Evaluation Report. Latin America Regional Team

Background

The Salvation Army Integrated Mission Team in Latin America (ELAMI) seeks to develop the capacity and resources of the Salvation Army, as a branch of a Christian Church, to better reach out to the local community to understand problems that are being experienced and to facilitate responses, as developed by the community, in conjunction with local organisations. The Integrated Mission process focuses on human capacity development which refers to the stimulation of the will, abilities and skills that are needed for a competent response by organisations and communities. TSA firmly believes that the capacity exists within local communities for them to take charge of their own situations. The ELAMI encourages a common way of being and working for all parts of the Salvation Army which includes an on-going process of  reflection in order to capitalize on the experiences of each community and share it with others. Transfer is facilitated because members of the community are invited to discussions with other communities and also as community members move to other communities, they take the approach with them. Offering of mutual support, participatory evaluation, assessment and relationship building are all means that are used by the teams to ensure successful and sustainable community interventions.

Purpose/objective

This evaluation was initiated by ELAMI in order to fulfill the agreed action plan with Norad, the donor entity for this project. Both organisations want to evaluate the joint project and the fulfillment of the proposed aims for Project 2010-2014.

The objectives were to evaluate:

•  how the EMALI has developed during this period based on the original objectives defined at the beginning of this period.
• the degree of participation and empowerment of the members of the ELAMI team during the planning, implementation of activities, monitoring and evaluation phases, from the beginning of this project.
• the degree of influence the project has had on the creation of territorial, divisional and local teams.
• to what extent the IM concepts have been extended throughout the Salvation Army structure in Latin America
• to what extent IM has been incorporated into other areas of the Salvation Army
• if the venefits of the project have been transferred and experienced beyond the original group of direct Salvation Army beneficiaries
• how the project has supported the most vulnerable and poor members of the society in the focus areas of the ELAMI
• social justice, the environment, community development and health
• if the Projects community beneficiaries are capable of sustaining the benefits in the long term
• if the community beneficiaries have been able to better understand the Gospel and the IM approach through the projects activities
• communication among the different teams
• the relationship network or strategy alliances with other organisations
• to what extent we could now move on to supporting in IM in this Region through territorial and divisional teams

Methodology

The evaluation of efficiency, efficacy and impact was carried out in three stages.

1. Stage: The elaboration of the evaluation, agreements, travel plans and file reading tools.
2. Stage: Programme to programme visit to Ecuador; transference meeting in Costa Rica, Latin America North Territory; Mexico territorial team training of the divisions.
3. Stage: Reading of the materials, final report preparation, final presentation of the report to the ELAMI coordinator, sending the report to Norad, and presentation of the report during the synthesis and planning meeting.

The evaluation was carried out through observation, participation, group meetings, informal interviews, obtaining data through the involvement and comments of the participants, dialogues with the evaluator or between the participants and group dynamics that allowed the visualization of the process and the achievements gained by the territorial teams, the divisional teams and their own relationships.

Key findings

The ELAMI members have adopted Integrated Mission as a way of life, crossing and permeating all areas of their lives. During the first years of the project it was evident that some difficulties were encountered and not all the aims were achieved during this period. It was only half way through the project that we could observe a change and a new direction that empowered and catapulted the team in such a way to reach the final period with almost all the proposed results.

Most of the recommendations given in the 2008 evaluation had been taken into account. It was noted that the incorporation of indicators were of great help during the evaluation period. In addition, annual operating plans were developed, producing a narrative and graphic presentation, this allowed a greater visibility of the operating plan. This also facilitated the annual evaluations that, in time, helped to make corrections for the nest year. During the last two years, an evaluation scheme was incorporated for each ELAMI event. It is remarkable that gender equity is one of the axes that cut across the project, where this topic has been respected in the formation of territorial teams: 50% men, 50% women. 

In general terms, Integrated mission has been introduced in all the LA territories and has been permeated through all levels of the Salvation Army. With the formation of territorial and divisional teams, adding to ELAMI a multitude of player agents of IM that; we hope this will increment the impact of seeing mission from this perspective. The transference meeting has been an excellent strategy because in a strategic and symbolic way it transfers the “baton” to a new and larger team (territorial, divisional, local). During the last two years of the project it implemented an excellent methodology including the transfer concepts and in the practice of community work. 

Recommendations

• ELAMI should keep running
• Design and implement a communications strategy to allow fluency in the dialogue
• Keep having synthesis and planning meetings to allow the elaboration of the yearly strategic plan and the operations plan in a participatory manner
• Review the document describing team roles and functions and adjust them to the new organizational situations if necessary
• Build up a profile for the ELAMI coordinator depending on the management ability at territorial and Latin America level
• Organise the ELAMI database because it contains its history, in Spanish as well as in English
• Continue creating graphic material to be distributed virtually and to be available to all
• Write more stories that could be used during workshops as case studies
• Continue working on the dissemination of IM, its concepts and community work approaches
• Continue deepening the IM concepts
• Continue researching the themes related to participatory techniques and its adequate application.
• Work deeper with the term FACILITATOR. Reflect about what it means to be a facilitator, what elements help to a good facilitation; what does a facilitator do/does not do, etc.
• Not to rest until each territory has a divisional IM team
• Continue working until each territory has a IM youth team
• Continue with programme to programme visits

Comments from the organisation, if any

The ELAMI team are satisfied with the findings of the evaluation. They found the evaluation process valuable and appreciated the findings and recommendations that were put forward. This evaluation has helped all the team to continue learning from their experiences so that the ELAMI, as well as the territorial, divisional and/or local teams are strengthened, to contribute in a better development of the Salvation Army mission.

The main follow-up activities will be to: - Strengthen our integration with Project Office personnel. The idea here is not because of funding, although that could be an important asses at this time, but rather use the knowledge that this group of people already have to add to IM, especially the Tools for Community Development - Offer active support to the Territorial Teams and continue to promote participation and integration with other expressions of IM in Latin America

ELAMI will continue to function, however on a different scale as Territories now have their Territorial Teams, and the financing of this will probably come from SA internal projects.