Annual report 2017

RECREAR Annual Report

2017

Annual Report 2017 Introduction About Recrear Quick Facts and Stats What we accomplished in 2017 Lessons Learnt Our finances in 2017 2018 and beyond

Introduction 2017 has been a year of disruption. A year to look critically at what is going on in the world and see where we belong in this complex mosaic. We have both found our voice and questioned it, all in one breathe.

At first, 2017 ushered in the need to share what we’ve learned in the last seven years. So we began to work more earnestly alongside organizations to deepen the way they learn from and with young people. To do so, we carried out a range of short courses to train practitioners and youth leaders in participatory action research.

We learned the most by stepping back and seeing how they brought their research projects to life in their own unique way. From Colombia to the UK to Malawi - we’ve been able to witness youth organizing flourish from the bottom up.

Doing these short courses has also allowed us to launch into the precarious world of independent funding. In this parallel universe there are no guarantees, no consistencies. Yet, it might give us the freedom to fully become who we want to be, and to have more agency over how we want to interact with the system.

We had deep reflections on our structures and identity. We developed a piece of research to nourish and push ourselves to learn from our everyday experiences. We’ve asked: how do we feel when we engage with the system?

There’s a lot to say, and we hope that this annual report, more than a retelling of deeds done, can be an invitation to keep growing with us.

Thanks for sharing this crazy journey.

- Kirsten Williams, Director of Community Engagement

Message from the Board

The Board this year is pleased by the progress that has been made by Recrear in defining new spaces and areas of engagement, both geographically and in the spheres of youth-led participatory action research. This year we stopped and regrouped on Magnify, our annual residency program; this sabbatical revitalized the program and stakeholder engagement like never before, as the upcoming Magnify will prove.

Our short courses have shown that we are serious about by youth for youth trainings, and we intend tap into as many opportunities to learn with other young people. We have purposefully brought in new members who believe and resonate with our vision and mandate. We are intentionally building a stronger team.

This report not only shows that we are willing to be visible and engaging, but also credible. We realize that transparency is at the heart of organizational sustainability.

We look forward to a more vibrant engagement with you as we continue to recreate ourselves and facilitate our networks to revitalize their world.

A toast to a good year!

- Stanley Njoroge, Recrear Board Member

About Recrear Recrear is a Canadian charity composed of a network of young professionals from all around the world. We design and implement participatory youth led research, which allows us to create active youth engagement in community development.

Our programs use creative techniques to understand the experiences and perspectives of young people in communities.

Based on the results of our research, we support development partners, local institutions and community organizations to design original, youth-friendly programs.

Vision

Recrear works to ensure that young people are actively involved in the transformation of their own communities.

Mission

Recrear envisions an intercultural world where young people are connected to their local and global communities by proactively participating with partners to create inspired dialogue and innovative projects.

An overview!

This year, we worked with more than 100 young people.

We trained 95 people in Participatory Action Research • We delivered 5 Participatory Action Research Short Courses across 4 countries • We coordinated 1 cooperative inquiry We presented our work in 5 networks: • Global Knowledge Democracy - Action Research Network of the Americas • Undisciplined Methods at the University of Brighton • Work in Progress, Institute of Development Studies • Community Toolbox for Iranian Organizations, hosted by the University of Kansas • Co-Design Summit, hosted by D-lab, Guajira, Colombia Recrear got a major website revamp courtesy of our talented web designer Cesar.

We have published 20 research techniques in our ResearchLab. We launched RecrearMagnify 2018 to be hosted in Montreal, Canada from July 15th-30th in collaboration with the Jeanne Sauve Foundation.

Our Community Building: We have a total of 90 members 10 of our members volunteered with us We presented our work in more than 20 workshops and events We have trained 45 young co-researchers We’ve started collaborating in new regions including Southern Africa Our partnerships have included INGOs, National Organizations, Leadership Foundations, Educational Institutions This year, we have 200 new facebook likes We reached 960 followers on Twitter

Our Financial goals/ targets reached: • We generated $29,986.00 CAD in annual income.

