COLLABORATIVE LEARNING FOR CHANGE
Prepared By:
Shahrzad Mojab
Naomi
Binder Wall
Susan McDonald
This project is based on the result of the research
conducted by
Dr. Shahrzad Mojab
and Dr. Susan McDonald
for the New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL):
Violence, Rights, and Law: Informal Learning Experiences of
Immigrant Women
OISE/UT
Department of Adult Education,
Community Development & Counselling
Pscyhology
April 2002
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING FOR CHANGE
Shahrzad Mojab, Naomi Binder Wall, and Susan McDonald
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Our Research Objectives
Collaborative Learning For Change
An Integrated Feminist Anti-Oppression Learning Framework
Workshops
Session One: Women's
Experiences Are the Basis for Learning
Starting
from Women's Experiences
Using a
Feminist Framework
Understanding Commonality & Difference
Building Group Agreements
Session Two: Facilitating Group
Process
Working
with Group Dynamics
Cooperative
Problem-Solving Model
Session Three: Learning Strategies
Creating Effective Learning Opportunities
Session Four: Gender Bias in the Law
Session Five: Funding
Session Six: Outreach
and Organizing
APPENDIX 1
Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act Sponsorship
Program
WORKS CITED
NOTES
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING FOR CHANGE
Shahrzad Mojab, Naomi Binder Wall, and
Susan McDonald
Acknowledgments
There are a great many people who contributed to developing
and implementing this project. During the initial research phase, the staff of
the Women’s Program at the Centre for Spanish
Speaking Peoples, Ruth Lara, Maria Rosa Maggi, and Viviana Fleming, provided critical feedback and assistance.
The first participants in this project were Gilda Gomez, Katty Salinas, Rita Egas, and Rezvan Saeedpour. Their
constructive feedback helped to shape the curriculum in the early days and make
it truly responsive to their learning needs. Their enthusiasm for the project
also helped to move it forward.
Recognition must go to the Facilitator Training Program at
the Women’s Counselling
Referral and Education Centre which provided a model and some materials for the
project. As well, thanks must go to METRAC – The
Metropolitan Action Committee on Violence Against Women and Children – and the Victim Services Program of Toronto, both of which
met with the participants the first summer the project was offered.
Thanks must also go to our funders
– the New Approaches to Lifelong Learning Network (NALL) and
the Joint Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement
(CERIS) – for supporting the project over the
past three years.
COLLABORATIVE LEARNING FOR CHANGE
Shahrzad Mojab, Naomi Binder Wall, and
Susan McDonald
Our Research Objectives
The purpose of the research was to contribute to our
understanding of the impact of violence on immigrant women’s learning. One of the main objectives of the study was to
learn about the relationship between patriarchal, political, social, and
economic power structures of violence and the experience of immigrant women’s learning in the diaspora. The
main question that guided our research was: How do women who have experienced
violence either in domestic or war situations best learn about their rights,
the law, and strategies for resistance? What are the features of these types of
learning?
We used a feminist-anti-racist participatory methodology so
women could help to define their
learning process and legal needs, and participate in the design and
implementation of alternatives. This method enabled researchers to establish a
relationship of trust and respect with the participants. We drew on feminist
research methodology to facilitate the women’s
participation. Feminist methodology begins with embodied people and their
location in social space. We used feminist research methods such as oral
history and testimony to collect different types of data; multiple sources of
information lead to better qualitative studies as compared to those based on a
single source (Green-Powell 1997). The use of testimony as an interview
technique helped women who witnessed and/or experienced violence to alleviate
their pain in remembering the events (Agger 1992).
The feminist oral narratives enabled us to examine the Kurdish- and
Spanish-speaking communities as a whole while locating the individual woman
within her community.
Our data revealed several factors that limited the women’s learning. These delimiters included: the lack of
connection between the content of learning and the social and political
consciousness of the women; their lack of personal or active involvement in
their legal experiences; the impact of trauma on learning; and finally, the
traditional model of legal services that does not emphasize client learning. We
suggest that, rather than seeing delimiters in a way that limits learning, they
must be viewed as critical tools in framing an appropriate context. If the
delimiters of the learners are respected, then greater learning will occur in
the long run. If learners have a positive, but limited learning experience,
they will be more likely to widen their vision to include the larger context at
another instance. We realized the degree to which the impact of trauma can be
seen as a delimiter; this, in particular, has not been previously recognized in
public legal education (McDonald 2000). Trauma is a terrible impediment to
learning; women cannot learn when they have been so horribly damaged by their
experiences. Recognition of the limitations are necessary in ensuring a
positive learning experience for those involved. However, it is equally
important to consider the experience of violence as a new source of learning, a
learning that can transform social, sexual and political relations of power.
