Creating Conversations: Using Community-Based Participatory Action Research to Build a Platform for Sex Talk in Coast, Kenya

By Laura Chubb

video

PledgeMe.Project

Community,



NZ $4,451 pledged


43 people pledged


Closed


NZ $4,400 minimum target


100 100% Complete

This campaign was successful and closed on 21/10/2014 at 8:46 PM.

Make a Pledge

About

Creating Conversations: Using Community-Based Participatory Action Research To Build A Platform For Sex Talk In Coast, Kenya

Project 2014-07-16 13:54:27 +1200

Follow and share the project on Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #Pledge4SexEd    

 

Hello Friends and Potential Supporters! 

I would like you to consider your responses to the following questions:

Growing up did you have the opportunity to learn about sex education in school? Maybe you did not always want to, but as a youth could you ask your parents questions about sex without disrespecting the values of your culture, or having them think you were deviant, promiscuous, or the like? Did you understand principles of body agency such as respect for yours and others bodies, and how bodies can be used?  Did you understand any aspects of sexuality? Were you a member of a population that was most susceptible to unplanned pregnancies, or increasingly exposed to STDs, in particular HIV?  If you wanted to ask questions about these issues, were you able to? Finally, How important would the answers to these questions be if you had not been able to say the most desirable response? 

The "Creating Conversations" proposal is part of my PhD research at the University of Auckland.  I am endeavoring to conduct international research in Mombasa, Kenya, from February-September of 2015. I am asked this question on almost a daily basis: Why Kenya and why sex education in Kenya?  For me it is about reciprocating the knowledge and experience that members of communities in Kenya and Tanzania have shared with me.  My experience volunteering, researching, and living in Kenya have made me hyper-aware of how fortunate I have been to grow up in an environment that makes having conversations about sex more accessible.  But it is has also opened my eyes to the magnificence of different cultural ways of life, the notion of collectiveness, and being an active participant in our lives each and every day.  Working in Kenya, and gaining support for this project, be it emotional or financial, is about educating others to become more globally active citizens.  It is important and interesting to know how different populations live, the beauty of their cultural values and practices, and how we can work together to enhance the voices in populations that are often muted.

The following abstract gives an overview of my study, why I am collecting data, how I will do this, and what may potentially result from the research.

 

Abstract

Creating a synergy between action and research is a complex process to ensure one informs the other.  In this study the research simultaneously acts as a means of collecting data about baraza (a traditional Swahili gathering place – plural mabaraza) to test it as a functional space for sex talk between youth and adults, as well as a means for the community to gather and act on information about how to improve sex education delivery.  In sharing and deconstructing existing ideas about sex and how sex education can be best implemented, the researcher, in collaboration with the key stakeholders, will aim to answer this study’s overarching research question: How can conversational spaces between youth and adults (i.e. mabaraza) be adapted as a viable as strategy for re-modeling sex education delivery in Kenyan public schools and community programs?

Engaging in dialogue around sexual topics in such a space will allow ideas to be contested, shared and clarified to achieve the following aims of this study:

1)   To understand barriers to successful implementation of sex education in Kenyan communities;

2)   To test if the space is adaptable for the content and context (gender specific versus gender divided);

3)   To examine the process and dynamics that occur in these spaces as well as how the information gained can be used;

4)   To allow for open communication about issues related to sex where members of both youth and adult participating groups have equal opportunity for exchange; and

5)   To foster change that provides for universal, examinable, applicable, culturally relevant and age-appropriate sex education in schools and community programs across Coast, Kenya.

Through achieving these aims, the goal for the study is to uncover how conversations about sex can be managed in a way that maintains respect for, and does not mute, the values of the society or the voices that often go unheard (i.e., youth).  Collaborating with the community, through a community-based participatory action research (CBPR) methodology, this information will be used to develop a strategy of sex education delivery, relevant to and in line with the values of society.

