News and Updates

Nepal Evaluation Shows Success and Develops new Benchmarks
By Rebecca Callahan

Free A Child operates with the strong belief that grassroots empowerment of communities is the best way to combat trafficking where it happens. Over the years, we have felt confident that our projects are reaching the right populations and making an important contribution to the fight against human trafficking. However, as our organization has grown, it was time we evaluate programs to identify what we were doing right and what more could be done to improve and grow the project. Between March and July of 2004, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, I had the opportunity to put The Putali Project, Free A Child's trafficking prevention initiative in Nepal through a rigorous and thorough evaluation.

While FAC has been working in Nepal for over seven years, The Putali Project has been underway since May 2001. Before the 2004 evaluation we received quarterly field reports from project staff in Nepal. The new evaluation involved nearly 300 structured interviews with girls involved in the project as well as community members from the area. Additionally, we carried out a thorough review of the project's administration and management practices.

So what did we learn? We learned that the project is working. Girls are attending meetings, spreading messages about trafficking prevention, carrying out income generating projects, and learning new skills. Nearly 85% of randomly selected group members said they regularly attend group meetings and that they are currently involved in some kind of income generating project. All twenty of the group leaders exhibited high levels of knowledge related to trafficking, HIV/AIDS, and other related issues and are clearly actively engaged in trafficking awareness raising activities in their communities. More than half of community members interviewed knew about the project and almost everyone said they supported its goals.

The most important result of the evaluation, however, is the insight it provides for future program planning. Based on the information gleaned from the evaluation, Free A Child has been able to develop a new two year plan for the Putali Project that capitalizes on the existing strengths of the project, includes realistic and measurable objectives, and takes into account the realities of the field. For example, we learned that though most people would first go to the police if they heard of a trafficking situation in their village, the respondents felt that law enforcement does very little to prevent trafficking. Therefore, in the new project plan, we've included several trainings on trafficking to be carried out with local law enforcement. Similarly, community members and girls told us they believe community awareness raising to be the best way to combat trafficking in their villages. The new project plan includes several new awareness raising activities including new street dramas, community notice boards about trafficking, and group-specific community awareness campaigns.

Finally, the review of Putali Project administration and management practices carried out as part of the evaluation has enabled us to develop a new project budget and set of reportable indicators that will allow us to more closely and efficiently monitor the project.