Finally, we believe that the distinction between formal,
non-formal, and informal learning is an important one, and allows us to better
understand the dynamics of learning. We need, however, to be aware of the
complex relations between these forms of learning; we need to know especially
their social and historical contexts. It is no accident of history that formal
education began to displace informal learning with the rise of industrial
capitalism; there was then a much more complex division of labor in industry
and agriculture which created highly specialized skills and jobs to an extent
that informal learning was not able to transmit requisite skills. For example,
considering our project, we know that the legal profession is extremely
complex; its language is formidable even for the well educated. Few of us
understand the full implications of a lease we sign with our landlord. Even in
campuses, law libraries are separate, with their special collections and
organization. The question is: How can anyone understand this complex system
through informal learning? In other words, complex division of labor and
overspecialization create conditions which demand formal learning.
Understanding this relationship between learning and social and economic
imperatives allows us to understand the policy implications of learning. This
raises the issue of the role of the state and the market in the provision of
training, the creation of skills, and the structuring of the job market, and
the place of “informal” learning
in this complex set of relations. Such policy implications must include
recognition of the special needs and abilities of diasporic
women who have been traumatized by experiences of violence either in their
homeland or their new nation.
Collaborative Learning For Change
The research phase of the project, which focused on defining
learning needs and strategies, was concluded after the first year. Upon its
completion, we concluded that one effective way of continuing this research was
through engaging organic researchers from among the community. Our goal was to create a natural and dynamic
link between the researcher and the participants. This participatory process helped to break
the isolation cycle women were experiencing, fostered their own leadership
skills and thus enabled them to create their own networks in their communities.
In consultation with participants, we planned a
Community Leadership Project which aimed at building networks
within the community.
The Community Leadership Project addresses our
understandings of informal learning and organized institutional forms of
education. Both the research process and the project development have emphasized the connections between
learning and action. The focus on learning and action has allowed us to
identify a learning process that lives between and/or outside the institutional/formal
forms of learning. This learning process, while encompassing some elements of
both informal and institutional forms of education, is directly related to an
understanding of learning as developing consciousness, and developing it
consciously in order to effect social change. Our research indicates that
neither informal/non-formal nor formal learning have as a necessary function of
the learning process a commitment to social change.
The Community Leadership Project has been a
collaborative process from its inception.
At the same time, the Project uncovers important critical
issues relating to a participatory research process. It highlights the
importance of recognizing oppression and power/privilege dynamics in different
learning contexts. It also reveals the links between women’s social locations, and the oppressive barriers which deny
them access to the information they need in order to affect change in their
family lives, in their workplaces and in their communities.
We have entitled the final outcome of the Community Leadership
Project, Collaborative Learning For Change. In this report our aim
is to identify missing pieces, to provide clarifications where needed, and to
produce a community-based resource for women who are interested in developing
leadership skills in group facilitation, community building, and community
action. In developing this learning/action tool for the community, we
considered the following:
× To produce a useful community resource that does not
duplicate those already available
and widely used.
× To create a unifying structure to the materials provided
to the participants in the project.
× To take an approach which looks at the “big picture” for an
understanding of the impact of social location(s) on group dynamics and the
content of the learning materials.
× To produce a community-based resource for women who are
interested in developing skills in group facilitation, community building, and
community action.
× To make a connection between the content of learning and
the social political consciousness of women.
An Integrated Feminist Anti-Oppression Learning Framework1
How can we link social justice issues and the questions of
race, gender, class and all other forms of marginalisation
to the question of how women learn? As women we know that there is a connection
between how well we learn and what is going on in our lives. It is within our lives
that we try to organize opportunities for our learning, individually and
collectively. Women juggle full-time or part-time jobs, paid/un-paid work with
part-time or full-time training and academic courses, and all the
responsibilities of parenting and caring in a climate of racism, poverty, and
patriarchy. Learning in groups - for training, for support, self-help and a full range of
other educational and learning possibilities - can offer us opportunities for
collective, collaborative and cooperative community action.
