The Bench Marks Foundation
Community Monitors Training School
2015
The school was set up in 2009 as part of Bench Marks effort to build authentic community voice on issues relating to the impact of big corporations on the life of the community and the environment in which they lived. This is an area of work that was difficult, given that lack of local resources and complexities of dealing with corporations. The Bench Marks realised that it needed to develop a programme with innovative approaches and be prepared to work for a very long time to be successful
Today the school operates in 7 mining and industrial areas (Rustenburg and Limpopo platinum, Klerksdorp gold and uranium, Welkom gold mining, Mpumalanga coal mining, Ekhureleni post gold mining and the Vaal iron, steel and oil industry).
For 2015 each school has recruited 15 active volunteer monitors who are drawn from approximately 35 local villages and townships. The monitors work in small groups to investigate specific community problems. They write stories and make pod casts and communicate this to their local community and beyond. Through their local organisations they engage the local community on action aimed at resolving these problems. They document their work in posts which can be found on the projects weblog site
In our work in 2015 we have redesigned the way in which local groups work and set up a strategy and structure to coordinate and promote the work of local groups.
Local groups follow a 4-step approach on investigating problems. This approach is at the same time an intensive programme of training. In step work the group selects a problem, develops key questions they need to answer to understand the problem and write a story. They prepare a calendar of activities, which sets out key deadlines. In step to they review the information and understand of the problems and work out what information they need to make them ready to write the story. In step four they write the story according to an agreed framework and make a short podcast. The story is published in newsletters and posted on internet platforms, the podcast is sent out using cell phone and internet mediums. In the fourth stage the group develops a strategy and plan to promote their story and link with community organisations on actions aimed at resolving a problem.
The facilitators of each of the 7community schools meet every 4-6 weeks in a production workshop over 2 days where they produce a newsletter and podcasts which is a report on the local work. These newsletters and podcasts can productions are posted on the weblog site . This meeting is also training and planning meeting for local training schools.
A key problem we have faced in the Monitors schools is bringing technical skills into our training. We have solved these problems through short-term contracts and bring in skilled interns. Our first short term contract has been a Swedish Radio Journalist who worked with us for 10 months and in this time has helped us develop a more journalistic style of investigating issues and writing stories as opposed to a more academic research /policy analyst style. She assisted in training a group of 4 facilitators in writing stories and preparing newsletters. With her assistance we produced 4 copies of the newsletter Action Voices. This is available on our website. She assisted in training 2 facilitators to produce pod casts and a radio show. They produced 5 radio shows which are posted on our website. These 2 women facilitators are now integrated as in interns with a view to employing them from next year.
Over July – August we will host 2 interns from the University of California who will train facilitators to develop and use digital maps in their monitoring work.