Jerusalem Tel: 02-5324122 Fax: 02-5324025 P.O.Box 69429 Ramallah Tel: 02-2418100 Fax: 02-2418111 P.O.Box 2315 Email: info@sawa.ps
http://www.facebook.com/SawaOrganization www.sawa.ps
This reported was printed with support from the United Nations Millenium Development Goals Program and UN Women.
Partnership with United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women
The opinions presented in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the United Nations Millenium Development Goals Program and UN Women or any of their organizations. ISBN-13: 978-9950-8510-0-9
Documenting Best Practices & lessons learned Operation and Development of a Call Centre Supporting Victims of Violence in the oPt
Research by: Eva Otero, Leitmotiv Edited by: Desmond McCarthy
This report has been produced by an independent researcher, commissioned by Sawa. As such, the views put forward in this report should not be considered as those of Sawa. The views expressed in this report reflect those of numerous informants, sources and research conducted by the researcher. Any comments regarding this report can be forwarded to the researcher by email or telephone at: eva.otero@leitmotivsocial.com
+34 954 909690 We wish to thank all the people who contributed to this report, including Sawa staff, governmental and nongovernmental partners and the Call Centre´s counsellors1. We especially would like to thank Elizabeth Vandrei whose patience and professionalism made this research so much easier.
1
For a full list of contributors please refer to annex 1
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Ta b l e o f C o n t e n t s
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Acronyms and Terms.................................................................................................. 5 This research.............................................................................................................. 6 Objectives and overall approach................................................................................ 6 Methodology.............................................................................................................. 6 Methods for data collection and analysis................................................................... 7 Limitations.................................................................................................................. 7 Programme description.............................................................................................. 8 The need..................................................................................................................... 8 What was the initial situation in the oPt that justified the intervention?.................. 8 The purpose of the Call Centre................................................................................... 9 What are the strategies defined by the programme to tackle gender-based and domestic violence?......................................................................................................... 9 The Call Centre, an untold history.............................................................................. 9 Key context factors that influenced the practice and results achievement................ 9 What were the factors contributing to successes during implementation?............. 13 What were the challenges encountered on the way?.............................................. 14 Impact assessment................................................................................................... 17 How did the Call Centre support victims of violence............................................... 17 How did the Call Centre contributed to raising awareness on the situation of genderbased and domestic violence................................................................................... 20 Role of partnerships in achieving results.................................................................. 22 Best practices........................................................................................................... 24 The use of ICT........................................................................................................... 25 The training process for counsellors and staff.......................................................... 26 The future................................................................................................................. 30 Sustainability of the Call Centre............................................................................... 30 A potential resource to fight gender based and domestic violence on the oPt....... 30 How can we share and replicate?............................................................................. 31 Recommendations................................................................................................... 33
A c r o n y m s a n d Te r m s Acronym CBO CHI CSR FPU GBV ICT JRCC HQ NGO NPS oPt ToC UNRWA VAW WCLAC
Term Community Based Organisation Child Helpline International Corporate Social Responsibility Family Protection Unit Gender Based Violence Information Communication Technology The Jerusalem Rape Crisis Centre Head Quarter Non Governmental Organisation National Protection System Occupied Palestinian Territories Theory of Change United Nations Relief and Works Agency Violence Against Women Women Centre for legal Aid and Counseling
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This research Objectives and overall approach
After years of fruitful cooperation, Sawa and UN Women have agreed that a thorough analysis of the Call Centre’s practices, tools, approaches, challenges, and achievements is necessary in order to do the following: improve future effectiveness, complement the findings of other actors, and identify emerging needs. To this end, they commissioned this report that draws lessons and insights to inform future work and identify opportunities for shared learning and peer support across the Call Centre´s programme. In addition, it identifies appropriate best practices and the degree to which they can contribute to performance improvement and transferability. This study employs an Appreciative Inquiry (AI) approach which is a form of action research that focuses on identifying primarily what is working well, and secondly analyzing why. The process of Appreciative Inquiry requires a particular way of asking guided questions that encourage positive thinking, while using the data collection tasks and feedback as opportunities to facilitate reflection and generate greater knowledge and understanding across the organisation and its partners. In particular, the report focuses on two best practice areas:
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a) Documenting and sharing the vast knowledge amounted by Sawa in using ICT for the benefit of the most vulnerable people in conflict and post-conflict environments. b) Documenting and sharing the vast knowledge of Sawa on training and motivation programmes related to the staffing of the Call Centre.
Methodology
The research has been done in several interdependent stages that build on one another. These are: 0. Start up of the project. 1. Engaging with programme coordinators, staff and key stakeholders to understand and describe the overall programme. 2. Refining data collection tools and informants. 3. Conducting field mission and development of preliminary conclusions, key themes and insights. 4. Analysis and writing. 5. Feedback process with Sawa and other key stakeholders for sense-making and finalisation of the report. 6. Lessons learned are shared throughout the entire research process.
Methods for data collection and analysis
During the research the following methods have been employed for data collection and analysis: In-depth interviews The consultant conducted semi-structured interviews with key people who were selected based on a comprehensive stakeholder map. Efforts were made to ensure a
range of voices were represented covering all the categories of the map (bellwethers, direct partners, management, women, men, youth, etc.). For each of the potential interview groups, questions were drawn up that addressed some of the core research questions and also intersected with the informant’s background. Although the interview sheets were highly structured, the consultant freely followed-up on any emerging issues that appeared relevant to the core questions. Desk review Sawa provided numerous documents, including strategy documents, reports, statistic briefings and research publications. The consultant also reviewed a number of third party reports and official documents from organisations such as UN Women, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, Save the Children or the Ministry of Women Affairs. Focus group interviews The consultant used this method when there was the need to interview more than one person with a common denominator (i.e. government group; civil society group, management groups, etc.) This method was useful for obtaining information from several people in a short period of time. Furthermore, the underlying premise was that the interaction among group members has synergistic effects on participants, producing higher quality information. Direct Observation Observation served to better understand the nature and successes of some programme’s activities and processes. Observation was selective, looking at a few activities related to the Call Centre when feasible, paying special attention to processes and behaviours that were central to the research questions. Debriefing workshop Sharing conclusions before they were final as often as possible with the people who were providing the information was a critical part of the analysis process. To this end the consultant organized a debriefing workshop at the end of the field mission to share preliminary conclusions. Triangulation The consultant drew conclusions based on the best available evidence appropriate to each research question. In the cases where there was not enough evidence the consultant indicated openly this limitation.
Limitations
Common time and resource constraints for conducting rapid research limit the ability to capture all relevant information. This is particularly notable in the face of interventions that take place in extremely complex environments. In this case, the research time shortened from 40 to 30 days, and subsequently the field mission had to be conducted in only 5 working days during the month of Ramadan.
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Programme description The need
What was the initial situation in the oPt that justified the intervention?