The workshops outlined in this guide emphasize the
connections between learning and action. Linking learning and action allows us
to develop our consciousness of the actions required to bring about necessary
change in our lives as women. This process builds on feminist-anti-racist-anti-capitalist
consciousness, and acknowledges that women are located differently in society,
in our workplaces, in our communities and in the world.
This Collaborative Learning For Change guide includes
six workshops which offer women opportunities to think about:
_ What
is feminist research?
_ How
do we work in solidarity with different women in their communities?
_ How
do we develop ideas for collective decision-making?
_ How
do we decide what questions to ask, and what to do with the answers?
_ What
are the risks to women in the community?
_ How
do we ensure safety for women in the process?
_ How
do we include women into the group and the group process?
_ How
do we use research to build strategies for action?
Workshops
The workshops encourage women to gather their experiences
collectively. Women's experiences provide the content for women's learning – about the causes of
poverty, racism, patriarchy, and other forms of injustice.
Women are encouraged to think about action, or how best to
make action plans. The workshops offer opportunities for women to understand
community-based experience and strategising as an
important aspect of women's resistance and struggle. The workshops also include
different problem-solving approaches and ways to work constructively with group
dynamics. In order for women to carry out action together their learning must
address issues of privilege and oppression.
It is best that women arrange their chairs in a circle. This
helps maximize interaction and cooperation. Each workshop session opens with a Check-in,
and ends with a Closure. This gives women an opportunity to express how
they are feeling before the session gets underway, and to close each session
with an expression of how they are feeling at the end.
The Check-in is a go-around, whereby each woman
briefly expresses her feelings, and/or any stresses she is dealing with that
might distract her from full participation in the workshop. Everyone is given
an opportunity for uninterrupted expression. The check-in is not the time for
giving advice, critiquing what is expressed, or for other participants to
address what is being said. The time
allowed for check-in is usually 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the
group. Some suggestions for check-in include:
•
Everyone states verbally how
they are feeling, or shares any stresses that might distract them or limit
their participation.
•
Women can use pantomime,
gestures or body language to express how they are feeling. For example, a woman who is feeling
tired can express this with a yawn, or a
pantomime of sleeping; someone else might express that they are feeling anxious
by wringing their hands; a woman who is feeling happy might smile, or do a “thumbs up.”
•
Make a list of descriptive
adjectives that express feelings, like happy, sad, etc. Write the list on flip
chart paper and invite participants to choose a word, or words, that best
express how they are feeling. They can add to the list if they wish. The list
can include words like: amiable, angry,
beautiful, bold, brave, cautious, creative, delighted, diligent, depressed,
eager, focused, etc.
•
Place a waste basket in the
middle of the circle of women. Give each participant a small piece of blank
paper and ask everyone to write down something that is stressing them and that
might distract them from full participation in the workshop session, something
that they want to “throw away” for the time being. Before placing their papers in the
waste basket, women can share what they have written if they want to.
Closure is done
at the end of the workshop sessions. It is an opportunity for participants to
state how they felt about the session, and/or to let others know how they are
feeling generally.
Did the workshop change how they were feeling at the
beginning of the session? What, if
anything, did they learn during the workshop that they did
not know before? Closure is also an
opportunity for women to express their appreciation for
others in the group.
Brainstorming and Debriefing
are useful tools for building group process. Brainstorming means
everyone putting out what they think is relevant to the topic or question as
the first step in building a discussion. Then, new information can be added.
For example, if the topic is “Understanding
Commonality and Difference”, as a
first step everyone can brainstorm together and say what they think these
concepts mean. Responses are recorded on flip chart. It’s a collective experience, and it produces valuable
information. New information can then be added, information which provides a
consciousness-raising opportunity for women in the group.
Debriefing is best
used just before Closure at the end of a workshop session. It gives women an opportunity to talk about
any issues which have come up for them in the group, or during discussions and
activities. Debriefing can include requests for clarification, or
opportunities for women to express any concerns they might have about specific
interactions which took place during the session. Debriefing can also be
used at the beginning of the next session, just after Check-in. The
facilitator(s) may feel that something was left over from the previous workshop
session that was not dealt with and might impact the group’s ability to proceed.
Session One
Women's Experiences Are the Basis of Learning
Check-In
Starting from Women's Experiences
Women stress the importance of learning from their
experiences and sharing this information with other women. Women's experiences
can form the foundation of women's learning. When we share our experiences
regarding issues in our lives, we can deepen our understanding of those issues
and the impact they have on us, both individually and as members of women's
groups and communities. When we start
from our experiences, and understand the contexts that shape them, we are
better able to develop strategies for action.
