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Improving wellbeing and opportunities for refugees through Chess

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Agenda

UNHCR – who we are and what we do
2. UNHCR and Sport
3. What is M and E? Why is it important?
4. Promoting change through chess
5. UNHCR approach and tools
6. Q and A

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Ice-breaker

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Mentimetre:

https://www.menti.com/aljny6scyjvd

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UNHCR and Sport: More than a Game

�Improved well-being and opportunities through sport for the persons UNHCR serves.

Vision for Sport

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Displacement

Isolation and exclusion from host communities
Sustained psycho-social distress
Protection challenges:

Trafficking or forced recruitment
Harmful coping strategies such as substance abuse, survival sex or child marriage
Sexual and Gender-based violence
Little or no freedom of movement

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Access to

Opportunities

Difficulty in accessing quality learning, education, & skill-building opportunities

Difficulty in accessing employment opportunities and labour markets

No documentation = no access to basic services

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Sport for Protection

Motivate children and youth and create a supportive environment for young people to empower themselves.

shaping their own futures
enhancing their well-being
acquiring valuable life skills
engaging the community

Build on ‘Sport for Protection’ programmes through the “Sport for Protection Toolkit –Programming for Young People in Forced Displacement Settings”

Create and consolidate approaches that enhance the impact of sport in consultation with other stakeholders.

Psychosocial Well-being:

Help youth and children heal from after-effects of impactful events by restoring normalcy and giving a place where they can develop physically, emotionally, and cognitively, together with others. Increase positive mental well-being where individuals can thrive.

Social Cohesion:

Focus on people’s similarities rather than differences, Sport itself becomes the commonality to bring people together. Aim to reduce conflict inside camps as well as to build bridges between host community members and refugees

Social Inclusion

Creating safe and supportive environment where one can feel included and respected.

Reduce the risk of their recruitment into dangerous activities and negative coping mechanism

For girls and young women and young people with disabilities, safe spaces can ensure protection from risks such as sexual violence, abuse and neglect.

Sports coaches/ programme managers

E-sports – Gaming / Programming

Alternative pathway into further education/ for resettlement

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Framework for understanding how chess can contribute to better outcomes for refugees

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Intentional project design

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Outputs: On quantity and quality of the implemented activities - What do we do? How do we manage our activities?
Outcomes: On processes inherent to a project or programme - What were the effects /changes that occurred as a result of your intervention?
Impact: On processes external to an intervention - Which broader, long-term effects were triggered by the implemented activities in combination with other environmental factors?

Outputs

Outcomes

Impact

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Intentional Project Design - Theory of Change

Problem statement

What is the problem the project is trying to solve?

Target audience

Who do you want to reach through your project? (Age, gender, status, disability etc.)

Setting

Where will the project take place? Will this impact the way you run the project?

Activities

What are the concrete actions/ activities that the project will implement? (I.e. What actions are needed to bring about change?)

Outputs

What are the measurable effects of the activities? (e.g. regular participation in sport, attending life skill initiatives etc.)

Mid-term outcomes

What is the anticipated immediate to mid-term change that you will see on the target audience?

Linked to mindset or skill development

Long-term outcome

If the project runs successfully and your mid-term outcomes are achieved which long-term outcome will your project contribute to.
Improved psychosocial wellbeing
Improved social inclusion
Improved social cohesion

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Intentional project design – key questions to answer

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What is the problem that chess could improve?
What is the impact that you aim to have through chess?
How can chess engage communities promoting an enabling environment?
What are the barriers preventing people from accessing chess?
What is the medium term change you want to see take place because of your project?
What activities can you implement to promote change?
What external factors could influence the success of a project? (Outside the control of the project)

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UNHCR sport projects �-�monitoring key elements

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All projects are multi-year (2-3 years)
Mandatory output and indicator: Regular participation in sport activities
Encouraged to develop a three-tiered project, addressing the individual, community and policy needs in a context promoting an on-going conducive environment
Encourage three outputs per project
One mid-term outcome
One long-term outcome

It’s not a perfect formula, it’s a learning process which we look to improve all the time.

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All projects are multi-year and must include regular access to sport activities because:

Evaluations and evidence point to the need for long term investment (i.e.. beyond single- or two-year project implementation cycles), which is consistent with evaluations and recommendations of interventions in the fields of development, humanitarian aid, and peacebuilding.
Time needed to establish operational capacities and processes, which is an investment both in terms of financial inputs as well as in time. It makes more economic sense to continue building off established projects.
Projects are aimed at behavioral and social change (e.g. social inclusion, social cohesion and creating an enabling environment for psychosocial wellbeing), all of which take time.

Social change is the longer-term goal, which is essential as it ensures that the new skills and attitudes acquired by participants through their participation in sport for protection are not lost or diminished by negative and prevailing attitudes towards refugees in the wider community and society.

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Monitoring success �- key challenges

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Limited capacity and technical know-how
Learning process
Gap between donor expectations and reality on the ground
Challenge in articulating indicators and measurements that measure a change in a person’s development (outcome level)
Consistent monitoring across a programme/ project
Means of verification – get creative!

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Over to you for questions!

Thanks for listening.

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What is monitoring and evaluation?

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Monitoring is the systematic and routine collection of information from projects and programmes for four main purposes:

To learn from experiences to improve practices and activities in the future;

To have internal and external accountability of the resources used and the results obtained;
To take informed decisions on the future of the initiative;
To promote empowerment of beneficiaries of the initiative.
Evaluation: draw conclusions on the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability of projects

Why is it important?

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Monitoring: on-going data collection, recurring, starts before implementation of a project

Evaluation: when the project/ programme has finished – draw conclusions

Why is it important?

Sport can add value for the development of individuals, of organisations and of whole communities irrespective of the level of development.
Despite this broadly shared conviction, there is still a lack of substantiated evidence to support the purported potential of sport.
Consolidates info showcasing project progress;
Promotes learning from each other’s experiences, building on expertise and knowledge;
It generates (written) reports that contribute to transparency and accountability, and allows for lessons to be shared more easily;
Reveals mistakes and offers paths for learning and improvements;
Questions and tests assumptions;
Helps inform evidence-based policy and practice making;
Helps uncover links between implementers and beneficiaries on the ground and decision-makers;
Adds to the retention and development of institutional memory;
Gives more robust basis for raising funds and influencing policy

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UNHCR and Sport

UNHCR The UN Refugee Agency

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Global convener, bringing together leading sport entities in support of refugees – Global Refugee Forum, Olympics and Paralympics

Strategic approach to engaging the sport Ecosystem, outlined in our Global Sport Strategy "More than a Game"

Development of tools and resources that enable sport and humanitarian organizations to support refugees through sport

Connecting global partners to refugees through UNHCR Country operations in 130+ locations

Bridging the humanitarian and sports worlds so communities affected by displacement can thrive not just survive