Work-packages
The aim of this WP is to ensure the effective implementation of all project actions and to guarantee the financial management. This includes also activities related to quality assurance, external evaluation or exploitation and sustainability of the project, among others.
This WP includes the development of the following 5 activities:
The goal of each Local Coalition is to assure their implication in the study, facilitate understanding of cultural group, demystify the role of the researcher, create trust and a collaborative environment, collect and examine data. Collaboratively, each Field Work Group (Research-Community Partnership) will identify and recruit a core group of local key stakeholders from the community interested in and with expertise on the matter (e.g., teachers, public service providers, Roma community leaders, policymakers). Each Local Coalition will be approximately composed of 10-15 members including partners.
This mapping will be conducted by the Field Work Group collaboratively Local Coalitions in each context. The activities for achieving this are: (a) desk reviews of plans and programs at national, regional and local level to identify actions to prevent Roma teenage motherhood and/or to empower Roma girls’ mattering (and related topics); and (b) interviews to key stakeholders from the community who implement/adapt non-institutionalized actions not included in the desk reviews. Verbatim transcriptions of interviews and content analysis of both interviews and desk research will be conducted with Atlas-ti software by each Research partner. Each Local Coalition will develop a protocol to determine if the identified resources are empowering or not.
At least 10 narratives from legal aged adult Roma women about their mattering linked to reproductive justice. The Community Partners will conduct individual interviews and focus groups to collect narratives. Now the research group will do verbatim transcriptions and content analysis of these data will be conducted with Atlas-ti software by each Research partner.
This mapping will be done by the lead partner of this WP—supported by the rest of Research Partners—and will allow exploring indexed scientific literature on RGPAR to empower mattering linked to reproductive justice and other related topics collected during previous activities of the project. This scoping review will follow the protocols proposed by Arksey y O-Maley (2005) and Colquhoun et al. (2014) and will include four data bases: PubMed/MEDLINE, Web of Science, Scopus and PsycINFO.
Information resulting from previous activities will allow creating an on-line toolbox available at the project website that will gather mapping results of previous activities to empower mattering linked to reproductive in each context. This tool box will be coordinated by the Lead Partner and collaboration between Partners.
The objective is to engage Roma girls in developing critical thinking, building recommendations and advocating for empowering mattering linked to reproductive justice. This WP will be led by University of Seville and include the development of the following activities:
In each context the Community Partner with the Local Coalitions will identify and select 3 Roma women. These women will be neighbours from the local context and preferably members or staff of the Community Partner—except participating girls’ mothers—to be trained as facilitators. This way we will assure strengthening the Community Partner within in each context. Facilitators will guide RGPAR processes, encourage Roma girls’ participation, make and agree decisions with them, value girls’ different opinions and ideas, prevent cultural bias, gain capacity to influence in their contexts and act as liaison between Roma girls, the Local Coalition and communities. Lead partner will develop a training package for facilitators following the recommendations and guidelines provided in the Community Tool Box. The Community Tool Box is an online resource developed by the Center for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas for taking action, teaching, and training others in organizing for community development. For that they will use and adapt the training package developed during one on-site session of 3 hours. After each RGPAR session, facilitators will meet with Field Work Group for follow up; they will also be in contact via mobile phone or e-mail for further issues.
20-25 Roma girls will be selected in each context. Each Field Work Group and Local Coalition will adapt the selection method to their contexts. Selection criteria will be flexible in order to adapt to the reality. As a general suggestion girls should be: Between 10-14 years old, identify themselves as Roma, have no children, not pregnant, attending school, untapped leadership potential, reflect ability to work together, national or foreign origin. Roma girls will be identified through counsellors and teachers in the schools, parents, Local Coalition’s network, public service providers and Roma community-based organizations.
An initial session will be organized to invite selected Roma girls’ parents as well as other significant adults (e.g., teachers, Roma women who participated in WP2.3, etc, key Roma women in the community.). In this session, Field Work Group and facilitators will explain the project, Roma girls’ parents will be asked for their permission to participate, and all participants will be required to support project activities. In this sense, monthly meetings will be conducted with significant adults in each context throughout the project in order to build collaboration, assure implementation, and reflect on the process.
Photovoice provides individuals with a camera to capture their voices and visions of their communities’ strengths and resources. This activity implies:
a) Developing Roma girls’ capacity to articulate their own narratives and identify goals for the future. Roma girls will be trained by facilitators supervised by Field Work Group in technical and ethical issues when conducting Photovoice, working in groups and developing capacity to articulate their own narratives. This training will be in 2 hour on-site sessions for 2 weeks. All girls will be provided with a camera. During 3 weeks in 2-hour weekly sessions, Roma girls will gather in onsite activities and field visits to meet and interact with different key Roma women. Along these sessions and experiences, Roma girls will reflect and dialogue on their values on becoming women, on their vision of future selves and developing short-term and long-term goals to achieve this. For that Roma girls will take pictures to identify and express such thinking. Facilitators will assist Roma girls during this task and will provide them with framing questions to successfully develop the activity. In following 2-hour weekly sessions along 3 weeks, each Roma girl will present their pictures together with their reflections in small groups led by facilitators. Following, these pictures and reflections will be shared among all Roma girls who will provide feedback. Facilitators will encourage girls to identify the contextual and cultural risk factors that might challenge their reproductive justice and life goals (e.g., teenage motherhood). Finally, local Photovoice exhibits will be collaboratively organized by Field Work Group, Local Coalitions and facilitators in each context to share and debate on Roma girls’ reflections with the rest of their communities during one week.
