Author: Lars Thuesen
Change Leader and Positive Deviance Facilitator
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies reached out for help in 2017, because they wanted to test the Positive Deviance Approach (PD) in two Roma communities. Since then we have been helping to initiate and sustain the approach in two projects aiming at reducing school drop-outs: one in a secondary and high school in the Roma municipality of Shuto Orizari located in the outskirts of Skopje, North Macedonia and another in the Roma community of Carcini in Transylvania, Northern Romania.
The Sacele, Garcini neighbourhood in Transylvania, Northern Romania is inhabited by a population of 9000 declared Roma ethnics (20.000 in reality). Living conditions are poor: people live in shacks, the infrastructure is bad, and there is lack of electricity and current water. The alarming average school drop-out rate is over 50% and unemployment rates near 80%.
Many good, competent efforts and projects have been initiated over the years to help change the living conditions in the community and some improvements have been made. But typically, things go back to the old normal once the projects have ended. You might say that almost everything has been tried but with much sustainable positive changes in the community.
Together with the National Romanian Red Cross and the local Brasov branch office we formed and trained a PD innovation team that could help facilitate a series of conversations and workshops to see if it was possible to discover solutions, successful strategies and champion behaviours in the community. Simple, practical solutions where the community members have found ways to overcome the most pressing community challenges and problems.
During the first couple of community meetings and via interviews we helped identifying problems that ‘keep us awake at 2 o’clock in the morning’. In the beginning we worked separately with 4th and 5th grade students, parents and grandparents and some teachers.
Surprisingly, the children and parents were quite aligned and agreed on the problems that were worth pursuing. For many school-drop out and unemployment rates seemed quite abstract, so we tried to narrow things down and specify the problems, so they were relevant and made more sense to the community members. For example the generic problem – reducing school drop-out - that was defined from the beginning of the project was ‘reframed’ and specified to improving school attendance, getting more homework done, keeping bed times, and getting up in the morning to be able to go to school in due time.
Here is a list of the problems that were identified by community members:
High numbers of school drop-out among Roma students (50+ %)
Unemployment (80+ %)
Violence, conflicts and abuse
School attendance
Homework
Exclusion
Child marriages
Alcoholism
Illiteracy
Hygiene
The community chose to work on illiteracy and inclusion and successful strategies to overcome the depressing prospects of young community members. Through interviews and community workshops several fascinating and useful PD solutions that are accessible to all were identified.
Jointly the children and parents identified the following PD solutions:
Scheduling/ structuring the day
Avoiding and ignoring conflicts and violence
Connecting parents/ kids – kids/ parents
Parental authority
Respect for and greeting parents
Students change clothes after school before playing
Parents trusting, supporting and being available for their children
Honesty in communication with children
Moms structuring time for homework
Here are three examples of champion behaviours: avoiding early marriage and to succeed in graduating from secondary school, taking off school clothes before playing outside and making a schedule for the day.
Avoiding early marriage to succeed in graduating from secondary school
Quite a few teenage girls marry at the age of 14-15 (sometimes even earlier) and get children before the age of 18. During workshops we ‘flipped the problem’ and asked if there were girls who do not get married early and succeed in graduating from school. The answer was yes! This community discovery led to determining what and how these girls succeeded against the odds.
The answers and hidden solutions were found in the support from parents, e.g. how mothers in structured ways helped their children with homework during the afternoons and also in how teachers encouraged students to learn more through structured feedback and follow up.
Alexandra, a young Roma girl from Sacele, Garcini neighbourhood in Northern Romania gets help from Red Cross PD facilitator Alina Ursu, who is a Roma positive champion herself, to explain how she managed to stay in school and avoid an early marriage. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
Taking off school clothes before playing outside
Another champion behaviour that helped to improve school attendance was for children to take off their school clothes once they get home in the afternoon, before they go playing outside. Then the school clothes is ready for the next morning and that ensures they can leave for school and attend the classes. The children told us that if the school clothes was not clean, then they felt embarrassed and would not go. Such a simple, yet important strategy made a big difference. When we asked the children during a recent workshop if others have adopted the behaviours, all Said: ‘yes, we already do that now!’. Maybe dissemination is easier with children? They just do it, if it makes sense.
Anca Mezei, the local teacher, facilitates community meetings in Sacele, Garcini neighbourhood in Northern Romania to help children and parents disseminate and upscale PD behaviours. She is a Roma PD herself who succeeded graduating from high school and get an education. She is now a teacher in the local school. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
4th graders identifying PD behaviours. One distinct successful strategy was for Betty to prepare a schedule for the day that help her get up in the morning, devote time for homework and get to bed timely. Now this behaviour is being adopted by her friends. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
Making a schedule for the day
The third example is Betty. She had made a schedule that could help structure her day. And she ‘negotiated’ the different slots with her family, so she was able to get up in the morning in time for school, devote time for homework and go to bed timely. This seems like a simple, maybe even banal thing for Betty to do, but when we asked her why this was important, she told us that this structure was essential for her to be able to attend school. In the community structured habits that were helping Betty, through her parents and family members supported her. Therefore creating her own schedule and talking with her family members about what she wanted to do during the day was essential. For Betty the schedule was not only a set of duties but also a list of rights.
During the summer of 2019, a celebration was held to acknowledge the champions, the children, parents and teachers that had participated and the progress so far. During this event champions and children, parents, siblings as well as teachers attended. During the ‘Gala’ we experienced traditional Roma dance performances, a chorus and everyone was awarded with a positive deviance diploma.
