The team – Mary Hastag (Botswana), Sue Goatley (Zimbabwe), James Mwanza (Zambia), Tanya McKenzie (Limpopo Valley), Agnes Tjirare (Namibia), Janet Wilkinson (SA), Symon Chibaka (Malawi) and Bongani Baloyi (SA). Picture taken by Lisa Witherden (SA).
The Children in the Wilderness (CITW) Team met in Johannesburg last week in order to consolidate our Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) learnings and tools, as well as to discuss other elements of the CITW programme.
After our M & E workshop in February, each region undertook to develop a ‘Theory of Change’. A theory of change is a description how and why a desired change is expected to happen. It focuses on what needs to be done in order to achieve specific aims and visions, and bring about a desired change.
In our case, this ‘change’ is to create a network of learning sanctuaries that uplifts and cares for our children and conserves our planet. In this way, we hope to inspire the children to care for the environment so that they can become the custodians of these areas in the future. It is our vision to develop sustainable conservation through leadership development.
The M&E portion of the workshop was lead by our very own James Mwanza and Symon Chibaka, who based their original theories of change on the Four-by-Four framework. We worked together under their facilitation, to create our general CITW framework. This will help us ensure that we are working towards our vision. It also allows us to monitor and evaluate the success of our programmes.
It was a hugely successful week, and the team left even more inspired and motivated, ready to implement our new tool into their regions.