Using a Feminist Framework
When we work in groups with women from different social
backgrounds, issues of diversity and difference will arise. Although diversity
and difference enhance the group process, it can also make group work more
difficult. A feminist framework can support the work women want to do together
by helping us understand our social locations as individual women in society. A
feminist framework will also help us understand how issues affect us
differently, and how these differences play out in a group setting.
Using a feminist framework can provides a basis for
activism. When we start with women's experiences, we gain information that
increases our understanding of how structured social systems impact women
differently and we are better able to recognize women's commonalities and
differences.
Understanding Commonality & Difference
What do we mean by Commonality and Difference?2 When
we speak of commonality we are speaking about the similarities in experiences
we share because of our location in society with respect to our gender, race,
class, age, ability and more. Commonality may refer to similar
experiences such as male violence, poverty and health
issues. Recognizing commonality as a collective experience allows us to see how
we are connected to each other. Commonality allows us as a group with similar
experiences to recognize the impact of structures and institutions
on our lives.
When we speak about difference, we are recognizing that
within our commonalities we experience
different social barriers based on race, class, age, disability, and other
forms of oppressions. We acknowledge
difference in order to understand that race, class, colonialism, white
privilege, poverty and health issues produce particular experiences for women
resulting in relative power, privilege and oppression. Difference is connected
to commonality because it reveals the realities of women's lives as complex,
intersecting and interconnected.
Warm-up Exercise
Asking Questions
Sometimes questions can cause discomfort and make women feel
unsafe. For example, it is not always appropriate to ask someone where they
came from, or how old they are, or whether or not they are married, or have
children. Questions we may ask one another can be rooted in our cultural and
class expectations, or arise from our sense of commonality among women. Because
difference also plays out among us, we cannot assume that our questions are
neutral. While questions can be an important way to facilitate group learning,
we must keep in mind that questions can be intrusive.
It is a good idea to do a Warm-up Exercise in the first
workshop session, as a way for women to introduce themselves to one another and
to get to know a little about each other. Facilitators can ask women in group
the following questions:
1. What would you like to know about each other?
2. What information would make you more comfortable in the
group?
The group can brainstorm and record some responses to the
two questions outlined above, on flip chart. This gives women in group an
opportunity to decide if any questions they might want to ask are intrusive and
should be taken off the list. Once the list of questions is accepted by
everyone, women work in pairs. Each pair chooses questions from the list and
takes turns asking each other the questions and listening to one another’s answers. Then they prepare to introduce each other to the
larger group and share one another’s
responses to the questions.
Building Group Agreements
Group agreements are a set of mutually-agreed upon
guidelines created by and for group participants. Women in group need them to
create safety in group; to clarify roles and expectations of facilitators and
group members; to encourage power-sharing between facilitators and group
members; to allow for participants to take control of group by promoting
ownership, belonging, accountability and responsibility; to provide a safe space
for constructive challenging, and giving and receiving critical feedback; and
for dealing with issues that come up as a result of group dynamics.
Group agreements are never neutral. When dynamics of
relative power and privilege play out in a group, group agreements can often
reflect the needs of women who hold privilege in group, while denying the needs
of women who are marginalized by the dynamics in group. The information
provided in A Feminist Framework and Understanding Commonality &
Difference can be used as guides for building the group’s agreements.
Following are some examples of group agreements which
incorporate a feminist framework and an understanding of commonality and
difference:
·
We will strive to receive
constructive feedback in a non-defensive way, with the knowledge that it is an
integral part of our work.
·
We will challenge statements,
remarks, and behaviours that support any system of
oppression.
·
We are all responsible for
creating a safe environment.
·
We will listen with the
intention of understanding and appreciating all women in group.
Exercise
Develop some group agreements based on respect, trust and
confidentiality. Use the information from A Feminist Framework and Understanding
Commonality and Difference as resources. Also include any agreements
dealing with the logistics of the group, for example, ensuring that women will
come to group on time and will let others know if they expect to be late, or
absent. Frame your group agreements in positive statements, like the examples
cited above. Facilitators can write the mutually agreed-upon group agreements
on flip chart, which can be displayed at each session of group. They can then
be referred to when needed.
