A Partnership Between the Clinton School of Public Service

POSITIVE DEVIANCE GUIDEBOOK

FOR PRIDE CAMPAIGN CURRICULUM

INDONESIA

A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE CLINTON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC SERVICE

AND RARE

Ratnasari Dewi

TABLE OF CONTENT

Acknowledgment 3

Introduction5

Purpose of this Guidebook5

Objectives for the Pride Campaign managers5

How to Use this Guidebook6

Overview of Rare and Pride Campaign6

Overview of Positive Deviance7

What is Positive Deviance?7

Positive Deviance: Yes or No?8

When to Use Positive Deviance9

Principle of Positive Deviance10

Case Studies of Positive Deviance10

Malnutrition in Vietnam10

Marine Protected Area: Jamili’s Story12

Approach of Positive Deviance14

Conclusion20

Bibliography 21

About the Author 22

Table

Table 1 Knowledge and Skill Campaign Managers Expected to Know and Master5

Table 2 PD Versus Traditional Change Methods 8

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

In appreciation of their support and guidance in the process and completion of the capstone project with Rare, the student would like to recognize and thank the following people:

Clinton School of Public Service

Marie T. Lindquist, Director of Field Service Education for her support during the preparation and finishing of capstone project.

Dr. Arvind Singhal, Instructor, for his introduction to positive deviance and connection to Rare so that the student can do her capstone with Rare, and input for this guidebook.

Dr. Christina Standerfer, Student Advisor, for her support during the preparation, finishing, and report writing of capstone.

Dr. Al. Bavon, Instructor, for his input about research methods for accomplishing capstone deliverables and his assistance in proofreading this guidebook.

Rare, United States

Anna Thompson, Manager of Individual Giving for her assistance and guidance to set up and finalize the partnership between the student and Rare.

Kristen Carson-Owens, Manager of Human Resources for her assistance, patience, and guidance to help the student finishing this guidebook, especially for her availability to help proofreading.

Pamela Eddy, Director of Training, Katherine McElhinny, Manager of Global Programs, and Monica Pearce, Coordinator of Global Program for their guidance to partner with the Clinton student to develop a guidebook framework.

Brent Jenks, CEO, Dale Gavin, COO, and Paul Butler, Senior Vice President of Global Programs for their time to acknowledge the student’s positive deviance guidebook project.

Daniel Hayden, Director of Global Program Operations, Kevin Green, Quality Management and Improvement, and Duncan Macdonald, Operations Assistant for providing comprehensive accounts of Rare operations.

All interns and fellows, Cuiyi Zhang, Sharmilla Shitter, Benjamin Drill, and Chris Rooney , for the friendships and hard work.

Kamal Osman, IT Manager, and Russell Evans for their assistances regarding Rare information technology.

All Rare staff, for their time, hospitality, and generosity to the student in developing the positive deviance guidebook for Pride campaigns in Indonesia.

Rare, Indonesia

Hari Kushardanto, Training Director, for his guidance, patience, assistance, recommendation, and friendship to partner with the student in researching and writing the positive deviance guidebook for Pride Campaigns in Indonesia.

Yayat Afianto, Pride Program Manager of Indonesia, for taking the time to participate in interviews and providing comprehensive accounts of Pride campaign.

The student also would thank her husband Saiful Azari for his patience, love, and friendship during her time working the capstone project and her friends in Washington DC: Leo Siregar, Jody Simanjuntak, Eduardo Sitompul, Mashuri Djalil, and Giovani Adrian for their hospitality. In addition, the student would like to thank her Fulbright colleagues Ida Lumintu, Atik Aprianingsih, and Wit Ri for their proofreading assistances.

Eventually, the student would like to thank God for mercy, strength, and guidance during the entire capstone experience.

The student hopes that positive deviance guidebook for Indonesia Pride campaigns that the student produced can improve Pride campaign in general and Rare operations worldwide.