Previous research related to topics of sexual education in Kenya show evidence that youth are engaging in sex.  It is clear that these encounters do not regularly involve safer sex practices, do not always involve two consenting individuals and that sex education is often informed by cultural taboos, entrenched belief systems, and fears that were communicated to them with the expectation that fear would help delay sexual encounters. Limited studies record initiatives where youth have been given the opportunity to have their ideas about sexual practices be shared with adults from a variety of spheres. McLaughlin et al. (2002) acknowledged that for conversational spaces about sex to be successful between youth and adults in Kenya, outside facilitation would be necessary and they questioned the ability of these dialogues to be replicated in African classrooms.  Thus, I am partnering with a community sex education project in public secondary schools that will prepare youth stakeholders to have these dialogues with a range of adult stakeholders in a larger, traditional, community space. The aim is to arrive at a reciprocal collaboration between the researcher as outsider and key community stakeholders, including members of the Ministry of Education, academic institutions, not-for-profit agencies delivering services to young adults, teachers, parents and the youth who partake in the study. While these partnerships are difficult to form, I have been able to develop and maintain close working relationships with a partner orgnaisation, Kwacha Afrika. They have strong working connections with various organizations and the government of Kenya.

The CBPR project incorporates both research and action elements.  Actions include a youth photo-journal sex education project in Coast schools and a series of separate meetings with the youth and adults of various communities in Coast Province regarding the current state of sex education and their desire for more effective programmes. These meetings will lead to the convening of several mabaraza in which the adults and youth will talk together about the issues of sex and sex education. The results from the study have the potential to inform the implementation of sex education in public schools and communities across Coast, Kenya, and the findings will be relevant to communities globally where traditional spaces can be adapted as a tool for sex education. 

 

 

 

I chose PledgeMe as a potential avenue to kickstart this project because I have been witness to and on the receiving end of the generosity from others during volunteer programs in Peru where 100% of funds raised went toward the community and their projects.  So please take the opportunity to see your donations have a first hand impact!  PledgeMe works on an "all or nothing" principal, so if we don't reach our fundraising goal, all funds are returned! For the project duration I promise to keep all project supporters updated by sending video diaries, pictures, project reports via email.  Be sure to check out the reward side bar to see what you can receive for different levels of donations.

 

All funds raised will be exclusively invested towards supporting the following areas of the project:

  • Hiring trained sex educators to work for 10hours a week, over a period of three months in the schools. $625.00 per day to train a group of youth form the community. (3 Days required).
  • Hiring two translators for the duration of the project to transcribe interviews, focus groups, and communicate ideas/conversations during public gatherings.
  • Travel reimbursement to and from research location for participants.
  • Food and beverage provision at each gathering (approximately 500 people at each).
  • Travel costs to have Government Ministers attend and participate in different aspects of the project
  • Research tools such as noise cancelling voice recorder to accurately document conversations had in focus groups, interviews, etc.  Other research tools include a pocket projector to go through power points for the research training and sex education sessions.  A camcorder to document each baraza and focus group (this will be donated to Kwacha Afrika’s new film production project after the study has finished).
  • Disposable cameras, journals for each student, and writing tools, for the construction of photo-journals during sex education sessions.
  • Gifts for each of the 5 of 20 participating schools who will actively participate in the research.
  • Funding for each of the members of the research team for their dedication to organizing events, meetings, research training, and facilitating throughout the seven months.
  • Donations to Kwacha Afrika, the partner organization, that will host the research team and safely store our research materials.
  • Funds to rent a venue for the baraza (Swahili gathering) where the youths and adults participating group will come together to have open conversations about sex.

Please help our research team meet the goal of raising $4400 to help cover implementation costs.  The extra $400 is to account for credit card deductions of 3% and the 5% that goes toward the crowd funding initiative (8%= 2.8%+ 0.25 cents per credit card transaction and 5% as a success fee)!

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS PROPOSAL!

 

**REMEMBER REWARDS FOR DONATIONS MORE THAN $25 ARE SENT OUT AFTER FUNDRAISING GOAL IS REACHED**

Comments

Updates 4

REWARDS!

23/10/2014 at 11:34 AM

First off- woo woo, we did it! Thank you so much to everyone who donated, you are all wonderful!

For all those lovely people who clicked reward when you made a donation, be patient, they are coming! I am just waiting on the list of pledgers from the admin!

You need to pledge to see this update.

Follow me on Twitter

20/07/2014 at 7:49 PM

Interested in learning more about the stage we are at with the project, reading great links to sex education in Kenya, or seeing us Tweet your deets for donations?   