Closure
Session Two
Facilitating Group Process
Check-In
Debriefing
Working with Group Dynamics
What are "dynamics" in group? Where do these dynamics come from?3 When
we come into a group, we bring with us everything we have learned, about
ourselves and about one another. We bring our values, our beliefs, and
attitudes. Our behaviour in group is an expression of
these values, beliefs, and attitudes.
We live in a society where the playing field is not level.
Some people have greater opportunities for advancement, for education, for
shelter, good nutrition, good health and so on.
We all come from different social, historical, political and
economic experiences. These experiences place us differently in relation to
power structures in society. Some of us have more relative power and privilege
than others. For example, women with white skin in an organization will
experience skin privilege because "whiteness" is considered the
"norm" in our society.
Think about the different "norms" in our society.
Each of us can have privilege in some areas of our lives, while finding
ourselves in oppressive situations in other areas. For example, a woman with
white skin who is poor has skin privilege, and is oppressed by poverty. Each of
us has intersecting experiences of privilege and oppression.
Each of us contributes to the dynamics in a group. It is a good idea for us
to ask ourselves:
How am I in a group?
Why am I in this group?
Am I helping to move
the group process forward?
Exercise
Brainstorm what some of the dynamics might be that are
creating the following situations.
Suggestions are included for the first two situations. Use these as
examples for completing the exercise:
1. The group is very diverse and communication between the women seems difficult.
Possible dynamics:
Women may be feeling uncomfortable because of differences among them; marginalized women may not feel safe; language may be an issue.
2. The facilitator has designed a workshop that requires reading several handouts.
Possible dynamics:
Some women in group may find reading difficult; literacy may be an issue in group; language may be an issue; visual disability may be an issue.
3. Some women in group become silent and do not participate in discussions.
4. There are two women in wheelchairs who do not come into the circle of women.
Cooperative Problem-Solving Model4
Features of the Cooperative Problem-Solving Model (CPS):
· Encourages co-facilitation and power sharing between facilitators.
· Emphasizes structure.
· Works best with closed groups.
· Emphasizes empathy, affirmation, and appreciation.
· Stresses non-judgmental behaviors and attitudes. Emphasizes safety and confidentiality.
· Encourages openness.
Facilitation tools include:
· Contracts.
· Affirmations and appreciation.
· Check-in and closures.
· Small group exercises.
· Active listening.
· Giving and receiving constructive feedback.
· Group agreements.
The CPS process shows how social, economical and political factors lead to emotional issues and problems for women. It offers a formula for problem-solving:
Oppression + Lies + Isolation = Alienation
Oppression means the issues and problems related to society's inequality which impacts on women's lives. These can include abuse, racism, violence and poverty.
Lies means the information or messages that tell women they are poor because they are lazy and don't work hard enough, or are abused because they are not good wives.
Isolation means that women feel disconnected from friends and community. They start to blame themselves for their situation.
Alienation means a sense of hopelessness and helplessness that may lead to
substance abuse and other self-destructive behaviors.
From this understanding, women can move to actions that support their taking control of their lives:
Contact + Awareness + Action = Empowerment
Contact means that the group can give women an opportunity to make contact with other women who share similar issues and to get support.
Awareness means getting information that explains oppression and understanding the need for action.
Action means taking a step towards achieving desired changes in our lives, our workplaces, our communities, and the world. The action does not need to be a big move, but a definite step towards making desired changes.
Exercise with Scenario
Rosa
is a 35 year old women who is an immigrant from Latin America. She came to
Canada as a refugee. She can speak a little English and can understand a great
deal of English. Her family is large. She and her partner have 5 children, and
both her parents, as well as her sister's adult child, are living in Rosa's
home. Rosa comes to the group frustrated with herself and says she never has
any energy to devote to her family which she says makes her feel guilty and not
like a "good mother.”
Questions (Work in small groups. Discuss the questions. Meet again in the large group and share your responses)
· How might you understand Rosa's problems using the CPS Process?
· How can women in the group work with Rosa and her situation to support her move from awareness to action?
· Can you think of a possible action plan for Rosa?
CPS Facilitation Tools are helpful in working with group dynamics:
· Active Listening. The steps to active listening are:
Clarifying: To help you understand what the speaker is saying; to get more information.
Restating: To show you are listening and understanding what is being said; to check your interpretation of what you have heard to make sure you understand correctly.
Reflecting: To show that you understand how the speaker feels.
Validating: To acknowledge the worthiness of the speaker.
· Giving and Receiving Critical Feedback: Constructive and critical feedback is a tool for good communication. It emphasizes:
Ø Being clear with ourselves about what is motivating us to give the feedback; what are our intentions?