• We paid on a part-time basis 1 Director and contrcted 3 members on a project basis.

What we ACCOMPLISHED

in 2017

Youth-led Participatory Action Research (PAR) Training Recrear partnered with Oxfam Southern Africa to train 5 teams of young women from Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, South Africa, and Mozambique. What started with Oxfam’s desire to develop a youth strategy, then evolved into a beautiful project which explored the lived realities of young women in the region.

The young women gathered in Luwawa, in the North of Malawi, for a 7 day training on youth-led research with Recrear.

We had the following question as our guiding star: How do young women of colour in Southern Africa exercise their agency, register their dissent and organise effectively (in an increasingly hostile civil society space and with so many structural barriers to their social, political participation)?

We spent 7 days cultivating values that are central to youth-led research, building closeness as a community but also engaging directly with how this question resonated in each country context.

By the end of the 7 days, the young women, accompanied by their Oxfam team leads, developed their research projects to answer each of their unique questions: Malawi:​Has increased economic participation of young Malawian women led to their economic empowerment?

Mozambique​: How do young Mozambican in Maputo women participate politically?

South​ ​Africa​:​How young black women in South Africa choose to speak out against various forms of violence, and how do they navigate the tension between survival and seeking justice (wanting to be heard)? ​ Zimbabwe:​​How do relationships within households and the community contribute to the agency of young women do gender roles affect young women’s participation in the Zimbabwean economy?

Zambia​: How do households and communities contribute to young women’s agency in Zambia?

Each of the five teams went on to carry out their research over the following 4 months. In this process they learned how to set up a research process, recruit participants, facilitate research activities, and analyze data.

By August, Recrear was back with the teams and Oxfam in Johannesburg, South Africa for the Regional Dissemination. Over a five day period, each team had a chance to present their work to a wider and more senior Oxfam audience. It was their chance to receive input and learn how to talk about their work.

This was also the moment in which Oxfam would start to generate its Youth Strategy for the region. Why create a youth strategy you ask? Well, for an organization as big as Oxfam, it’s a necessary step to make youth engagement part of Oxfam’s mandate. Recrear supported the creation of a manifesto to this end. We look forward to seeing the teams wrap up their national disseminations and to further developing the talent of many of the young researchers in the region. Our hope is that they can be the ones taking forward the methodology to organizations, communities, and universities.

Recrear Reboot Cooperative Inquiry We had the great honor of bringing together a group of 6 women in June to be trained in Participatory Action Research. Different from our usual courses, we hand-picked a group of people we’ve been wanting to work with. So it transpired that in our 5 days together of learning about this methodology, we also create a warmth and intimacy that was far beyond our expectations. The research question that we landed on to practice PAR during the course, also ended taking a life of its own - because it well and truly resonated with each one of us.

By the end of the course, we decided we would continue to explore this question: - How do we find our path in a changing system while continuing discovering ourselves?

Every month following the course, each one of us took a turn in designing activities for the others. These were guided meditations, movement-based exercises, and reflective pieces to help us break down how we related to the different parts of this question. When do we truly feel like ourselves? How do we perceive the system? To help further the individual exploration, Recrear paired each one of the researchers with our residency life coach. In those conversations they were able to identify what this question meant to them personally.

All of this culminated to a re-encounter in Stromboli, an active volcano island in the South of Italy. We re-encountered ourselves, and welcomed a new person into the group to continue deepening our reflections. This time however, we all took equal parts in defining the direction of our week. Collectively we sought to look at the system and how we relate to it on our lives and work. To do that, we talked about nourishing safe spaces, about the differents roles we play and our struggle to be coherent and healthy beings through it all.

Sauve Foundation PAR Training In August, we were invited by the Jeanne Sauve Public Leadership Program to run a training on PAR for their incoming 2017-19 cohort.

The course was tailored to help the Fellows better grasp the discovery phase of what would become the social impact initiative they are to carry out in 2018. We had a powerful experience learning from this group and the kinds of areas of knowledge they want to further explore around the topic of inclusion.