Follow  @LauraAnnChubb   https://twitter.com/LauraAnnChubb

Thanks for all of the support so far :)

You need to pledge to see this update.

    Pledgers 43

    Steven Ellis
    21/10/2014 at 8:46pm
    Laura Chubb
    21/10/2014 at 8:07pm
    Laura Chubb
    21/10/2014 at 8:02pm
    Anonymous pledger
    21/10/2014 at 4:33pm
    Emily McBurney
    21/10/2014 at 11:22am
    Taryn
    20/10/2014 at 10:46pm
    Maria
    20/10/2014 at 10:27pm
    Holly Rutledge
    20/10/2014 at 8:21pm
    Josh Forde
    20/10/2014 at 12:12pm
    Anonymous pledger
    20/10/2014 at 12:04pm
    Jeff Walsh
    20/10/2014 at 11:32am
    Anonymous pledger
    20/10/2014 at 11:24am
    Corinne Chubb
    20/10/2014 at 10:51am
    Joel Stirling
    15/10/2014 at 10:49pm
    Matt Lewis
    15/10/2014 at 9:16pm
    Laura Chubb
    09/10/2014 at 3:12pm
    Michelle Osmond
    09/10/2014 at 2:54am
    Kyra C
    07/10/2014 at 3:41pm
    Lisa Martin
    10/09/2014 at 1:52pm
    Sherri Oglesby McKean
    10/09/2014 at 12:24pm
    Karen forno
    09/09/2014 at 1:03am
    Anonymous pledger
    08/09/2014 at 1:53pm
    Marilyn Martin
    07/09/2014 at 12:27pm
    Anonymous pledger
    06/09/2014 at 11:16am
    Donna Chubb
    05/09/2014 at 12:55pm
    Ashley Peach
    03/09/2014 at 6:37pm
    Anonymous pledger
    03/09/2014 at 1:15pm
    Anonymous pledger
    03/09/2014 at 1:13pm
    Linda Halle
    02/09/2014 at 4:46pm
    Ashley Grant - MacDonald
    21/08/2014 at 12:28pm

    Followers 9

    Followers of Creating Conversations: Using Community-Based Participatory Action Research to Build a Platform for Sex Talk in Coast, Kenya

    Creating Conversations: Using Community-Based Participatory Action Research To Build A Platform For Sex Talk In Coast, Kenya

    Project 2014-07-16 13:54:27 +1200

    Follow and share the project on Twitter and Facebook with the hashtag #Pledge4SexEd    

     

    Hello Friends and Potential Supporters! 

    I would like you to consider your responses to the following questions:

    Growing up did you have the opportunity to learn about sex education in school? Maybe you did not always want to, but as a youth could you ask your parents questions about sex without disrespecting the values of your culture, or having them think you were deviant, promiscuous, or the like? Did you understand principles of body agency such as respect for yours and others bodies, and how bodies can be used?  Did you understand any aspects of sexuality? Were you a member of a population that was most susceptible to unplanned pregnancies, or increasingly exposed to STDs, in particular HIV?  If you wanted to ask questions about these issues, were you able to? Finally, How important would the answers to these questions be if you had not been able to say the most desirable response? 

    The "Creating Conversations" proposal is part of my PhD research at the University of Auckland.  I am endeavoring to conduct international research in Mombasa, Kenya, from February-September of 2015. I am asked this question on almost a daily basis: Why Kenya and why sex education in Kenya?  For me it is about reciprocating the knowledge and experience that members of communities in Kenya and Tanzania have shared with me.  My experience volunteering, researching, and living in Kenya have made me hyper-aware of how fortunate I have been to grow up in an environment that makes having conversations about sex more accessible.  But it is has also opened my eyes to the magnificence of different cultural ways of life, the notion of collectiveness, and being an active participant in our lives each and every day.  Working in Kenya, and gaining support for this project, be it emotional or financial, is about educating others to become more globally active citizens.  It is important and interesting to know how different populations live, the beauty of their cultural values and practices, and how we can work together to enhance the voices in populations that are often muted.

    The following abstract gives an overview of my study, why I am collecting data, how I will do this, and what may potentially result from the research.