Traditional Roma dance performance during a ‘Gala’, where the preliminary results where acknowledged and celebrated. Moms sharing how they support their children. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
During the ‘Gala’ a classmate shares how she learned from the way Betty has scheduled her day. All participating community members got a ‘Devianta Pozitiva’ diploma. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
Over the last years parents, children and teachers have discovered PD behaviours and parents and children now meet regularly to join sustainability workshops to discuss the progress of dissemination. These meetings are facilitated by the local Red Cross volunteer and teacher Anca Mezei, who is a Roma PD herself. There is strong commitment to change among community members and they have agreed to held community meetings with students, parents and teachers to keep track of the positive signs and development. Also, they have identified metrics and indicators (M&E) for success (long/short term and both quantitative and qualitative metrics.)
With a critical lens, one could argue that one of the challenges for future work is to better include the teachers in the process. They have been part of the process until now and we did conduct many interviews with them. But they were not as directly involved as the children and parents, which is also why we did not achieve the same level of commitment from the teachers. To a certain extent they were told what the champion behaviours were and did not have an opportunity to discover it themselves. So, in future meetings and workshops they will be much more involved.
Another point of attention is the process of further dissemination and scaling. As mentioned above, the community members have developed a kind of scorecard that helps to monitor and evaluate ’how are we making progress’. And it is crucial to continuously pay attention to how the datapoints on this scorecard develops. That requires focus alongside with very practically acting one’s way into new ways of thinking.
Though many community challenges still exist and there is more good and important work to be done, the Garcini neighborhood has taken an important step to change from within and look for and upscale solutions that already exist.
Community meetings facilitated by PD facilitators. Here are Niels Juel from the International Red Cross and Alina Ursu in action. Source: Personal files of the author, used with permission.
Insights and reflections
Q: In your opinion, what are the most important lessons learned from the PD project?
Andreea Fortuna, Social Program Manager, The National Romanian Red Cross
I learned that seeing the good all the way is the key, trusting the success of the methodology, choosing the right people to facilitate, being there among people, showing respect and being honest.
And also, making the good in people the star of the day and encouraging people to invite this good in their houses is the essence of the methodology.
Anca Mezei, Teacher and PD Facilitator
The Positive Deviance project, from the beginning was a challenge for me. Although I had a good relationship with parents and children in the community, I doubted that they would come to meetings without being paid. However, the way of approaching and organizing the project has given parents and children the opportunity to feel safe and important.
From here, it all started to make sense to them and to me, and I was happy to see them attending meetings and eager to learn something new about education and their children. Thus, with a lot of hard work and spiritual dedication, a group of parents more involved in school was born, more careful with their children and with a better perspective on life. The children who also participated, I noticed more confident in themselves, more attentive to some details about the school, but also true sources of inspiration for the other children in the school.
I have been extremely pleased to be able to contribute sometimes with examples of good practice, realized within the project, giving my school colleagues the courage to see some parents as parents. I believe that these achievements represent a concrete motivation to continue the project.
Niels Juel, former Senior Advisor, Futures and Foresight, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies
I am always amazed at much positive energy the PD approach is able to generate which was also the case in Brasov. By focusing on what works, on positive examples and on champions within the communities you are not only off to a good start you have also created a focus on the positive which energises everybody involved and creates a ´can do` atmosphere.
The PD approach is a particularly appropriate methodology when working with communities like the Roma communities in Europe who – for good reasons – have developed high levels of distrust towards outsiders. The focus on solutions which already exists within the community have a much higher chance of succeeding within communities who are wary of outside influences.
Mads Fly-Hansen, Change Leader and PD Facilitator
When I first got to the school in Garcini, the PD project had been going for a while. And despite the less than perfect facilities in a poor community, we met a team of very engaged and powerful local champions with hopes for a better future. From the hard working and empathetic Red Cross representatives, the strong, caring and committed principal, the teacher Anca, who herself is a PD champion to the deeply engaged group of children spearheading the work on creating better conditions. They see PD as a leverage to creating a better future. PD – if done in the right way – has this potential to create hope for a better future, the courage to pursue it and a framework to make it happen.
As an outsider it is not always intuitively clear why a certain behavior is a PD behavior. When presented with Bettys schedule, we asked the kids, “why is this important?”. With Betty they gave a strong and clear answer. A schedule makes sure, that you get things done at the right time and a schedule is also a list of rights. If it’s on the schedule that your teacher and parents approved, you have the right to attend and do what’s on it! The schedule becomes part of a supporting structure, that would be provided by parents in some other communities. This was initially not clear to me, with my preunderstanding of how the world works. That is why PD behaviors, norms etc. has to be identified and interpreted from the inside and from the wisdom of the community to determine what is significant and what is not. The people of the communities do this and facilitators support and facilitate.
One of the aspirations of the community is to be able to build a proper community house where people can meet, discuss and have training workshops. Take a minute to watch this video where PD facilitator Anca Mezei explains why a community house is needed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9y77Qb1ZLc&t=6s
We are currently organizing a crowdfunding campaign and we invite you to make a donation, so it will be possible to build a community house. Please share and thank you in advance for your contribution!
https://www.gofundme.com/f/better-future-for-kids-of-sacele-romania
For more information please contact:
Change Leader and Positive Deviance Facilitator, Lars Thuesen: [email protected]
Social Program Manager, The National Romanian Red Cross, Andreea Fortuna: [email protected]