“Seeing is believing”(American Proverb)

INTRODUCTION

Have you heard about the term “positive deviance”? You may find the term weird since the word “deviance” most of the time is associated with negative connotations. Coming from the science of psychology, according to Bennett and Robinson (2000) stated that deviance traditionally refers to different deliberate actions from community standards that intimidate the welfare of a community, its members, or both.

Can “deviance” be positive? After reading thisguidebook, you may answer “Yes” to this question. In fact, positive deviance as an approach to development has been used to mobilize communities to find sustainable solutions tosocial issues such as malnutrition, human trafficking, female circumcision, and infant mortality (thepositivedeviance.org, 2000).

This guidebook provides a thorough description of positive deviance starting withits definition, its history, and its difference from other development approaches.This guidebook will share stories from some communities about “deviants” that may exist in every community. These “deviants”are doing some things in more positive and productive ways than their peers even though they face the same challenges such as lack of resources or limited access to resources. This guidebook is also intended to walk you through a process to identify a positive “deviant” and to conduct events or provide outlets for other community members to learn from him/her.

As you read this manual, keep in mind that it is not a “cookbook” for positive deviance. Each issue has unique contexts that create a need for different types of information.

Purpose of this guidebook

This guidebook is developed for Pride campaign managers. A Pride campaign is a social change movement that encourages a community to take pride in the species and habitats that a community has, and at the same time promotes alternatives to actions endangering environments ( 2011). While the current curriculum thoroughly covers environment issues, community mobilization, social marketing, and project management, this guidebook showcases the importance of involving deviants as informal leaders in the campaign.

Pride campaign managers are the primary audience for this guidebook, but development actors and facilitators, members of mosques or churches, corporate social responsibility practitioners, nonprofit/nongovernment actors, government leaders, or individuals interested in facilitating social change may find this guidebook useful. Simply stated, if you believe that most answers of development issues rely within a community, you are more than welcomed to join the journey of meeting positive “deviants”.

Objectivesfor the Pride Campaign managers

After reading and practicing positive deviance using this book, you should have the following knowledge and skills:

Table 1 Knowledge and Skill Campaign Managers Expected to Know and Master

Understand (knowledge) / Conduct (skill)

1. Positive deviance concept

/

1. To help a community in defining a problem, current perceived causes of the problem, challenges, common practices, desired outcome (desired behavioral change)

1. Six steps in positive deviance approach

/

1. To help a community in determining the presence of positive deviance individuals or groups (positive deviance inquiry)

1. How to execute the 6 steps in positive deviance approach

/

1. To help a community in discovering uncommon but successful behaviors and strategies through positive deviance inquiry and observation

1. Relevancy of positive deviance to Pride campaign

/

1. To market “deviants” (individual or group) to be able to tell their stories and demonstrate their behaviors

1. To help a community in designing activities to allow community members to practice the discovered behavior

1. To help a community in conducting participatory evaluation to assess the successfulness of executed activities

How to use this guidebook

This guidebook is divided into six sections. Following the introduction, the second section provides the brief explanation of Pride campaign and Rare as the campaign owner. The third part provides a thorough description of positive deviance including definition, differences from other development approaches, advantages of implementing this approach, and principles. Section four provides a narrative of two case studies that serve as examples of positive deviance practice in reducing malnutrition in Vietnam and a “deviant” named Jamili that is recognized in a Pride campaign in Malaysia. Section five explores the step-by-step of positive deviance approach in the context of Pride campaign. The last section is the conclusion.

At the end of each positive deviance approach step, you will find a few reflective questions that offer you, especially Pride campaign managers, opportunities to identify your own stage in practicing positive deviance or to reflect your own stories and experience about positive deviance approach.