About 4.05 million people are currently living in the West Bank and Gaza, of which almost half (1.97 million) are children. The average household size in the oPt stood at 5.5 persons in 2010. The main challenges facing children and women are related to the occupation. Access to services such as education and health care is restricted by check points, road blocks and curfews. The weak and donor-dependent economy, and increasing poverty and unemployment lead to tension. It is also important to highlight the difficult situation of children and women in Gaza whose population was hit by the devastating consequences of operation `Cast Lead´ between December 2008 and January 2009. All of this contributes to high levels of violence at home and in schools. Girls are encouraged to marry early; 47% of them get married between the ages of 15 and 19 years old2. A recent survey on violence conducted by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics states that about 37% of women who are married or have been married were exposed to one form of violence by their husbands; 29.9% in the West Bank compared to 51.1% in Gaza Strip3.
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Palestinian society has traditionally avoided such taboo subjects as sex, sexual violence, domestic violence, and child abuse. Gender roles and gender separation are still more or less strictly enforced. Palestinian women largely do not enjoy their full right to sovereignty over their own bodies, with regard to reproduction, sexual behaviour, and choice of a life partner. Acceptance of violence within the family as a way of keeping order is unfortunately widespread. People prefer settling problems of family violence privately, rather than reporting a perpetrator to the police or seeking counselling to build a healthier family dynamic. Women who have experienced sexual violence are reluctant to report, and often blame themselves. They fear blame and disbelief from the surrounding society, and further violence from perpetrators and/or family members. In fact, the overarching context of conflict and occupation also causes women’s issues and “private sphere” issues to be pushed aside and considered to be of low importance. An additional contributing factor is, of course, the lack of significant female representation in political life. Furthermore, as the report “Sawa 121 Reality and Challenges” states “with the severe restrictions on mobility, undermining the local population’s ability to access the centers providing psychological services, the need has emerged for emergency and counselling lines or other types of hotlines to help families and individual victims of all forms of violence”4. 2 Save the Children Sweden (2012), Occupied Palestinian Territories 1963-2012. 3 Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (2011) Violence survey in the Palestinian Society 4 Abdelmajeed, A. (2011) Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges
The purpose of the Call Centre What are the strategies defined by the programme to tackle gender-based and domestic violence? A ToC validated during the course of this research established that the overall result the organisation is pursuing is to reduce the gender based violence in the oPt for children and women. To do so Sawa works on a programmatic basis providing counselling services for victims of violence, making available statistical information on cases of violence in the oPt, and raising awareness on the situation of gender based violence in the oPt. Among all the strategies used by the organization to achieve these goals, the Call Centre is undoubtedly the flagship. The Call Centre seeks to provide assistance to victims, document cases of violence, raise community awareness, and ultimately reduce gender-based and domestic violence. The Sawa’s Call Centre has offered a continually developing telephone counselling service for victims of violence, especially women, boys and girls, and those suffering from other psychosocial problems. They give victims respectful, confidential, and professional support, and they document detailed information, which can provide a partial picture of the scope and nature of the problem of gender based violence and domestic violence in the oPt. The grey boxes in the graphic above refer to areas that were preliminary identified as “potential best practice” and thus have become an important focus of this report.
[9] The Call Centre, an untold history Key context factors that influenced the practice and results achievement The first seed of Sawa was established by a group of Palestinian women active in the field of women’s rights as part of the Jerusalem Rape Crisis Centre (JRCC). This Centre was established in the early 1980´s as one of the first in Jerusalem aiming to provide a comprehensive response to the suffering of local women subject to the trauma of sexual violence5. In 1997, encouraged by the conducive environment derived from the Oslo Accords6, JRCC convened three meetings to brainstorm on the idea of revitalising a special helpline for Arab women. The meetings gradually filtered those truly committed to develop the service and soon a small but determined group of female volunteers were putting their shoulders to the wheel. In August 1998, a small group of trained volunteers started operating a sexual violence hotline in Arabic aimed at survivors of rape and sexual assault in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. It was at this early stage that the group involved in the hotline started looking into other Israeli/ Palestinian experiences in order to learn from each other’s accomplishments and challenges. It was soon apparent that issues around funding and finances would often be a source of trouble and the Palestinian women volunteers decided, together with JRCC, to establish a Palestinian independently administered organisation.
5 6
http://www.1202.org.il/English/template/default.asp?siteId=7 http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/publisher,ARAB,,,3de5e96e4,0.html
in 2001, Sawa had already registered as an independent non-governmental feminist organization, formed to provide a response to the phenomenon of sexual violence in the Palestinian society. The beginning was far from easy. The founder group set themselves the task of tackling the problem of engaging the Palestinian society in an open and honest dialogue about violence. During those early days several of the Sawa´s pioneers recall how many Palestinians, both men and women, baulked at the notion of breaking the longpreserved social taboo surrounding violence against women (…) Many viewed Sawa´s mission of creating a hotline, and a safe space for women to discuss and come to terms with violence, as naïve, as dangerous, as inappropriate”7. 2002 and 2003 were the years that were very much focused on resource mobilization and on building donor relations. At the end of 2002, the first funding opportunity came from the European Commission. The organization moved to a provisional location in East Jerusalem, although it still had to operate the hotline from JRCC for a while. In April 2003, they finally rented their own office, changed the hotline number and hired three employees.
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Sawa governance was set up to be managed by a Board of Directors comprised of five Palestinian Members. The Board of Directors was to be elected every two years from the member base (all active volunteers who had undergone Sawa training). The Board of Directors met quarterly and they were responsible for all fiscal and ideological decisions of the organization according to its Statutes. Each year a general assembly was held with all Sawa staff and volunteers wherein the Board of Directors report to the General Assembly8. Sawa conducted one training course under the Hotline Project every year. Every training course lasted around three months (around 56 hours) and targeted 15 female participants, who once completing the requirement of the course became members of Sawa’s volunteers’ forum. Usually the total number of participants at the training course commit to volunteering at Sawa for the designated volunteering of three hours a week, for a period of one year. 2004 was a key inflection point in the organisation´s history, when after a thorough reflection process Sawa decided to incorporate children explicitly within the focus of the organisation. The decision came from the fact that an increasing number of children were using the hotline the organisation had available in Jerusalem. This together with the need to expand the geographical scope of the telephone support to the entire oPt made Sawa start preparations to launch the 121 Child Protection Helpline and the opening of a new office in Ramallah. 7 8
Sawa (2008) Annual report. IBID.
