defining the main priorities wherein to invest to achieve this vision and new actions needed, in addition to our regular programs.
Participants were asked to think of two crucial areas to invest in and write them on post-its. The cluster of all post-its revealed key centers of interests: education, housing, promoting a society that recognizes the nine dimensions of poverty, expanding our community/network. These clusters later led to the formulation of the following four final priorities:
Creating and Developing Labs for Alternative Education
Engaging with the Homelessness Crisis and the Lack of Affordable Housing
Building and Sharing our Knowledge on the Nine Dimensions of Poverty
Expanding our Network and Community
The last session on Sunday morning consisted in identifying key actions that could fit in these areas. Participants were asked to write down two actions they thought were the most relevant to achieve one or two priorities. To access detailed notes about the Planning exercises, please send an email to nycteam@4thworldmovement.org
With a dozen post-its under each priority, the session ended with Virginie, Rosetta and Monica highlighting the actions having received the most interest (see graph below) and with the commitment from all participants to carry on the work in its implementation phase so that one day, poverty expires.