     

    Abstract

    Creating a synergy between action and research is a complex process to ensure one informs the other.  In this study the research simultaneously acts as a means of collecting data about baraza (a traditional Swahili gathering place – plural mabaraza) to test it as a functional space for sex talk between youth and adults, as well as a means for the community to gather and act on information about how to improve sex education delivery.  In sharing and deconstructing existing ideas about sex and how sex education can be best implemented, the researcher, in collaboration with the key stakeholders, will aim to answer this study’s overarching research question: How can conversational spaces between youth and adults (i.e. mabaraza) be adapted as a viable as strategy for re-modeling sex education delivery in Kenyan public schools and community programs?

    Engaging in dialogue around sexual topics in such a space will allow ideas to be contested, shared and clarified to achieve the following aims of this study:

    1)   To understand barriers to successful implementation of sex education in Kenyan communities;

    2)   To test if the space is adaptable for the content and context (gender specific versus gender divided);

    3)   To examine the process and dynamics that occur in these spaces as well as how the information gained can be used;

    4)   To allow for open communication about issues related to sex where members of both youth and adult participating groups have equal opportunity for exchange; and

    5)   To foster change that provides for universal, examinable, applicable, culturally relevant and age-appropriate sex education in schools and community programs across Coast, Kenya.

    Through achieving these aims, the goal for the study is to uncover how conversations about sex can be managed in a way that maintains respect for, and does not mute, the values of the society or the voices that often go unheard (i.e., youth).  Collaborating with the community, through a community-based participatory action research (CBPR) methodology, this information will be used to develop a strategy of sex education delivery, relevant to and in line with the values of society.

    Previous research related to topics of sexual education in Kenya show evidence that youth are engaging in sex.  It is clear that these encounters do not regularly involve safer sex practices, do not always involve two consenting individuals and that sex education is often informed by cultural taboos, entrenched belief systems, and fears that were communicated to them with the expectation that fear would help delay sexual encounters. Limited studies record initiatives where youth have been given the opportunity to have their ideas about sexual practices be shared with adults from a variety of spheres. McLaughlin et al. (2002) acknowledged that for conversational spaces about sex to be successful between youth and adults in Kenya, outside facilitation would be necessary and they questioned the ability of these dialogues to be replicated in African classrooms.  Thus, I am partnering with a community sex education project in public secondary schools that will prepare youth stakeholders to have these dialogues with a range of adult stakeholders in a larger, traditional, community space. The aim is to arrive at a reciprocal collaboration between the researcher as outsider and key community stakeholders, including members of the Ministry of Education, academic institutions, not-for-profit agencies delivering services to young adults, teachers, parents and the youth who partake in the study. While these partnerships are difficult to form, I have been able to develop and maintain close working relationships with a partner orgnaisation, Kwacha Afrika. They have strong working connections with various organizations and the government of Kenya.

    The CBPR project incorporates both research and action elements.  Actions include a youth photo-journal sex education project in Coast schools and a series of separate meetings with the youth and adults of various communities in Coast Province regarding the current state of sex education and their desire for more effective programmes. These meetings will lead to the convening of several mabaraza in which the adults and youth will talk together about the issues of sex and sex education. The results from the study have the potential to inform the implementation of sex education in public schools and communities across Coast, Kenya, and the findings will be relevant to communities globally where traditional spaces can be adapted as a tool for sex education. 

     

     

     

    I chose PledgeMe as a potential avenue to kickstart this project because I have been witness to and on the receiving end of the generosity from others during volunteer programs in Peru where 100% of funds raised went toward the community and their projects.  So please take the opportunity to see your donations have a first hand impact!  PledgeMe works on an "all or nothing" principal, so if we don't reach our fundraising goal, all funds are returned! For the project duration I promise to keep all project supporters updated by sending video diaries, pictures, project reports via email.  Be sure to check out the reward side bar to see what you can receive for different levels of donations.