In 2005 and 2006 the deteriorating political conditions in the oPt and the Hamas victory in the elections of January 2006 affected Sawa´s work in various ways. First and foremost, the hotline went through longer spells of quiet following the election, as the Palestinian people digested the change for themselves – often in times of political strife there are fewer calls as people do not put their own needs ahead of the national consciousness. Further, as the situation continued to degenerate and freedom of movement was decreased due to Palestinian infighting (particularly in Gaza) and ongoing Israeli military presence, more families would stay at home for long periods, denying the women any free time to call9. Despite these external factors, the plans to establish a free Child Protection Helpline went ahead and the 121 became functional and available to the public in 2007. 121 became the only helpline service available for children in the oPt and the official representative of Palestine in Child Helpline International (CHI), an international network of child help lines from over 130 countries. In its initial stages, the helpline was established with modest means and operated with one landline only. The 121 helpline also encouraged Sawa to develop a basic database where the organisation could document some demographic data of the users as well as the reason for calling following the 15 categories described by CHI. It was at this time that the team began to build a Referral Network of Support Services in and around Ramallah of relevant organizations, community resources, clinics and healthcare facilities, by arranging personal networking meetings with individuals, leaders and groups. As with the experience with Sawa’s Women’s Hotline, the purpose of this was to ensure that all relevant organizations in the area are aware of the new Children Helpline, and would be willing to partner with Sawa- both referring children to them for help and as bodies that Sawa could refer children at-risk to for further, more specific assistance. Dozens of organizations and government offices were approached over 2007, and a comprehensive folder was opened to incorporate all the details of each partner organization; the name of the contact, and what services they offer10. By 2008, the organisation maintained two well established offices in Jerusalem and Ramallah and had 16 staff members. Over these first ten years, Sawa had trained 480 volunteers and was emerging as a recognized force against sexual and domestic violence, both across the region and around the world. In December 2008, the war on Gaza prompted Sawa to declare an emergency and provided services to all victims in Gaza around the clock with the Child Protection Helpline 121 transformed to a 24 hours helpline to all victims in Gaza. With the help of the private sector they started operating three land lines and one Jawwal line making the 121 helpline service available free of charge to an ever-increasing number of callers particularly from Gaza. In early 2009 the Helpline team was working under emergency circumstances reaching a total amount of 168 hours of listening and counselling over the phone every week instead of the planned 40 hours. Sawa´s volunteers became for many people in Gaza, 9 10
Sawa (2008), Annual report Sawa (2007), Annual report
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particularly women and children the only source of information and support during the days of the war. However, the emergency situation meant a heavy burden for Sawa´s human and financial resources. The volunteers were not specifically trained to deal with conflict and post-conflict situations, and at times they met with overwhelming demands which they were not technically or emotionally ready to deal with. Building a Call Centre ready to deal with emergencies This crisis period had a profound effect on Sawa´ s Call Centre. Through emergency funds made available by a number of donors, the organisation was able to respond to the new situation and during the summer of 2009, 11 volunteers and three staff conducted an average of eight hours a day of on-the-phone counselling. In August 24th of 2009 the organisation started using an IP system instead of the analogue one, which allowed them to respond to more calls and improve the follow up protocol significantly. The training of the volunteers also expanded considerably during this period to last up to 85 hours over a period of four months; a specialised supervisor met with the volunteers regularly who received individual supervision and support. In May, Sawa also recruited a social worker in the Gaza Strip, in order to help women and children living in conditions of isolation to access basic services. Despite all efforts, by September 2009 Sawa was only able to respond to 24,403 of the 58,658 attempts to call, which inspired them to update the technology system.
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In 2010, Sawa´s continuing effort to make the best possible use of technology gave them international recognition when they were awarded the second category of the AGFUND INTERNATIONAL PRIZE for pioneering human development projects. By 2011, the organisation had a 30-line PRI system, a special soft-phone integrated with the electronic database, and a VPN (virtual private network) technology allowing the answering of calls remotely outside the Call Centre from anywhere in the world. The system also permitted female counselors to volunteer late from home. Thanks to the technological development, the organization also introduced a further 30 hours module in the volunteer´s training that allowed trainees to listen and learn for life calls via Wi-Fi headphones. The evolution of Sawa´s Call Centre has been enormous, especially since 2007. • From providing help to victims of sexual violence to enlarging its services to providing counselling and support to victims of any sort of violence. The Call Centre is today used by women, children, and men. • During the years, the Call Centre has also extended its scope providing legal and health counselling and/or referring to other specialised organizations which can provide e.g. legal or psychological support. • Today what started as a service focused on Jerusalem and the surrounding area has become the first and only helpline operating for the entire oPt including Gaza11.
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60% of callers are from Gaza; 60% are women; and 75% under the age of 24 years
What were the factors contributing to successes during its implementation? The passion and commitment of the staff During the course of the research, the number one factor for success was clearly identified as the passion, commitment and creativity of Sawa´s staff. An overwhelming number of informants and documents reviewed, agreed that Sawa would not be where it is now if it had not been for the commitment and the professionalism of their capable staff, their board and their volunteers. A shared approach to counselling A second factor for success related to the quality of the human resources at Sawa is the particular human right based culture deeply embedded within the organisation that has permeated the consciousness and behaviour of staff and volunteers, both personally and professionally. These individuals have embraced a sensitive approach needed when dealing with Gender-Based Violence (GBV), and had to learn how to accommodate the cultural taboos of Palestinian society (and therefore their own ones) while working towards bringing justice for those who have been abused. This common sensitive approach is a deeply transformative one and is based on the motto “we do not judge, we let people learn from their own voices and to realise their own internal power”. Support of the donors Last but not least, the continuous support of multiple donors was also mentioned as a key contributing factor to success. Apart from the obvious financial support, which is of course very important, some donors also provide training in new ways to measure longer-term results such as outcomes and impacts, which has been helpful for better assessing and presenting results. The Call Centre has benefited directly or indirectly from a vast number of Sawa´s contributors: • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
EU through PCMD (2003) Friedrich Neumann (2004) Finland Representative Office Fund (2004) Canada Representative Office (2004) Irish Representative Office (2005) UN Agencies (2005) Bread for the World (2004- present) Oxfam GB (2006 and 2009) European Commotion (2007) ACSUR Las Segovias (2007-10) SURGIR (2005- present) Netherlands Representative Office (2008) UNIFEM / UN Women (2006 – present) Kvinna till Kvinna (2007- present) Welfare Association (2007-09) Group Development (2009)
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• Save the Children Sweden (2009- April 2012) Save the Children (May 2012 present) • Open Society Institution (2009) • PIA - Palestinian Programme For Childhood (2009) • NGO Development Center (2009 – present) At present, the Call Center supporters include Bread for the World, Kvinna till Kvinna, Save the Children, UN Women and Open Society Institution as well as Private Companies such as PC Best- Canada, Pal-Tel and and Jawwal Palestine. Other donors include Surgir and UNDP. All these donors have supported the Call Centre including its operation and volunteer training, but Kvinna till Kvinna and Bread for the World also support awareness-raising activities and professional trainings. Save the Children supports awareness activities also, and is this year working with Sawa to strengthen its ability to provide basic legal guidance and referrals. UN Women supported security forces training and helped Sawa to expand their awareness-raising efforts to Gaza. What were the challenges encountered on the way?
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Convulsive politics There have been obvious external challenges for the organisation during these years. Sawa has been around for 14 years, within this time the oPt has gone through two wars. These very traumatic experiences had an effect not only on the users and potential users of the Call Centre, but in the level of empowerment and well being of the staff and volunteers. Complexity of the Palestinian society A second external factor that affects the daily dynamics of the organisation is the social and political make up of the Palestinian society. It seems that Palestinian people self segregate themselves very frequently, either on a political or a religious basis, exacerbating suspicion and therefore encouraging an environment where open relationships of trust are difficult to establish. Increasing conservatism However, the clearest and biggest external challenge we identified was the increasingly conservative Palestinian society that remains characterized by very traditional views. This is particularly pertinent when tackling issues such as child-bearing, sexual behavior, and sexual and domestic abuse. This is a society increasingly exposed to conservative and religious groups whose aim is to blend their conservative convictions with the oPt in order to lead the population, in the name of tradition, moral or religion. This conservative way of thinking and living actively promotes concepts such as inequality between men and women, confinement of the women’s role and control over women’s movements12.