Ø Being concrete
Ø Describing our feelings and stating our wants.
Ø Explaining our purpose in giving the feedback.
· Receiving constructive feedback emphasizes:
Ø Recognizing that it is not easy for the other person to give us critical feedback; they are taking a risk.
Ø Assisting us in preventing and handling your defensiveness.
Exercise with Scenario
Using the Constructive Feedback tools, work through the following. Work in pairs; one of you will give constructive feedback; the other will receive it:
A co-worker is very supportive of your work-related concerns and knows that you plan to raise these concerns in a staff meeting. You understand that she will actively support you at the meeting. At the meeting, your co-worker lowers her head and does not participate at all in the discussion.
Guidelines for Facilitating in a Conflict Situation:
1. Assume that conflict will happen and that it can be part of the group's growth.
2. Consider what systemic inequality brings to the conflict situation.
3. Include a process for dealing with conflict in your group agreements.
4. Include an agreement in your group agreements about all group members taking responsibility for the impact of something they said or did that was oppressive, even if the intention was not to harm.
5. Use active listening and encourage participants to actively listen to each other.
6. Use the process for giving critical feedback.
7. Remember that each conflict is unique and complex and that there are no formulas or techniques that can be applied to every situation.
Exercise with Scenario
Work in small groups and discuss how you would facilitate the following conflict situations. Share your ideas in the large group. Use the Guidelines:
A woman in the group always checks in with "I'm fine", or "I'm ok" and nothing more. She does not participate in group discussions. Some other women in group are beginning to complain about her lack of participation.
One group member tends to comment on anything that anyone else says in group. You notice that other women are becoming restless whenever she speaks.
Closure
Session Three
Learning Strategies
Check-In
Debriefing
Creating Effective Learning Opportunities
Exercise
1. Read the following quote together. In the large group,
discuss what you think the woman means.
Sometimes, learning the meaning of a word takes me to the
distant past and all the horror of life during the war; then I forget the
meaning of it again.
(Quoted in Mojab
& McDonald, forthcoming)
2. Brainstorm some of the different situations and realities
women experience that can put limits on their learning.
3. After brainstorming, share experiences regarding limits
to learning in your lives (some of these can include language, access to
resources, lack of information, trauma and crises, and survival needs).
Exercise
1. In small groups, discuss the following questions.
Document your discussion and prepare to present it to the large group:
Ø
How do you want to learn?
Ø
How do you learn best?
Ø
What factors in your life can
put limits on your learning?
Ø
What are some concrete ways we
can facilitate our learning?
Ø
As women, we already have a lot
of problem-solving know-how. How can we best build upon the knowledge women
already have?
2. After the presentations, brainstorm in the large group
some of the things you think women would need to help create the best
conditions for their learning. Record responses.
3. After the brainstorming, work in small groups and give
examples of positive learning experiences you've had. Say why they were
positive, and what the learning environment was like. Do the same with any negative learning
experiences you might have had.
4. In the large group, share small group discussions and
examples. Some of the positive conditions women need for their learning can
include:
Ø
A partly structured learning
environment, with facilitation.
Ø
An organizational context to
learning.
Ø
Appropriate educational
methods.
Ø
A supportive environment.
Ø
Trust.
Ø
Participation.
Ø
Learning from experience.
Ø
Addressing collective and
individual needs.
Add any additional information to the list following your
small and large group discussions about learning strategies and participants
positive and negative learning experiences.
Closure
Session Four
Gender Bias in the Law
Check-In
Debriefing
Women need a lot of legal information about immigration and
refugee status, family and criminal law, how to get protection from domestic
violence, income support programs and more.
Exercise
Many women have identified that it is important to learn not
only about the law, but also about how to challenge the gendered assumptions
that underlie these laws. This knowledge – about
the way law is gendered – is as
important as concrete legal information. A law is gendered when it affects
women in a particular way which is oppressive. The legal system can maintain
and promote male dominance, and can enforce women's vulnerability and
oppression.
Brainstorm responses to the question: What does it mean when
we say a law is gendered? Record all responses.
Exercise
Together, read the handout about the Canadian Immigration
and Refugee Protection Act Sponsorship Program (Appendix I). Discuss what you
think about what you've read. Then answer these questions.
Ø
How does this law affect women?
Ø
Who wrote this law?
Ø
How does it reflect our day to
day lives or does it work to disadvantage us?