     

    All funds raised will be exclusively invested towards supporting the following areas of the project:

    • Hiring trained sex educators to work for 10hours a week, over a period of three months in the schools. $625.00 per day to train a group of youth form the community. (3 Days required).
    • Hiring two translators for the duration of the project to transcribe interviews, focus groups, and communicate ideas/conversations during public gatherings.
    • Travel reimbursement to and from research location for participants.
    • Food and beverage provision at each gathering (approximately 500 people at each).
    • Travel costs to have Government Ministers attend and participate in different aspects of the project
    • Research tools such as noise cancelling voice recorder to accurately document conversations had in focus groups, interviews, etc.  Other research tools include a pocket projector to go through power points for the research training and sex education sessions.  A camcorder to document each baraza and focus group (this will be donated to Kwacha Afrika’s new film production project after the study has finished).
    • Disposable cameras, journals for each student, and writing tools, for the construction of photo-journals during sex education sessions.
    • Gifts for each of the 5 of 20 participating schools who will actively participate in the research.
    • Funding for each of the members of the research team for their dedication to organizing events, meetings, research training, and facilitating throughout the seven months.
    • Donations to Kwacha Afrika, the partner organization, that will host the research team and safely store our research materials.
    • Funds to rent a venue for the baraza (Swahili gathering) where the youths and adults participating group will come together to have open conversations about sex.

    Please help our research team meet the goal of raising $4400 to help cover implementation costs.  The extra $400 is to account for credit card deductions of 3% and the 5% that goes toward the crowd funding initiative (8%= 2.8%+ 0.25 cents per credit card transaction and 5% as a success fee)!

    THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS PROPOSAL!

     

    **REMEMBER REWARDS FOR DONATIONS MORE THAN $25 ARE SENT OUT AFTER FUNDRAISING GOAL IS REACHED**

    Comments

    REWARDS!

    23/10/2014 at 11:34 AM

    First off- woo woo, we did it! Thank you so much to everyone who donated, you are all wonderful!

    For all those lovely people who clicked reward when you made a donation, be patient, they are coming! I am just waiting on the list of pledgers from the admin!

    You need to pledge to see this update.

    Follow me on Twitter

    20/07/2014 at 7:49 PM

    Interested in learning more about the stage we are at with the project, reading great links to sex education in Kenya, or seeing us Tweet your deets for donations?   

    Follow  @LauraAnnChubb   https://twitter.com/LauraAnnChubb

    Thanks for all of the support so far :)

    You need to pledge to see this update.

      Steven Ellis
      21/10/2014 at 8:46pm
      Laura Chubb
      21/10/2014 at 8:07pm
      Laura Chubb
      21/10/2014 at 8:02pm
      Anonymous pledger
      21/10/2014 at 4:33pm
      Emily McBurney
      21/10/2014 at 11:22am
      Taryn
      20/10/2014 at 10:46pm
      Maria
      20/10/2014 at 10:27pm
      Holly Rutledge
      20/10/2014 at 8:21pm
      Josh Forde
      20/10/2014 at 12:12pm
      Anonymous pledger
      20/10/2014 at 12:04pm
      Jeff Walsh
      20/10/2014 at 11:32am
      Anonymous pledger
      20/10/2014 at 11:24am
      Corinne Chubb
      20/10/2014 at 10:51am
      Joel Stirling
      15/10/2014 at 10:49pm
      Matt Lewis
      15/10/2014 at 9:16pm
      Laura Chubb
      09/10/2014 at 3:12pm
      Michelle Osmond
      09/10/2014 at 2:54am
      Kyra C
      07/10/2014 at 3:41pm
      Lisa Martin
      10/09/2014 at 1:52pm
      Sherri Oglesby McKean
      10/09/2014 at 12:24pm
      Karen forno
      09/09/2014 at 1:03am
      Anonymous pledger
      08/09/2014 at 1:53pm
      Marilyn Martin
      07/09/2014 at 12:27pm
      Anonymous pledger
      06/09/2014 at 11:16am
      Donna Chubb
      05/09/2014 at 12:55pm
      Ashley Peach
      03/09/2014 at 6:37pm
      Anonymous pledger
      03/09/2014 at 1:15pm
      Anonymous pledger
      03/09/2014 at 1:13pm
      Linda Halle
      02/09/2014 at 4:46pm
      Ashley Grant - MacDonald
      21/08/2014 at 12:28pm

      Followers of Creating Conversations: Using Community-Based Participatory Action Research to Build a Platform for Sex Talk in Coast, Kenya

      This campaign was successful and got its funding on 21/10/2014 at 8:46 PM.