12 http://www.tam-media.org/english/development.htm
Recruitment of counselors A main internal challenge intimately related to the conservative society, where Sawa operates, is the difficulty the organization has finding suitable volunteers willing to embrace the organisation´s approach to counselling in the Call Centre. It is not easy for the potential volunteers approaching Sawa to embrace the organisation´s culture and feel part of it. Sometimes the training can go as far as to give information to the individual or to even make them reflect about certain convictions, but it is difficult to actually change attitudes. Changing somebody´s essential and intimate beliefs, those taken for granted, embedded into the most hidden axioms is a gigantic task. During the training each volunteer faces dilemmas and has to ask themselves, do I need this change or not? For example, when facing new values that might come into contradiction with the overruling religious and traditionally transmitted values such as the following: respecting homosexuality, accepting rape exists within marriage, accepting there is no excuse for sexual harassment and abuse even if women are not dressed modestly, accepting violence within the family is not a private issue. The referral system A second ongoing challenge met internally by the Call Centre is the lack of a unified and reliable referral system that can support victims of violence through a range of services including physical safety and shelter, legal, health and social services, and psycho-social counselling, as well as services that further women and children´s education and economic empowerment. Sawa has been building their own referral database for years, which gets updated every 4 to 6 months (more than 500 entries) using their own personal contacts and networks. However, updating a referral system has a number of important challenges, the main one being constantly measuring and ensuring the quality and relevance of the partner´s services, especially in Gaza. Recently there have been a number of national initiatives by important organizations aiming at building a comprehensive referral system. In 2009, UNRWA took a step to develop a comprehensive multi-sectoral approach to end violence and initiated the development of referral systems to increase victims’ access to services13. Equally Save the Children specifies in their webpage, the commitment to “a National Protection Systems (NPS), in charge of protecting all children victims or at risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, will be developed and made accessible to all children. Detection, referral and coordination between governmental bodies and CSOs will be built in through community based child protection structures linked to the National Referral System. Child/family protection units within the police will be initiated /strengthened as an integral part of the establishment of the NPS and relevant national legislation dealing with child protection discussed”14 and they further underlined this commitment in their Programme Summary for 2011 “we will pursue the 13 http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2010081854458.pdf 14 http://mena.savethechildren.se/MENA/What-we-do/Protection/OPT/
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enhancement of a legal framework and child legal referral mechanisms”. Most relevantly the Ministry of Women´s Affairs in the recent National Strategy to Combat VAW states under objective three, policy two: the need to develop “a national referral system defining and regulating working relations between institutions offering protection to women victims of violence is in place”15.
During the course of this research an interesting initiative was mentioned several times; the Takamol Project, a project jointly implemented by WCLAC (Women Centre for legal Aid and Counseling) and Juzoor for Health and Social Development – a Palestinian NGO – with funding from the European Commission whose aim is to develop a sustainable legal-health-social service referral system for women victims of violence. This is a three year funded project that began in 2009, awarded under the ‘Gender Equality’ component for the ENPI-South region during the period 2007-2010 with 791,918 Euros16. However, according to UNRWA17, the initiative seems to be focusing only in the West Bank.
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Sawa has been actively contributing to some of these initiatives by answering information requests and intends to incorporate valuable data, which will undoubtedly arise, from these processes to their own referral system. However, none of these efforts will mean that Sawa can fully rely on any one of these systems, as they do not comprehensively meet the needs of all the callers (mostly, but not only, women and children), and/or they do not reliably cover the entire oPt. Therefore they do not cover the referral needs of all the users of the Call Centre.
15 Ministry of Women´s Affairs (2011) National Strategy to Combat Violence Against Women 2011 - 2019. 16http://eeas.europa.eu/delegations/westbank/documents/news/20110304_investinginpeople_en.pdf 17 UNRWA (2010) Community of Practice in Building Referral Systems for Women Victims of Violence
Impact assessment “Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted” Albert Einstein
How did the Call Centre support victims of violence To help us visualise who those victims might be we have tried to establish who would be your typical Sawa caller based on some basic criteria. • • • • •
56.3.% were women 71.7% were under 24 60.5% were from Gaza 62.9% were school students 67.5% came from middle income families1
We could therefore establish that the typical profile of a Sawa caller is a woman from Gaza under 24 years of age Then, when trying to determine to what extent Sawa has supported these victims of violence in the oPt it is important to reflect on two key issues. The meaning of impact Firstly, one needs to reflect on the whole meaning of “impact” within this particular context and start by acknowledging that of course each call does not equal one problem solved. To overcome a situation of violence often victims will need to alter their sense of empowerment which comprises not only forms of observable action, such as a decision to report the aggressor or taking refuge in a safer place, but also aspects as intimate as the meaning, motivation and purpose that individuals bring to their actions – their sense of agency or self-worth. Purely quantitative indicators such as “number of calls documented” cannot capture the nuances of the impact the Call Centre can produce on the power relations inherent in a violent situation; nor can they measure changes on an individual’s sense of agency or self-worth both in the caller, but also in the counsellor who is answering the telephone. During a focus group discussion with the counsellors of the Call Centre, a number of stories were collected that gave us an insight into the reasons why someone might call18, and the effect it may have on both the caller and on the counsellor. Subsequently, we
asked ourselves, which one do we think had the most impact combating gender violence. There was of course not a right answer. The selection in the box below illustrates how impact in each case is difficult to establish, which does not deny the obvious value (and transformative potential) each call had for both the caller and for the volunteer. We had a closer look (unpacked) a few of those 27,000 cases documented to realise how complex reality is behind the numbers and how subtle impact can be.
Behind the numbers – Which of these cases shows the biggest impact? Case 1
18 The report “Sawa 121:Reality and Challenges” gives rich details about the reasons behind the calls
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A woman allows herself to cry when calling the Call Centre The volunteer empathies with an alien reality far removed from her own values Case 2 A volunteer applies learning gained in her daily work – health worker for teens Case 3 A woman feels proud because she has reported her husband to the police The volunteer has problems sleeping. He is worried about what might happen to her Case 4 A woman is raped by her husband. She is not willing to take the case forward The volunteer feels impotent but understands the importance of active listening Lack of data Secondly, although there is an overwhelming body of literature that discusses at length the important aspects in understanding GBV and domestic violence in the oPt, there is still a lack of data that could help us establish the magnitude of the problem in quantitative terms and in a way that can be compared with Sawa´s numbers. Only recently the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics supported by the UN Joint Programme “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” has conducted a survey on violence in the oPt that can help us shine some light on the extent of the outreach of Sawa´s Call Centre.
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According to the study 37% of married women in 2011 have experienced violence at home. Of those only 0.7% seeks help outside the family, which will mean an estimate number of 5,238 women19. During 2011, 2,122 women over 16 called Sawa for reasons related to violence, which give us the indication that around 40% of women suffering domestic violence in the oPt who seek help would resource to Sawa´s Call Centre.