b) Building knowledge on Roma girls’ reproductive justice. Roma girls will be trained in a 2-hour weekly on-site session by facilitators—supervised by Field Work Group—in thematic analysis using and adapting games already available in the literature to this end. In one weekly 2-hour session during 3 weeks, girls will identify in small groups key messages on mattering and reproductive justice—from the previous activity—and cluster them. In three following sessions, all participants will share and match these clustered messages and categorize them under labels.
Method to be followed is the same as in activity 3.3.c. but focusing on recommendations and actions that different stakeholders in the community (i.e., Roma girls, policymakers, parents, professors, other service providers, significant adults, etc.) should and could do to empower Roma girls’ mattering linked to reproductive justice.
Advocacy activities will help Roma girls to develop an active role in strengthening their mattering linked to reproductive justice in front of community key stakeholders. The latter will develop awareness on the issues and facilitate resources to this end. First, a joint meeting between Roma girls, facilitators and Local Coalitions will be organized by Field Work Group in each context to share and discuss challenges and recommendations from activities 3.3. and 3.4. As result, local guides to empower Roma girls’ mattering linked to reproductive justice will be developed in each context—a final document will gather all local guides. Roma girls together with facilitators will develop networking activities such as meetings, media participation, performances, peer-mentoring, etc. with key stakeholder and other Roma girls from their communities. Final RGPAR exhibitions will be organized around different community settings in each context (e.g., civic centre, schools, street, city council, etc.) to share Roma girls’ concerns and recommendations on how to empower their mattering linked to reproductive justice. Finally, 2-3 Roma girls from each context will be invited to the Final Conference to share their experiences, present results, and networking. They will travel under the permission of their parents and will be accompanied and supervised by one of their facilitators.
WP4 will be led by Trust for Social Achievement and conducted by Field Work Groups. The Research Partners will be in charge of training Community Partners and facilitators to evaluate RGPAR process, implementation and outcomes. This process strongly focuses on building evaluation capacity among Community Partners. Activities included are:
Partner leading this WP4 will develop a training guideline that Research Partners will use to train Community Partners and facilitators. This guideline will be adapted and developed from resources proposed by the Community Tool Box for RGPAR evaluation.
In one 2-hour on-site session Research Partners will train evaluators from each context from adapting and developing the guidelines. Researcher Partners will monitor evaluators during the evaluation.
Evaluation will be developed at 3 different levels:
a) RGPAR’s process evaluation will entail the degree on which planning and logistical activities needed were considered to set up and run the RGPAR. For example: if RGPAR has been based on the resource bank developed in WP1; if RGPAR has been adjusted to the established timeline; if the needed resources and structures for RGPAR were foreseen beforehand; if it was actively supported by the community; if a monitoring process was established; if barriers were identified and strategies were considered to prevent them; if it includes other actions developed by the community to address discrimination processes linked to teenage motherhood in Roma girls as well as other possible sources of discrimination, etc.
b) RGPAR’s implementation evaluation. Special focus will be set in assessing: how Roma girls and facilitators were identified and selected; their satisfaction with the process; how they were involved in actions; how they were trained and how their permanence was guaranteed.
c) RGPAR’s outcomes evaluation. This evaluation will assess the results and consequences of RGPAR among participants (i.e., Roma girls and facilitators) in the beginning and at the end of the processes. Special focus will be placed in evaluating personal networks of girls, the number of exhibitions organized and their impacts on the community, the evolution of Roma girls’ mattering linked to reproductive justice. Concerning facilitators, among other aspects, the capacity to lead small work groups with Roma girls and conflict- resolution skills will be measured
Main objective of this WP is to disseminate information about the activities implemented and results obtained during the project lifetime. All communication efforts will be used to announce and accompany key milestones of the project and will be directed towards each specific target group, as it is reflected in each WP. Thus, this WP is addressed not only to project partners in order they conceive a strategy for making project products visible, but also to all kind of stakeholders in order to reach their support at different levels: participate in different project activities, disseminate project results, get normative support, public support, etc.
This includes the development of the following activities:
5.1. Elaboration of a dissemination and communication strategy.
5.2. Report on dissemination and communication activities.
5.3. Development and maintenance of a project website.
5.4. Presentation of project outcomes in national and international conferences.
5.5. Submission of scientific manuscripts.
5.6. Organization of the ROMOMATTER project Final Conference.
5.7. Development of a Policy Brief on recommendations to fight against Roma teenage mother discrimination.