Exercise
Using the Ah ha! Popular Education Tool to Look at
Barriers to Learning
A law can seem beneficial to women when it does not account
for systemic oppression.
Factors such as race and ethnicity, income, language, age,
bureaucracy, the traditional model of legal services that does not emphasize
client learning, and the relative inaccessibility of information services all play a role in how
well we are able to get the information we need in order to take action in our
lives. In situations where women need legal information, the barriers to our
accessing it can have devastating results.
Ah-ha! is a popular education tool
which uses a picture, rather than words, to develop an analysis of a situation.
It places personal experiences in the context of structural and institutional
oppression. It presents a picture of a common, rather than isolated experience.
It places the individual’s
experience in a societal context. Sometimes, the Ah-ha! picture is called “The Big Picture,” or “The Whole Picture.” This
approach encourages women to see their problems not as situations they must
solve themselves but as experiences shared collectively. This helps break down
feelings of isolation. It creates space for the inclusion of perspectives from
different cultures and histories and honours these
differences. It allows group to explore issues using pictures, rather than
language, and helps free up the creativity in the group, equalizing space
between women.
How to use the Ah-ha! tool
Using a large piece of paper, draw a picture that tells the
story of barriers women face trying to access information about legal issues.
1. Assign a recorder. This is the person who will draw the
picture. The picture can be done with symbols, stick figures, and/or cartoons.
2. Create a dialogue that tells the story, moving back and
forth between description and analysis. Talk about the specific experiences of
barriers, and talk also about systems and structures in place that create these
barriers. Move from the personal, to the collective.
3. Show the problem, and obstacles or barriers to solving
the problem. Add an action plan. Make sure all the pieces in the picture are
shown to be related.
3. Debriefing
Closure
Session Five
Funding
Check-In
Debriefing
Today, governments at all levels have cut their funding to
social programs. Organizations are expected to look for alternative sources of
funding, particularly from private donors. Fund raising has become an essential
component in the development of any project.
Presently, most women's community-based organizations and
programs have lost significant amounts of dollars. Many have had to shut down
altogether. The prospects for this situation improving anytime soon are dim. We
have to think strategically about funding, while at the same time developing
proposals for soundly-based community programs. We need to ask ourselves:
Ø
How can we develop programs
that will support our action plans?
Ø
What kinds of programs are more
likely to qualify for funding?
Ø
How can we strategise
to find alternatives to government funding, while at the same time holding
governments accountable to women by demanding that they fund necessary social
services?
Exercise
Divide up into small groups of three or four women. One women
in each group can volunteer to be the recorder, or this task can be rotated.
Brainstorm ideas and suggestions regarding the following questions and record
on flip chart:
1. How can we
develop programs that will support our action plans?
2. What kinds
of programs are more likely to qualify for funding?
Share small group discussions in the larger group. Organize
the different ideas and suggestions into topics. For example, a topic might be
the Types of Programs Likely to Qualify for Government Funding in the
Current Political Climate. Another topic might be Suggested Action
Plans.
Next, go back into the same small groups and discuss the
following:
How can we strategise to find
alternatives to government funding, while at the same time holding governments
accountable to women by demanding that they fund social services?
Share small group ideas in the large group. First, discuss
strategies for finding alternative sources of funding. Finally, share
strategies for holding governments accountable.
Closure
Session Six
Outreach and Organizing
Check-In
Debriefing
This session provides both an opportunity for conducting
collective discussion, and for planning further action and outreach. A review
of the issues in the first session can serve as a jumping off point for further
planning.
A group of women who are interested in meeting for support
and social activism can either review Sessions One through Session
Five in order to choose particular topics, or go back through each session
in turn.
Review the topics, issues and ideas presented and discussed
in the different workshop sessions. In particular, review:
·
The importance of starting from
women’s experiences.
·
Using a feminist framework.
·
Understanding commonality and
difference.
·
Working with group dynamics.
·
Creating effective learning
opportunities.
·
Gender bias in the law.
Exercise
Break into small groups of three or four women and discuss
specific ways that the information learned in the workshop sessions increased
your awareness of how to:
·
Work with issues of privilege
and power in group.
·
Ease conflict in group.
·
Clarify issues.
·
Increase knowledge and build
information.
·
Reflect and evaluate.
Report back to the large group and share your ideas. In the
large group, decide together when and how you will outreach to other women who
might be interested in joining the group, or setting up their own group based
on the model used in Collaborative Learning for Change.