These estimations and comparisons are to be taken only as rough indicators as there are a number of reasons that do not make the data fully comparable. Plenty of qualitative and quantitative evidence Having stated these limitations, we could collect an overwhelming number of evidence that indicates that the Call Centre is indeed supporting victims of violence in the oPt in a very significant way. At outcome level • We have 96.9% of satisfied or very satisfied clients, 70% of them came to the Centre via positive word-of-mouth. • Sawa’s Call Center statistics show that the number of cases addressed grows significantly each year—it grew just over 20% from 2010 to 2011 (23,467 in 2010; 27,428 in 2011). • During 2010 and 2011, Sawa has documented 50,895 cases. 19 Based on Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics “Palestine in figures” May 2011
At process level • Sawa has a national, toll-free Call Center operating 16 hours a day 7 days a week, using a 30-line PRI system, staffed by male and female volunteers and thoroughly trained employees. • The Call Centre includes a continually updated referral system (in West bank and Gaza), and, if desired, Sawa supports cases to locate referral agencies suitable to the callers´ needs. • Sawa has a face-to-face counselling available to callers who require more intensive intervention than can be offered by volunteers over the phone. • At present they also have a two pilot system providing a legal and health counselling system. Sawa also documents and discusses inspiring stories that illustrate how in many occasions the Call Centre has a significant qualitative impact on people´s lives.
Protecting Victims of Domestic Violence Maryam was from Hebron, but after marrying a man from the Negev she moved there with her husband and had a son. When this man became violent toward Maryam and their boy, she was afraid and knew she had to act to protect them both. However, she had few options. Both she and her child lived in the Negev undocumented and without visas, a precarious legal position which undermined Maryam’s power over her life and her son’s—especially when coupled with the domestic abuse they suffered at the hands of their husband and father. The frightened mother decided to turn to Sawa’s Call Centre for guidance and support. She described her dangerous home life, her desire to escape and keep her son safe, and the residency status issues which complicated her situation and compromised her ability to seek legal help. The Sawa counselor listened to her and helped her feel supported. Sawa then used its strong relationship with the police Family Protection Units in Hebron to organize Maryam’s safe return to her hometown with her son. Sawa also coordinated with the Israeli authorities through the District Coordination Office to ensure that Maryam would not face legal barriers in escaping the abuse due to her status. As of this writing, Maryam has returned to Hebron, where she lives safely with her child. The FPU continues to follow up her case and make sure she is protected. The Role of the Call Center in Emergencies: Stories from the 2008-9 War on Gaza Case 1 A 7-year-old boy was left alone to care for his younger brother after his parents stepped out to buy supplies and were unable to return for two days due to Israeli attacks. He called Sawa and the counselors followed up with him for two days, guiding him and his brother on how to care for themselves and stay safe until their parents returned. Case 2 Another young boy called soon after the deaths of several neighbors in attacks. His family had taken him to see the neighbors’ bodies in cold storage in the hospital morgue, to pay their respects. “I don’t want to die and be put in the refrigerator” he told the counselor. For him, Sawa was a safe place to express fears no child should suffer. Case 3
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The father of a 6-year-old boy told a Sawa counselor that he was worried about his son, who refused to sleep until morning, afraid of the night. Whenever he heard the sounds of attacks outside, he began to run around the house in a panic. This behavior had begun after his 9-month-old sister was killed in an attack and pictures of her body repeatedly broadcast on the television news. Her brother had seen her picture and was traumatized and terrified. Following this call, Sawa wrote to media outlets to ask that they take into consideration the feelings of victims’ family members, and young children.
How did the Call Centre contribute to raising awareness on the situation of gender-based and domestic violence “The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right name� Chinese proverb
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In this chapter we explore how the Call Centre has contributed to raising awareness on the situation of GBV and domestic violence in the oPt. As illustrated in the ToC, Sawa has specific programmes whose main aim is raising awareness among professionals who deal with GBV and domestic violence (doctors and health providers or security forces members, prosecutors and counsellors) on how to address cases of violence. Similarly, the organisation also has an educational program targeting potential beneficiaries such as women, youth, and children whose topics of focus and activity location are chosen partly based upon needs observed through the Call Centre. Having said that, during the course of this research a number of pieces of evidence emerged suggesting the Call Centre was directly contributing to raising awareness in four spheres as shown in the figure below: an intimate or private sphere, an organisational sphere, a public sphere and a political sphere.
Intimate transformation
As mentioned earlier, the training programme for counsellors, as well as their later interaction with the users of the Call Centre has the potential to transform their personal sphere in subtle but profound ways creating agents of change. The transformation begins by the language used by the counsellors. They name specific concepts without using euphemisms for parts of the body or for behaviours such as “sexual harassment” and “rape”. Secondly, they establish an open dialogue with the caller helping them to learn from their own voices without judging or advising. This approach aims to have a transformative effect on the person calling, who is encouraged to explore her/his own resources and self-worth. Furthermore, callers become potential agents of change within their communities. We do not have evidence as to what extent this is actually happening, but we do have a powerful indicator that clients do talk about the Call Centre, as 70% of the callers come to the service via positive word-of-mouth. Informing targeted strategies to raise awareness Information coming from the Call Centre prompts special awareness raising campaigns to targeted audiences. Two enlightening examples were frequently mentioned in this regard. 1. Sawa decided to work in Hebron for a project with Oxfam GB which engages men and boys against VAW. The decision came as a result of the relatively large number of calls from this governorate20 from women and girls experiencing violence. 2. Calls from parents from a West Bank village were documented, where they described numerous instances of one older boy in the village sexually abusing younger boys. The parents themselves asked that Sawa come to do awareness-raising activities on the topic of sexual abuse, indicating they trust Sawa as an education resource and have also become willing to openly discuss this taboo issue. We should also add that under their outreach programme, the Sawa Mobile Clinic, a project that allows Sawa to reach and offer psycho-social support and awareness-raising to women and children in distant or marginalized areas, was conceptualized using information coming from the Call Centre. As Abdelmajeed states “Most callers did not reveal their place of residence (59%), while 41% revealed their place of residence, most of whom live in Palestinian cities (30.9%). 5.2% dwell in rural areas and 2.5% live in camps. The other callers, representing 2.4%, live in suburbs close to cities (urban suburbs). This issue attracted the Organization’s attention (…) It therefore launched the Mobile Clinic component to target remote and marginalized areas”21.
Raising awareness among the general public while promoting 121 All communication campaigns aiming at publicising the 121 service in the oPt have 20
“Hebron was governorate in the West Bank with the plurality of calls, representing 10.1%. Ramallah ranked next with a percentage of 5% of calls, while Jenin came third with 4.7%”. Abdelmajeed, A. (2011) Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges 21 Abdelmajeed, A. (2011) Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges
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specific messages about GBV and domestic violence. Radio spots promoting the Call Centre have been broadcast twice daily on four stations covering the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza. Radio and word-of-mouth are two of the main means by which beneficiaries hear about Sawa´s services. Brochures have been printed and are distributed to participants at all workshops and outreach activities. Brochures promote use of the Helpline and also give basic information on a range of topics such as sexual abuse, bullying, and HIV-AIDS. Six billboards were displayed in southern, central, and northern Gaza for one month in late 2010, with two billboards in each region of the Gaza Strip. Sawa has found that a noticeable number of callers reach us after seeing the 121 number on a billboard, demonstrating the effectiveness of these advertising mediums. Impacting on public policy Sawa also uses the Call Centre as a successful tool to impact in key public policy documents related to GBV and domestic violence. Most noticeably, the recent consultation process that resulted in the National Strategy to combat VAW 2011-2019 included members of Sawa. The document explicitly cites the organisation as a reliable source of information when contextualising the issue of women trafficking in the oPt. Moreover, it also cites Sawa´s 2009 annual report and particularly the number of calls received in the Call Centre by women when trying to establish the magnitude of the problem of VAW in the oPt.
