Reflect
Reflect is an approach to learning and social change. Relect circles create space where people feel comfortable to meet and discuss issues that are relevant to their lives and their analyses provide the basis for action for change and developing literacy and other communication skills. Reflect improves people's meaningful participation in decisions that affect them, through strengthening their ability to communicate. By focusing on what people know as opposed to what they don't know, Reflect enables groups which have often learned to see them selves as poor, uneducated and hopeless, to become expert in describing, discussing and analysing their environment and shaping it to better meet their needs. This empowering experience has the potential to create widening spirals of change. Reflect web site
Reflect was developed by Action Aid through innovative pilot programmes in Uganda, Bangladesh and El Salvador between 1993 and 1995. It started as a fusion of the political philosophy of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire with the practical methodologies and tools developed for Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). Power analysis with a particlar focus on gender is a key component and Reflect is also used to teach literacy and numeracy skills.
Reflect has been one of the most exciting innovations in adult literacy over the last 15 years. It won UNESCO Literacy Prizes in 2003, 2005, 2007 and 2008 and is now used by over 500 organisations in 70 countries. Reflect has been successful in linking the literacy acquisition process with individual and community empowerment, strengthening the capacity of millions of people to secure their basic rights.
Some important components of Reflect's empowerment process are:
- Respect for the knowledge, know-how and experience of the individuals, groups and communities concerned;
- Trust that people know what is in their best interests and will get there sooner or later - if they own the process and set the pace;
- Investing in the training, support and shared experience of local facilitators, who are the keystone of the process;
- Development workers who believe that local people with little or no formal education are the resident experts on their particular circumstances, community and environment.
Counting Seeds for Change - a framework for evaluating Reflect
Reflect programmes operate in diverse contexts and approaches to evaluation have been equally diverse, making it challenging to consolidate evidence and learning. In response, Reflect practitioners have developed a new Evaluation Framework based on Reflect principles and tools. Click here to find out more.
In order to draw out learning from existing evaluations to feed into the new evaluation framework, a Review of 16 existing Reflect evaluations was conducted, analysing both the processes of evaluation and the main literacy outcomes.
Communication and Power
In 2003 this international resource pack for Reflect practitioners pulled together practical ideas and experiences from people using the Reflect approach around the world. The pack covers different elements of communication and is divided into four sections: on the written word, the spoken word, numbers and images. A fifth section provides some examples of Reflect in action.
Communication is the basis of all our relationships - at home, at work, within any community or group and beyond. Whether through reading, writing, speaking, listening, numbers, visual means, technology or the media - we need to be able to communicate so that people can know and understand our experience and perspective. Communication is not only about getting our voice heard, but also hearing and understanding others. People need to be able to deal critically with communication that they receive, and they need to actively develop, reproduce and use alternative forms of communication.
No communication is neutral - the capacity to communicate and be heard is determined by power relationships that need to be analysed. By linking communication and power we are focusing beyond the technical aspects of communication and considering the various factors which influence our ability to get our voice heard. Being unable to communicate is both a cause and effect of inequitable power relationships.