In your small groups, develop an action plan for outreach.
Discuss the following:
·
What are your goals and
objectives?
·
How will you apply a feminist
framework to your outreach strategies?
Closure
APPENDIX I5
Canadian Immigration and Refugee Protection Act Sponsorship
Program
The Canadian government claims that the Sponsorship Program,
a section of the Immigration and Refugee
Protection Act, is the centrepiece of the family
re-unification program. Women can be
sponsored by husbands, or fathers, or another legally designated male family
member, thereby gaining entry to Canada.
The sponsor provides economic and structural support to the
woman being sponsored, and she is dependent on him for her legitimacy in
Canada. She risks deportation if the relationship breaks down. Often this
relationship does break down, leaving women extremely vulnerable. Domestic
violence often plays a role in the sponsorship relationship.
In 1999, a committee of the National Association of Women
and the Law, wrote a report to Citizenship and Immigration Canada. It was a
gender analysis of sections of the proposed Canadian Immigration Act. The
report showed how the sponsorship relationship is an area where gender issues
and the question of women and men's relations within the family – and their access to resources – is front and centre. It mentioned that sponsorship can make
already existing unequal power dynamics in family relationships worse. Power
imbalances combined with the stresses of migration, settlement, and
underemployment can create the conditions for violence against women and for
the exploitation of their labour, both inside and
outside the home.
The report also pointed out that – even though Citizenship and Immigration Canada had
recommended that the sponsorship relationship could, under conditions where a
woman is exposed to violence, be reevaluated – the
woman would have to wait for the reevaluation until the abuser was convicted.
The report demanded that the law had to have mechanisms in
place that would suspend or end sponsorship obligations on the basis of any
evidence of spousal violence – before a
violent partner was charged or convicted. They suggested that the ultimate goal
should be to do away with the sponsorship framework altogether (Ad Hoc
Committee on Gender Analysis of the Immigration Act, March 1999).
WORKS CITED
Ad Hoc Committee on Gender Analysis of the Immigration Act,
National Association of Women and the Law (1999). Gender Analysis of
Immigration and Refugee Protection: Legislation and Policy.
Submission to Citizenship and Immigration Canada.
Agger, Inger (1992). The Blue Room: Trauma and Testimony among
Refugee Women: A Psycho-Social
Exploration. London: Zed Books.
Aiken, Sharryn J (2001) Centre for
Refugee Studies, York University, Toronto, Community Legal Education Ontario,
Toronto.
Arnold, Rick, Bev Burke, Carl
James, D'Arcy Martin, Barb Thomas (1991). Educating for a Change.
Between the Lines and Doris Marshall Institute for Education and Action,
Toronto.
Bain, Beverly and Naomi Binder Wall (1997 - 2001). Facilitator
Training Program. Women's Counselling, Referral,
and Education Centre (WCREC), Toronto.
Green-Powell, P. (1997).
“Methodological considerations in field
research: Six case studies,” in Vaz, K. M. (ed.), Oral
Narrative Research with Black Women.
Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, pp. 197-222.
McDonald, Susan (2000). “Beyond Caselaw – Public
Legal Education in Ontario Legal Clinics. Windsor Yearbook of Access to
Justice, 18: 3-59.
McDonald, Susan (2001). Women’s Voices Being Heard. Adapted
from S. McDonald, The Right to Know: Women, Ethnicity, Violence and Learning
about the Law, Unpublished Ph.D. Thesis (2000) Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education of the University of Toronto.
Mojab, Shahrzad and McDonald, Susan
(Forthcoming) “Women, Violence and Informal Learning,” with Susan McDonald in Kathryn Church, et al (eds.) Making
Sense of Lived Experience in Turbulent Times: Informal Learning.
Notes
1.
The principles and application of the Integrated Feminist Anti-Oppression
Framework are based on the work developed by Beverly Bain and Naomi Binder
Wall, Facilitator Training Program, Women's Counselling,
Referral and Education Centre (WCREC),1997-2001.
2. Developed by Beverly Bain (2001). Facilitator Training
Program, Women’s Counselling,
Referral and Education Centre, (WCREC)
3. Ibid.
4.
Notes on CPS is based on the Facilitator Training Program from Women's Counselling, Referral and Education Centre (WCREC).
5.
For more information on sponsorship program and its impact on women see the
Canadian Council of Refugees Web Site:www.web.net/~ccr.