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This important document also indicates under the strategic objective three “Improve social protection and social support offered to women who are victims of violence”, part of policy one “improve the quality of services offered to women who are victims of violence”, the commitment to “increase the number of free help lines for women who are victims of violence and ensure that they are followed up by specialists”, making what has been the backbone of Sawa´s strategy to combat VAW a national strategy22.
Role of partnerships in achieving results
There is an overwhelming consensus inside and outside the organisation that indicates that the role of the partners has been key for the Call Centre to achieve its present results. To better understand the scope and function of partners we will divide them into three different groups. Donors Donors are partners that have contributed to the project financially or by providing in-kind donations. Donors were identified as one of the key factors for the success of the Call Centre as we explained in the chapter of this report “what factors have contributed to successes during implementation”. Particularly valued are long term donors, UN Women, Save the Children, Bread for the World and Kvinna till Kvinna; and innovative partnerships with the Private sector in the shape of in-kind donations such as the Canadian Company PC Best that provided the software to integrate the database into the Call Centre system for documenting cases and Pal-Tel that contributes to the Call Centre by not charging for the 121 calls. 22
Ministry of Women´s Affairs (2011) National Strategy to Combat Violence Against Women 2011 - 2019
Government partners From its establishment Sawa´s strategy has been to partner with Governmental partners providers of services that callers could be referred to. These include the Ministry of Social Affairs, the Ministry of Interior, and particularly the Family Protection Unit and the Police, the Ministry of Women Affairs, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Labour. The governmental partners not only play a key role in the referral system of the Call Centre but are also the conveners of important processes and networks where Sawa exchange valuable ideas and information. Sawa was in fact an active contributor for the Strategic Plans for 20112013 for the Interior Ministry, Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Civil Society partners – the power of networks Sawa holds a very realistic view of the gigantic task that is addressing GBV and domestic violence within the Palestinian society and the importance of joining efforts with sister organisations in this venture. Therefore the organisation has been active in three central civil society networks related to these issues. 1. Al-Muntada is a key Palestinian Coalition established in 2000 as a result of an initiative of a group of Palestinian NGOs working in areas of women´s empowerment in general and combating violence against women in particular, of which Sawa was part. Through their practical experience, this group of NGOs have corroborated through several collective investigations that many Palestinian women are experiencing all kinds of violence, including psychological, physical, sexual, economic, political and social violence23. Sawa has played an essential role in Al-Muntada, hosting the Coalition from 2004 to 2007. Nowadays, the members of Al-Muntada are frequently used as referral partners by the Call Centre. 2. The Child Protection Working Group (CPWG)24 is a global level forum lead by UNICEF for coordination on child protection in humanitarian settings. In the oPT this group brings together INGOs, local NGOs, UN agencies, and others under the shared objective of ensuring more effective child protection responses in emergencies. Sawa is part of this forum and is valued for its networking and mutual learning potential. 3. Since 2004, Sawa´s 121 is the only Palestinian25 helpline adhered to the Child Helpline International (CHI). CHI is a reputable global network whose strategic goals are the following: to provide adequate services to child help lines in all stages of development, to work with the telecommunication sector to ensure that children can access child help lines, to strengthen child protection systems by improving data collection and use, and advocating in front of key decision makers. To be part of CHI a help line needs to comply with a number of international standards among which are the following: easy to access – toll-free, nationally accessible, easy to remember 3 or 4 digit number, focus on child rights, includes child participation, links children to resources and emergency assistance, uses different methods of 23 24 25
http://www.sawa.ps/Upload/Reports/CrimesofWomensKillinginPalestine_arabic.pdf http://cpwg.net/ http://www.childhelplineinternational.org/en/network/members/memberlists?show=P
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communication – phone, online, outreach, post, caravans, radio, etc. The mere fact of being a member of this recognized network grants Sawa´s 121 helpline with a high degree of credibility and it is a guarantee for its stakeholders (primarily users) that they are dealing with an internationally recognized quality service. Furthermore, the CHI has contributed to the Call Centre with a very concrete exchange of information that will be unpacked in the chapter dedicated to “Best Practices”. Other partnerships with Civil Society Sawa has also engaged with other Civil Society partners, such as Universities that have contributed significantly to the success of the Call Centre. Since 2003 Sawa has an agreement with the Hebrew University in Jerusalem that provides Palestinian student volunteers in the Call Centre. In exchange the University awards these students with partial scholarships. Sawa is in the process of developing similar cooperation agreements with two Palestinian universities.
Best practices
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When we began researching the term “best practices” it became apparent that there are no widely accepted criteria to exactly define a best practice. Actually, various organizations document successes as “best practices” according to their own specific definitions. For this research, we have adopted the Advance Africa’s approach that categorized practices in one of two levels. A “best practice” is a specific action or set of actions exhibiting quantitative and qualitative evidence of success with the ability to be replicated and the potential to be adapted and transferred. Best practices represent the “gold standard” of activities and tools that can be implemented to support program objectives. A “promising practice” is a specific action or set of actions exhibiting inconclusive evidence of success or evidence of partial success. It may or may not be possible to replicate a promising practice in more than one setting.
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In the early stages of the research, during the need assessment, preliminary desk review and inception phase, there was a unanimous view pointing at two areas of “promising practices” related to the Call Centre. One was the use of ICT and the other was the training programmes designed for potential counsellors and staff. 26 Torres, M. (2005) “Advance Africa Project: Best Practices Final Report”
This chapter substantiates how these practices have moved from being innovations or pilot strategies with little or no evidence of impact to concepts that are essential to the success of the Call Centre and that could be applied across sectors and/or geographic boundaries.
