Research Methods Training in Kabul, Afghanistan
Research Methods Training in Kabul, Afghanistan
Future Generations Empowerment (FGE) conducted its first certificate program earlier this month in Kabul, Afghanistan. The training, organized by Future Generations Afghanistan’s Executive Director, Ajmal Shirzai, was designed for government officials at the Research and Policy Department of Afghanistan’s Deputy Ministry of Youth Affairs (DMoYA). Trainers, all either alumni or current students of Future Generations Graduate School, focused on four types of research: Applied, Description, Evaluation, and Quantitative .
The applied research section was led by Besmillah Sakhizada (Class of 2013). Sakhizada presented his “Family Health Action Group” research that he has been working on since 2006 in Afghanistan’s Bamyan Province. Applied research, he argued, is conducted in response to a specific problem that requires a solution.
Descriptive research, on the other hand, is designed to define the objectives, facts, and characteristics to be investigated. This section was led by Amanullah Hotak (Class of 2013). Hotak discussed how he is using descriptive research to improve local governance in Central Afghanistan through his own NGO, OLSFG (Organization for Local Services and Future Generations).
Evaluation research is the process of determining the value or worth of something. It is oriented toward formal and objective measurement of the extent to which a given action, activity, or program has achieved its original objective. Tahir Khalil (Class of 2014), discussed the Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) program that he has been leading in six provinces of Afghanistan. The program was recently evaluated by an independent evaluator. Khalil spoke about the evaluator’s planning and execution processes, their key findings, and how they could be implemented.
Lastly, the section on quantitative research was facilitated by Ajmal Shirzai. Quantitative research generates and analyzes numerical data and usually seeks to establish causal relationships between two or more variables, using statistical methods to test the strength and significance of the relationships. Shirzai explained his research project, “Identification of Positive Deviance Communities in Eastern Afghanistan.” This research was comprised of three phases, each phase having three steps. The first phase was the collection and analysis of quantitative data using composite variables for security and development. This session helped the participants to learn how the quantitative data can be converted into qualitative information.
The training was funded through an Alumni Learning & Action Collaboration grant that FGE received in 2015. Future Generations Empowerment is an Afghanistan-based NGO that was formed in 2015 by Future Generations alumni in order to apply their skills and knowledge to community development, good governance, peacebuilding, and environmental conservation for the empowerment of local communities (mainly youths). The group is already planning a similar training for youth groups throughout Afghanistan.
Voices of Future Generations: Baby Sister
Voices of Future Generations: Baby Sister
In the second episode of Voices of Future Generations, a young girl in Moscow named Alina talks about meeting her baby sister for the first time and teaching her how to speak Russian. Enjoy!
Saving Children’s Lives Through Community-Based Health Interventions: Bringing Together the Evidence for What Works
Saving Children’s Lives Through Community-Based Health Interventions: Bringing Together the Evidence for What Works
Beginning in 2007 with support and input from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank, Future Generations has been actively facilitating and supporting a global systematic review of Community-Based Primary healthcare (CBPHC). To date, thousands of articles have been reviewed and over 650 articles have been included in the review of both child, and more recently added, maternal health interventions that have a community-based component.
The effort is being led by Dr. Henry Perry, a former Future Generations faculty member now at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH), with collaboration from Meike Schleiff, Assistant Professor and Director of Research at Future Generations and a doctoral candidate at JHSPH, and many others. The team is currently doing in-depth reviews of neonatal health, maternal health, and health equity with additional analyses to follow.
The study has identified a number of approaches with potential and evidence for high impact community-based work, including the importance of home visiting programs, community case management of child illnesses, participatory women’s groups, and utilization of mobile health teams to provide additional outreach services.
In May 2016, the findings of the systematic review were presented at the CORE Groupannual meeting, where a global network of practitioners focusing on improving maternal and child health got to review key findings and also provide feedback and discuss the way forward.
For more information about this exciting and unique systematic review, you can check out previous publications at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17441690903330305. You can also contact Meike Schleiff for more information.
Journey Towards the Light
Journey Towards the Light
Bhim Bahadur Nepali is one of many Future Generations students who is heavily involved with Share and Care, a group that works with marginalized and vulnerable groups, particularly women and children, throughout Nepal. As a self-directed project for his Graduate Study Foundations course, he worked as the production coordinator on “Journey Towards the Light,” a short documentary that focuses on Share and Care’s Advocacy on Women’s Empowerment Project (AWEP).
Bhim estimates that AWEP has directly benefited about 6,000 people. “Women and adolescent girls are aware, empowered, and transformed through direct intervention from our AWEP project,” he says. Bhim came up with the idea for the documentary in order to showcase a handful of the personal stories of some of these women. “They might be role models or sources of inspiration for others in the community.”
Voices of Future Generations: Helping Mom
Voices of Future Generations: Helping Mom
In the early 2000s, Future Generations began a documentary audio project called Voices of Future Generations. The idea was to create a radio program by children, for adults. “Children endure the most difficult circumstances with joy, creativity, and hope,” read the promotional brochure. “Through their stories, children open our eyes to the smallest details, help us understand the diversity of culture and the wonders of nature, and help us solve problems by looking toward the future. Adults need to hear children tell stories of how they see the world. Unlike the news that focuses attention on the present or the past, the stories of children point listeners to the future and help to restore hope in a rapidly changing and unstable world that looms with big questions.”
The radio program never materialized, but Future Generations staff did record nine children from seven different countries, talking about things that were happening in their lives – everything from fishing to terminal illness. Most of these children would be in their twenties by now, but the importance of listening to their voices is timeless.
Over the course of the next few months, Future Generations will make these three-minute recordings available here, beginning with a young girl in Vancouver talking about helping to take care of her family while her mother is in a hospital seeking treatment for cancer.