Plata, Cultura, y Cambio This project started in 2016, bringing together 9 youth organizations from across Medellin to explore how they related to sustainability and the wider civil society environment. While the main research activities took place last year, 2017 has been dedicated to processing and analyzing everything that was learned. Our Director of Research, Gioel Gioacchino, is sharing the research at the Institute of Development Studies, where she is doing her PhD. We’re also taking steps to share the learning in others circles. Our Director of Community Engagement was joined by one of the co-researchers from Medellin to present on Plata, Cultura y Cambia at the Global Knowledge Democratization Congress hosted by the Action Research Network of the Americas (ARNA). It was an eye-opening experience, that led to some important reflections on the state of action research.

A mix of past and new fellows of the Sauve Foundation mapping out their stories before and after joining the Sauve Public Leadership Program

Lessons Learnt First: Celebrate and recognize those who have come before.

Everything we’ve ever learned, has existed in some moment and has been brought forward by countless other groups. So there’s nothing uniquely ours. We strive to recognize those who came before us as much as possible. Especially, because today knowledge can spread and be shared more easily than ever before.

We want to be a vessel. A vessel for the beautiful cosmologies that have emerged from radical youth, indigenous groups, feminist and critical race movements and many others. Latin America, for example, has been a deep source of inspiration for us. Home to transformational education practices, participatory action research, and bold resistance. We’ve felt profoundly touched by all our Latin American partners and colleagues. It’s part of the reason we’re committed to developing our team from Colombia and allowing that environment to inspire the way we act.

Dorian and Mache discover what it means to be in synergy during a movement exercise at the Medellin Short Course. Both are brilliant leaders in experiential education

Second: Nourish your people.

This year we got really excited about recognizing the people we work with. We have started dreaming and putting things into motion for those dreams to come true. The lesson? Set your intention for the people you want to work with and nourish those relationships.

We’ve been cultivating two seperate satellite teams, an English speaking one in the EU and a Spanish speaking one in Medellin, Colombia. They’ve each got such a different vibe but they are equally powerful. We are learning first hand about the power of a network and the quality of a movement. We want the organization to support these teams without co-opting them. It feels like venturing into the unknown - and we feel grateful to have the experience.

While we allow these teams to guide us, we simultaneously take any opportunity we get to nourish the people behind these groups. We are focusing on organizing retreats, one-on-one conversations, and recognizing our teammembers as people with personal and professional dreams to actualize. While we didn’t get to be as on-the ground with our Medellin team this past year, we managed to still be present in their lives and connect them to any opportunities extended to us. It has been beautiful to see them grow and expand their sense of self and confidence in entirely new areas.

This 2018 we are looking forward to bringing those two teams to interact and meet.

A snap from the Medellin Short Course, featuring Dorian, Stiven, Ximena and Joseph - just some of the people we are excited to call our team and family

Our Finances Income statement

from January 1st to December 31st, 2017

Revenues and gains

CAD

Donations: Training Courses: Other Consultancies:

3,316 25,180 1,490

Total revenue and gains:

29,986

Expenses and losses: Bank Fees: Part time position: Web Design work:

Reimbursements:

Other short consultancies:

131 18,000 1,000 3,064 4,700

Total expenses and losses:

26,895

Net assets at the end of the period 3,091

2018 and beyond 2017 allowed us to see infinite possibilities and ways of working with civil society organizations and higher learning institutions in entirely new ways. We are increasingly interested in how organizations and systems can accomodate for the lessons that young people bring. We know that there’s so much more to discover. In 2018, we’re committed to pushing the new frontiers of what collaboration could look like.

To articulate this vision more concretely, we’re back in the lab to design a whole new methodology on cultivating youth-led environments. It will be blending with all the wisdom we’ve gathered in our work and the tremendous investigation our Director of Research has done through her PhD on youth-led organizations and their relationships to sustainability.

Recrear International www.recrearinternational.org Twitter: @ThisIsRecrear A snap from the Medellin Short Course.