The use of ICT ICT Developments Around 2008, Sawa started to develop their ICT in order to improve the services offered by the Call Centre. Nowadays, these developments have translated into a sophisticated computer system that allows its operators to respond to an increasing number of calls as well as to receive calls remotely out of the Call Centre venue. Its main features are automatic call distribution, call monitoring, call queuing, blacklists, and call recording. The Call Centre has also introduced an integrated database using customized software that keeps track of all calls received. The database enables Sawa to collect demographic data, reasons for calling, follow up notes and internal comments. The system is also linked with a referral system list, online internal messaging and reporting system. During 2009, Sawa’s Caller Information Database system indicated that over 60% of calls were going unanswered. In response, Sawa purchased a PRI (Primary Rate Interface) system which includes 30 lines in one, allowing for more counsellors to answer calls at the same time. The system also plays a message assuring callers that the helpline is indeed in operation and a counsellor will be with them as soon as possible. Evidence of success During the course of this research we could find overwhelming evidence establishing that the use of ICT is enhancing the functioning of the Call Centre as well as the management of the organization. Firstly, the upgrading or ‘transformation’ of the 121 service through the use of modern ICT has extended the outreach of the service in terms of its availability and access, resulting in an increase (by 30 times) of its potential use by those in need of help. Furthermore, the ICT improvements have been in both the provision of enhanced telephone technology and a computerized database for follow-up and documenting GBV and domestic violence cases. In fact the organization has gone from documenting around 2,500 cases a year in 2000 to 27,428 in 2011. The use of ICT has also attracted international recognition to the organization, which is a further indicator of the success of the ICT applications. In 2010, the Arab Gulf Programme for Development (AGFUND) awarded Sawa with the Second category award for NGOs-led efforts to support and enhance the application of information technology and communication for the development of rural communities. Over the years, Sawa has accumulated a great amount of knowledge and experience from operating the Call Centre, but also from its continuous interaction with their partners, especially with CHI international, as briefly stated under the partnerships chapter. This steady exchange has inspired Sawa for example to develop the necessary
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ICT tools to enhance considerably the training programme. In 2011, after visiting ANAR, a Spanish helpline for children and youth, Sawa got inspired by a system which allows trainees to listen through loudspeakers to real time calls. Sawa improved their system by using WI-FI headphones so that the potential counsellors could listen to live calls during the last module of their training, and to be able to see on a screen how veterans entered the call data into the database. Finally, the new ICT systems have also come to enhance the management of human resources of the organisation. The database produces comprehensive reports detailing aspects such as: the number of hours each counsellor spends in the Call Centre, how long they take answering each call or how they have documented each case. These reports are the base for frequent appraisals and for positive recognition like “the counsellor of the month”. Transferability Although we could not collect any irrefutable evidence of replicability of the use of ICT, we could gather some indications suggesting that there is definitely the potential for it. On the one hand, the evaluators of the AGFUND specifically praised the potential for transferability “The project should be highly transferable to other regions/countries where there is a good phone service and trained staff”27.
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Most significantly, Sawa was asked by Child Helpline International to be part of the Committee to use ICT whose objective is to “give support to organizations interested in establishing or improving child helpline services through new technologies”. The committee was formed in 2012 by members of CHI including Sawa that were already implementing ICT in their Call Centers and could therefore map the needs of their peers, share knowledge, and exchange experiencedbased advice28.
The training process for counsellors and staff Evolution of the training programme When Sawa started operating the first hotline in 1998 with eight female volunteers the training module that was developed in house from scratch lasted 56 hours over a period of three months. In 2009, the programme was 85 hours over four months and just last year and extra 30 hours practical module was added. The training provides participants with the necessary skills to offer quality assistance and counselling through the Call Centre. In return for this extensive training, trainees commit to volunteer on a part-time basis for the operation of the Call Centre over a period of one to two years. To make the training investment more efficient and increase the retention of volunteers, Sawa has introduced recently a new figure “the interns” selected from volunteers to work part time (25 hours a week) for a period of two years. Even if the training has evolved considerably in terms of didactic methods and contents, the philosophy behind it remains intact. Potential counsellors and all Sawa 27 http://www.agfund.org/en/prize/the_winner/Wining_Projects_2010/Pages/Winning_Projects_2nd.aspx 28 CHI (2012) “Sharing knowledge on new technology-draft”
staff have the opportunity to discuss a number of concepts ensuring they all share a similar understanding of issues such as women’s and children’s rights, sex education, and violence and its effects. The contents of the training challenge misconceptions embedded within the Palestinian society and often have a profound transformative effect on staff and volunteers. Having gone through the more conceptual part, volunteers used to spend a training session of several hours observing and listening to veteran colleagues responding to actual calls. However, once the organization adapted and improved the learning from ANAR, the practical training (30 hours extra) changed to enabling all students to listen live to the same call and then discuss it in a plenary. This new module also allows the potential counsellors to witness and learn how cases are documented in the database in real-time. The practical training helps volunteers prepare for the real difficulties and frustrations they will face as counsellors, so they will not be shocked when they begin work. It also allows them to reflect on how counsellors with experience successfully handle cases, preparing them to use similar methods. Once in the job, regular support by professionals helps counsellors to avoid becoming weighed down by difficulties such as disturbing cases or harassing calls. It lets them know their colleagues and supervisors are with them, ready to provide a support network, compare experiences, and give tips and guidance. Evidence of success According to the Advance Africa Report29 a best practice starts as an innovation and after success is attained it moves from being a “practice” to being a “principle”. A principle is a concept that has become ESSENTIAL to the success of the programme, in this case the Call Centre.
The training programme for staff and potential counsellors has definitely gained the status of “principle”. It is now a mark of identity of Sawa, very close to what defines the soul of the organization. To become a “principle” the training programme has amounted a large amount of evidence of success along the years. The first indication that the training is actually providing participants with the necessary skills to offer quality assistance is the opinion of the clients. Through a quality control method installed in the computerized system, we could see that 97% of all callers are either satisfied or very satisfied with the support they get. A second strong indication of the callers´ satisfaction is the fact that 70% of them come to the Call centre via positive word-of-mouth. Moreover, within the organization the training is perceived as the key element that helps keep everybody on the same page, speaking the same language and clear about what is Sawa´s raison d’être. Indeed, certain principles intimately related to the human-rights approach
to counselling are solidly installed with Sawa and the training is unanimously identified as the number one cause for it. The introduction of the 30 hours module of practical training has contributed further 29 Torres, M. (2005) “Advance Africa Project: Best Practices Final Report”
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to make clearer this approach among the students. The previous practical module, in which volunteers spend a few hours observing and listening to veteran colleagues, had the downside of being exposed at this early stage to different interpretations of how one should react to a call. With the new system everybody listens to one call handled by a senior staff member and then they have the opportunity to discuss what has happened. This has helped enormously to homogenize the criteria and attitudes among the trainees. A little story to illustrate (names have been changed) Emad and Dina were taking a postgraduate course at the Faculty of Art in the Department of Social Work in Al-Quds University. They did not know each other but as the lessons went by they found themselves relating more and more with each other´s views as if they were talking on the same wavelength. They would tend to agree with each other´s interventions during class, which were very different to those of their fellow students. After a while they found out that they had both attended Sawa´s training, one in Jerusalem and the other one in Ramallah.
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Finally, there are indications suggesting that the rate of employment after having served in the Call Centre among former counsellors is extremely high, although we could not verify this with hard evidence, further research would be necessary in this regard. Many attribute this to the fact that the experience has a profound effect on the self-confidence and interpersonal skills of the volunteers.
Transferability Supported by UNICEF Iraq Office, a brainstorming process took place to discuss the perceptions of child helplines and build on the steps already taken towards building a child helpline with the Kurdistan Regional Government. The meeting resulted in a set of action points, one of these being transferring Sawa´s approach to training and counseling. As a result, Sawa offered a month-long training in early 2010 to Kurdish helpline staff. The intention was—if/when funding become available—to continue to build their capacities, to share Sawa´s counseling methods, training methods and ways to raise awareness, as well as to educate, and help others adopting appropriate technologies.
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The future Sustainability of the Call Centre
There is a widespread consensus that the sustainability of the Call Centre is very much guaranteed. To begin with, the strategy of the helpline is fully in line with the priorities of the National Government and in particular with the Ministry of Women´s Affairs as is shown in the National Strategy to Combat VAW30. The helpline approach is firmly installed within the strategies of some of the main donors, such as Save the Children31 and UN Women, which means that Sawa is moving on firm ground to access needed resources in the near future. Sawa also has a very diversified pool of donors which minimises the risk of becoming over dependent on just one source. Furthermore, Sawa works continuously to make contact with new supporters, find new ways to generate funds, and publicize their work and their results to attract new partnerships.
