Initiative description:

RiseUp! Young Women’s Leadership and Advocacy Initiative in Asia and the Pacific is a flagship initiative of World YWCA, in partnership with the Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. RiseUp! in Asia and the Pacific is led by partners and young women in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, and Thailand, contributing to World YWCA’s Goal 2035: 100 million young women and girls will transform power structures to create justice, gender equality and a world without violence and war. World YWCA commissioned Elevating Voices for Change and The Mangrove Collective to lead the RiseUp! Asia Pacific Formative Evaluation, co-designed with an intergenerational Steering Committee of RiseUp! Asia Pacific leaders. It is a collaboration grounded in World YWCA’s Feminist Consultation Methodology, ensuring that data collection and sense-making are owned by young women who have participated in RiseUp! These RiseUp! young women co-researchers were coached and supported by Evaluation Navigators in six countries – Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Solomon Islands and Thailand. RiseUp! partners YWCA of Bangladesh, YWCA of India, YWCA of Myanmar, YWCA of Nepal, Hauskuk Initiative PNG, YWCA of Sri Lanka, and YWCA of Thailand have worked with Evaluation Navigators and RiseUp! young women co-researchers to support data collection and sense-making in their RiseUp! communities. This deeply collaborative evaluation is the result of an unwavering commitment to the values and practices of community-led accountability.

What we did:

In joint partnership with The Mangrove Collective, the World YWCA, and representatives of RiseUp! teams in each country, we are leading an evaluation that supports young women co-researchers to evaluate World YWCA’s RiseUp! young women’s leadership initiative in 7 Asian Pacific countries. The evaluation approach applies feminist principles and methodologies. The entire evaluation process is co-designed and co-implemented with intergenerational women leaders in the various countries. RiseUp! alumni were selected to be co-researchers who were capacitated to facilitate key Focus Group Discussion tools with their peers applying RiseUp!’s Feminist Consultation Methodology. Methodologies feature a Most Significant Change story process with causal mapping and change scale spider diagram tool that allow young women to evaluate and learn as they participate in evaluation activities.

How we shifted practice:

Intergenerational leaders from key countries co-designed the evaluation processes, especially in each country. Evaluation navigators who are experienced with evaluation and facilitation trained and coached RiseUp! alumni (young women leaders) to facilitate FGDs as a key element of the data collection process.