OVERVIEW OF RARE AND PRIDE CAMPAIGN

The word Rare is an adjective which means unusual, uncommon, unusually great, or unusually excellent ( 2006). Established in 1973, Rare believes that humans are the fundamental actors of nature preservation. Their understandings, their beliefs about its value, and their capacity to protect nature influence their relationships with nature. To help communities and policy makers find sustainable solutions toward environmental issues, preservationists are required to understand both science and social transformation skills ( 2011)

Rare works in more than 200 communities in more than 50 countries with prominent biodiversity in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific islands. To become a leading organization that encourages communities to prioritize and preserve nature that leads to endangered species and ecosystems protection around the world, Rare utilizes social marketing and communication methods to change communities’ awareness, attitudes, and behaviors. As many development actors understand that a successful community development should start from grass-roots level, Rare echoes the principle by developing a Pride campaign that inspires people to take pride in community’s natural assets and take action to preserve them. Borrowing private sector strategies, Pride campaigns utilize an intensive marketing effort to promote more environmentally sustainable practices.

Since Rare specializes in behavior change, a Pride campaign is designed to identify behaviors threatening biodiversity at the community level, find solutions needed to get people to change, and advance solution implementation in two years. Rare does not run the campaign, but it collaborates with local organizations and governments and trains them how to influence community behavior. Each organization sends a Rare Conservation fellow that will manage a Pride campaign. At the completion of a Pride campaign, a fellow will be granted a masters degree in communication from the University of Texas El Paso.

OVERVIEW OF POSITIVE DEVIANCE

What is positive deviance?

Development actors started practicing positive deviance as one development approach in 1970s. The practice gained prominence in 1990s whenTufts University nutrition professor, Marian Seitlin, wrote a book titled Positive Deviance in Nutrition. Jerry and Monique Sternin then used positive deviance approach to reduce malnutrition problem in Vietnam and published the findings of their work through Positive Deviance Initiative ( 2010). Since then, positive deviance is used in various social issues as mentioned earlier in this guidebook.

Positive deviance approach, according to Pascale, Sternin, and Sternin (2010), is based on the hypothesis that in every community, at least one person with the same resources and challenges has performed better than other community members. This approach focuses on resources and assets that a communityalready has, rather than focusing on what a community lacks. In most of cases, this person does not know that he or she is doing anything extraordinary. To find existing solutions to issues facing a community, a positive deviance approach relies on the presence of positive deviant individuals in a community.

Who are “deviants”? Are they your campaign stakeholders? “Deviants” can be individuals or groups of people that are doing something or behaving in certain ways that enablethem to work out on a social issue more effectively than their peers. Both deviants and peers have the same access to resources or are affected by the same obstacles (Sternin, in Claswon, 2002, p.3). Deviants can be a family in Egypt that does not circumcise their daughter while other families do, or a husband in Pakistan whohelps his wife that just had a baby around the house so that she can take care of the baby while other husbands do not help. You may have met them in your campaign sites; it is that person who does not cut trees in a forest while others do, or a fisherman who does not use bombs to fish while others do.

From the Pride campaign module that particularly focuses on involvement, meetings, and stakeholders facilitation, you learn to define campaign stakeholders and to understand advantages of involving them actively in your campaign. One of the key stakeholders is the deviant in the community. Why are deviants important for your campaign? They are important because they can influence other community members through their positive practices. In other words, they are the key influencer that can help you mobilize the community for your campaign.

You may assume since positive “deviants” are different from others, they are easily recognized. You may think you can simply find community members who are positively different from others by observing them. However, Marsh, Schroeder, Deardan, Sternin, and Sternin (2004) argued that the prevalence of positive examples is only 1-10 % on average. To find them, a positive deviance inquiry needs to be conducted. Positive deviance inquiry (PDI) refers to methods utilized to determine who positive deviants are, what they do, and what desired practice a community wants to see.

Positive deviance: yes or no?