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The organisation is also creative and pro-active in its resource mobilisation strategy. They have successfully closed partnerships with two telecommunications companies, one of them from the oPt. This is particularly relevant as CSR is on the rise in Palestine where “the vast majority of companies support the principle of possible cooperation on CSR activities with NGOs and Community Based Organizations (CBOs)”32 and “multi-stakeholder collaborations and the engagement of the private sector have become very important for finding proper holistic and sustainable solutions to community problems”33.
Finally, the technical sustainability is also guaranteed due to extremely capable staff, and very well respected within the sector by all stakeholders. However, a key challenge lies ahead in order to fully secure technical sustainability. This is the problem faced by the organisation when recruiting potential counsellors. This is of course a key issue that ought to be resolved. Sawa needs to ensure that a sufficient number of trained counsellors are on duty at all times.
A potential resource to fight gender based and domestic violence on the oPt
During the course of this research it was apparent that there were very high expectations among Sawa´s stakeholders about the potential that the documented cases of Sawa´s database could have as a resource to fight GBV and domestic violence in the oPt. These expectations were not unfounded. There is an obvious lack of reliable data on these issues, and comparatively Sawa documents a relevant amount of cases. For example, in 2011, Sawa documented over 27,000 cases on its database. 4,457 of them were related to physical abuse or abuse and violence. However, the Palestinian Police statistics in 2009 only documented 1,173 cases34 of violence within the family and domestic violence, ranging from physical abuse to attempted murder, threats, rape, attempted rape and attempted suicide. 30 31 32
Ministry of Women´s Affairs (2011) National Strategy to Combat Violence Against Women 2011 - 2019 http://mena.savethechildren.se/MENA/What-we-do/Protection/OPT/ http://www.ndc.ps/uploads/File/Researches/Potentials%20for%20Cooperation%20%20Partnerships%20 final%20-%20English.pdf 33 http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=2950&ed=176&edid=176 34 Palestinian police statistics (2009) Annual Report
Another enlightening example about the potential relevance of Sawa´s data is the sample used by the “Violence survey in the Palestinian Society, 2011”35 which totalled 5,811 households, while Sawa documented on its database in the same period 15,808 cases. However, as impressive as it sounds one should take the statistical relevance of Sawa´s data with a pinch of salt which is not to say it is not valuable. Firstly, because the main purpose of the Call Centre is not to collect data but to provide a service to the callers, therefore understandably this comes first. Secondly, because Sawa´s data presents an obvious bias which is that the entire sample comes from people who have access to the 121 service and are willing to seek help, furthermore “callers are granted total freedom to provide the information they wished to communicate”36. Having said this, there is a unanimous cry for Sawa to make this information available and a willingness to do so on the part of the organisation. During the course of the research, stakeholders proposed two possible ways to go about it. The least favourite one was for Sawa to make the raw database public on their webpage for everyone to download. This of course would present some confidentiality issues and some of the most relevant fields would have to be withdrawn from public view. The second option was for Sawa to prepare newsletters or digests on a regular basis tailored to a distribution list based primarily on information from its database, but comparing it with other existing sources. This information could provide relevant ministries and other NGO’s with valuable inside information to help them assess needs and plan future projects, as well as drawing public attention to trends related to violence and other issues. It is important to state at this point that the organization has already made efforts to digest and share the information collected through the database. In September 2011, an excellent report was produced by consultant Ayman Abdelmajeed (frequently referenced in this report), Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges which has as one of its main objectives to “Provide analysis of qualitative and quantitative raw data about callers, as documented by the Organization”.
How can we share and replicate?
When asked what aspect of the Call Centre had the potential to replicate beyond its original context, answers took us invariably to the two best practice areas. Most stakeholders agreed that the two aspects they saw most transferable were the extensive training including the way to convey the human-rights based approach to counselling and the use of ICT. In terms of the geo-scope for possible expansion two approaches were identified which are not mutually exclusive. On the one hand there is the view that Sawa´s learning could be particularly useful for help lines in conflict or post-conflict environments outside the oPt and/or for those operating within conservative societies. 35 36
Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (2011) Violence survey in the Palestinian Society Abdelmajeed, A. (2011) Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges
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However, although there is no reason why the experience should not work beyond the oPt borders; many favoured the expansion of the Call Centre within Palestine. In this sense, stakeholders see Sawa well positioned to embrace the ambitious vision of having the capacity to be able to serve every victim of violence within the oPt. A number of ways were suggested for the possible expansion: 1. Expand SAWA´s outreach to other towns and villages, with special emphasis to rural and marginalized areas 2. Lead a coalition of helplines in oPt 3. Set official standards for helplines within oPt, similar to those used by CHI 4. Become a training resource centre for other help lines in the oPt
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Recommendations “What about identity? I asked” Mahmoud Darwish Focus on recruitment of counsellors The recruitment of counsellors was identified as the number one challenge of the organization. Sawa is well aware of it and it is actively pursuing creative ways to find suitable solutions. It is actually very likely that the answer to this issue would come from inside the organization. Here are some of the suggestions given during the course of this research; many will not be new to Sawa´s management. 1. Pursue agreements with Universities very much like the one Sawa already has with the Hebrew University. Special focus should be placed on Palestinian Faculties of psychology. 2. Plan a continuous/systematic communication campaign well targeted to those Palestinians more open to Sawa´s philosophy. 3. Try engaging international Private Companies present in the oPt on corporate volunteer programmes, taking advantages of the drive CSR have from their HQs. Increase capacity to update the referral system Sawa may consider increasing their staff capacity so that they can contact possible referral partner organizations more frequently, and so that they can review other referral initiatives regularly in order to consolidate their information within their own system. Rethink identity After 14 years (just like any teenager) Sawa needs to rethink the organisation´s identity. It may be time to open a broad internal enquiry to reflect on the key values of the organisation, its vision and its mission. Rethink SAWA as a middle sized organisation Sawa has been consistently growing since 1998. Today it is a middle sized organisation with two functional offices in Ramallah and Jerusalem, more than 30 staff members and the potential to keep growing. This is the time to step back and find organisational recipes to mature equitably. More concretely, there is the need to clarify roles and responsibilities of volunteers, interns, staff and board alike. Research department towards think tank Weigh the possibility of initiating a research capability within the organisation which will be able to analyse the data coming from the Call Centre as well as from other sources external to the organisation. This has been identified as one of the obvious areas for expansion with the potential to become a fully fledged research department and eventually a Palestinian think tank on GBV and domestic violence built primarily on the information the organisation can produce through the database. Certified training towards training centre Sawa should put into value the vast knowledge and experience the organisation has designing and implementing human-rights based approach training. A reoccurring idea
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is to create an officially certified training that eventually could be adapted for different audiences and may become a training centre within the organisation. However, the loudest recommendation for the Call Centre is that you should continue doing what you are doing, because... it is making a difference!
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_________________ 1
Abdelmajeed, A. (2011) Sawa 121: Reality and Challenges
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