Storytelling as a Peace-Building Mechanism

The aim of this workshop is to attempt to establish a tool for the effective evaluation of story-telling as a peace-building methodology. The participants will have experience in story-telling in peace-building and/or evaluation of peace-building. International experts in the fields of story-telling and evaluation will be invited to lead and participate in the discussions. The interaction between the evaluators and the story-telling practitioners will take place in semi-formal and informal groups. The lessons will be captured on record, published and later shared at a seminar.

The workshop is organised in partnership by Irish Peace Centres (IPC) and INCORE.  Attendance is by invitation only.

Our survey of the literature highlighted the lack of an agreed and effective evaluation tool for story-telling in peace-building despite the near universality of the practice and the huge monetary investment by the EU and others in story-telling projects. Therefore the focus of the workshop is to formulate a set of indicators at three levels of impact, the inter-personal, the inter-group and the wider societal, which will form the basis of a robust evaluative tool.

To optimise the learning the participants who will be invited will be practitioners in story-telling and peace-building and/or practising evaluators. They will be expected to commit for the entire two days of the workshop and engage creatively with the process.

There are three main concepts at the heart of this workshop viz. story-telling, peace-building and evaluation. We are working on the basis of the following mainstream definitions.

Storytelling is a project or process which allows reflection, expression, listening and possible collection of personal, communal and institutional stories related to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland.

Peace-building attempts to encourage the development of the structural conditions, attitudes and modes of political behaviour that may permit peaceful, stable and ultimately prosperous social and economic development. Peace-building activities are designed to contribute to ending or avoiding armed conflict and may be carried out during armed conflict, in its wake, or as an attempt to prevent an anticipated armed conflict from starting. Peace-building activities fall under four main headings:

• to provide security,
• to establish the socio-economic foundations of long-term peace,
• likewise to establish the political framework of long-term peace,
• and to generate reconciliation, a healing of the wounds of war, and justice.

Evaluation is the systematic and objective assessment of an on-going or completed project, programme or policy, its design, implementation and results. The aim is to determine the relevance and fulfilment of objectives, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability. An evaluation should provide information that is credible and useful, enabling the incorporation of lessons learned into the decision making process of both recipients and donors. Evaluation also refers to the process of determining the worth or significance of an activity, policy or program. It is an assessment, as systematic and objective as possible, of a planned, on-going, or completed development intervention.

To view more details on the format of the event, please follow link to Event-ful website.