You may wonder if positive deviance approachworks in addressing any social issue since it seems to simplify problems. Heifetz, as stated in Sternin (2010), distinguished between two kinds of social problems: technical (the “what” problem) and adaptive (the “how” problem).The difference between them is their relations to social structure, culture norms, or behavior. Solution to a technical problem is more straightforward. The polio virus (a technical problem) can be overcome by the Salk vaccine (a technical solution). On the other hand, an adaptive problem is located within a complex social system, needs behavioral change, and is full with unintentional consequences. Positive deviance will work well in a complex social system because it believes in a community’s wisdom and involvement in mobilizing themselves. This approach also focuses on informal leadership, meaninga person can lead with no formal power or position.

Another interesting aspect of positive deviance is its focus on what sources a community has, rather than what a community lack. In other words, it is an assets-based approach. The differences between traditional and positive deviance approach can be seen below:

Table 2 PD Versus Traditional Change Methods

Traditional approach / Positive Deviance approach
What are your needs? / What are your strengths?
What is wrong? / What is working here?
What can we provide? / What are your resources?
What is lacking in the community? / What is good in your community?
What is missing here? / What can we build on?

adapted “Module for Trainer” by Indonesia Ministry of Health, USAID, Save the Children Positive Deviance Module, 2008, p. 52.

After knowing the differences between these two approaches, you as a Pride campaign manager may want to identify both the advantages and disadvantages of a positive deviance approach. Marsh (2004) defined the advantages:

1. Easy to practice and beneficial to the most disadvantaged communities. Pride campaigns are located in areas with rich biodiversity but poor communities. Therefore, positive deviance can be practiced.
2. Quick and affordable strategies. Working with communities often involves less rigid bureaucracy, so a process to recognize strategies is easier.
3. High possibility of sustainability. Learning from “deviants” can decrease the level of failure when a project or a funding ends. By attaching positive deviance approach to the current practice, Pride campaigns and results can be more sustainable because targeted communities will be able to learn from each other. And do not forget:“deviants” are your key influencer!
4. Updated knowledge. Community members adopting positive deviance practices update the knowledge gained. When community members can learn together, they tend to inform each other about new knowledge or skills they obtain.
5. Local problem solving research is developed. Pride campaigns can encourage communities to conduct simple research about how to find innovative ways to manage environment issues. After the campaign ends, they will still able to solve their own problems.
6. Empowers communities. Positive deviance encourages communities to take independent actions towards their defined problems. Pride campaign managers can facilitate a process within community to find their own solutions.

However, you as a campaign manager must be aware of the challenges of a positive deviance approach as well. According to Marsh, et al., (2004), several points should be considered before practicing positive deviance. The disadvantages are as follows:

1. Deviants are few. Discovering and distinguishing unusual constructive practice with an occurrence rate of 1-10% of deviants in a community is challenging. Nevertheless, though few exist, that does not mean it is impossible to find “deviants” or “deviance” practices. Positive deviance inquiry can be a good way to find them.
2. Fresh thoughts may not be created because of common examples. Pride campaigns have been equipped with preliminary research, focus group discussion, and community meeting so that campaign managers can add some elements of positive deviance inquiry to those materials.
3. No assets available. A lack of required available assets, or other conditions where thispractice is unfeasible, may cause inappropriateness of positive deviance approach. At the beginning of Pride campaign, campaign managers should not forget to also conduct asset assessment to see what resources that a Pride campaign site has.
4. Critique of simplification. Particular traditional small sample size may bring about critique. But, sincePride campaigns care about community contexts and open to fresh ideas, this disadvantage does not affect Pride campaign directly.
5. Expert in communitymobilization, participatory study and positive deviance may not available in a community. However, Pride campaign managers are equipped with experiences in working with communities and with knowledge about environmental issues. You are also provided by Pride a thorough curriculum in social marketing and community mobilization. The expert Rare staff and mentors accompanying you are the resources that campaign managers can utilized in understanding all the program and conducting them.

There is not exact prescription for working on social issues in a social complex system. Positive deviance can be a complement to current development approaches and programs, including Pride campaign,to engage with communities and to embed local wisdom in the development process.