inspiring life in frozen communities

Annual report 2019

Contents Mission and Vision ................................................................................................................ 2

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 2

Structure, Organization and Funds ............................................................................................ 3

Projects .............................................................................................................................. 5

Financial report 2019 and Budget 2020 .................................................................................... 11

Culture4Change Update 2019 2

Mission and Vision

Our vision: an all-inclusive world, where cultural variety is celebrated though equitable

distribution of resources.

Our mission: improve effectiveness, relevance and efficiency of community based

interventions aimed at improving lives of excluded people.

Core work: Bridging knowledge and action. C4C bridges a) international expertise to local

application; b) relief to development. c) research to implementation, d) local knowledge to

international recognition.

Introduction

In 2016 we started “Culture for Change”, a loosely organised group of people who believe

that culture is the core of any meaningful life. In this changing world culture is dynamic, and

unfortunately culture is too often seen as a barrier for positive change, rather than a driver

for meaningful communication between very different people. We aim to help improve the

lives of the most excluded and powerless people. We question prejudices about culture,

both within a certain culture as with people who have prejudices from outside about that

culture. In this way we make people ‘think again’, and we initiate a process of change

through which local and international ideas mutually enrich each other.

About C4C

WHAT: C4C is a platform of expertise that connects individuals and organisations across

continents and sectors. Local groups and organisations in fragile settings link up with

international expertise in development and social services. Cultural aspects of traumatized

societies are included in an approach that motivates people to take control over their

situation and helps them to work on positive change.

WHO: C4C works for and with people that have given up, and have been given up on.

Expulsion happens when people are displaced, fleeing from violence and obscene poverty.

Expulsion also happens to people who are not going anywhere – because they have no

means to leave. Coming from a health care background, C4C founders worked in fragile

states and learned that improving health in extreme situations requires a social – and not

Culture4Change Update 2019 3

only medical – approach. C4C developed a way to identify agency and resources in

populations that have been expulsed. C4C studies the effects of its work and shares

information publicly.

HOW: People excluded from public

services and cut off from any

development perspective have often lost

the use of their own communal

resources for change. These are hidden

in the damaged social fabric of the

community. C4C engages the whole

community in a process of identifying

local problems, local resources, and local

change agents. C4C restores healing

relationships successfully on the basis of

cultural knowledge and therapeutic skills.

And helps build new resources where

needed, connecting locally defined needs

to international expertise.

WHERE: C4C works for the most

excluded people. They can be in

countries that are either politically fragile, environmentally vulnerable or both; they can also

be migrants in need. Overall, there is an urgent need to link sustainable development to

global security and migration – as underlined in SDGs. Exclusion, migration and security are

central problems of our time. Special challenges are

in addressing the relations between migrants,

home societies and societies of arrival.

Structure, Organization and Funds

C4C aims to be an independent, nonpartisan "think-

and-do-tank", a platform that works to strengthen

impact of community interventions. We do this by

producing high-quality research and practical,

evidence-based policy recommendations that

C4C is structured as a group of people with

common interests, centered around a

foundation (‘Stichting’) registred in Utrecht,

the Netherlands. C4C is recognized by the

Dutch government as a 'General Benefit

Organization' (ANBI). The Chamber of

Commerce number is 68442661, RSIN no.

857445285. The Supervisory Board consists of

Drs MEJ Merkx, chairman/treasurer, Prof Dr

JBM van Woensel, secretary, and Drs. F

Santing, member. Members of the Supervisory

Board receive no remuneration for their

activities.

Type of Activities

• Action Research: undertaking studies while

implicating the local population in all stages of the

process, showing how culture can support peace

initiatives, prevent and combat violence, and

improve economic means;

• 'NGO-type' projects: for example in the field of

Gender Based Violence, mobilization of women's

groups, social & financial inclusion (C4C works as

partner of local agents and/or in the role of

'subcontractor');

• Providing training & developing curricula ; within

the realms of public health, mental health, social

work etc.

• Media projects and documentation: by means of

video, film, radio or publications or other channels

that can record processes of change

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inform the practices and policies of communities, public and private sector actors, donors

and global institutions.

C4C requires funds to implement activities according to its mission. Costs are made to

develop and implement projects, to write funding proposals, monitor projects and

document experience, and to communicate to stakeholders. C4C cannot survive from

institutional funds alone, since these will not cover the required investment and reporting

costs. To this time, activities have been done voluntary, with or without expense

reimbursement (lodging, flights, per diems) or on the basis of a personal fee paid by the

partner (see table below). Attempts are made to find required additional income in forms

such as corefunding, seed funding and non-earmarked grants.

The strategy to fund the activities is in connecting different sources of income:

• Institutional funds (institutional donors contribute to direct project costs and add 5%-

15% for indirect costs);

• Membership fees from institutional or private members of the platform, and donations

from ‘Friends of C4C’.

• Private funds from foundations, charities, lotteries, and other grants not earmarked

for a specific project or actvitity;

• Consultancy income from subcontracted work, granted by other agencies;

Positioning C4C: through media attention, website, publication and active contacting

potential partners C4C aims to position itself as a niche-player in the field of ‘bridging’ and

cultural translation, recognized for its experience and delivered quality.

Identify partnerships: C4C will actively seek partners among the NGO’s and UN agencies and

offer its expertise. Partners with whom partnership is being discussed include Cordaid,

Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen (KIT), Liliane Foundation, Lepra Foundation in the

Netherlands; Institute for Tropical Medicine Antwerp (ITM), Memisa, Medecines du Monde

and Theatre & Reconciliation (T&R) in Belgium; Reproductive and Child Health Alliance

(RACHA), Buddhism for Health, and the National Institute of Public Health (NIPH) in

Cambodia; the Joint Learning Initiative (JLI) in the US; Never Again Rwanda (NAR) and The

Rwandan Institute for Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding ICP in Rwanda;

Tubahumurize in Burundni, the Transcultural Psychological Organization (TPO) Nepal in

Nepal; Limpal in Colombia and others.

C4C seeks members among individuals, organisations and foundations.

• Individuals will be organised in the ‘friends of C4C inititiave’.

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• Organisations and individuals interested in the approach of C4C are asked to become

members of the platform. From that position they will be asked to attend annual

sessions to discuss the strategy and direction of the platform. Services offered to the

members include updates on succesful examples of the use of local culture to

imporve prohect impact; trends in the shift towards local ownership, and networking

optoins between partners and members.

• Foundations will be approached to support the efforts of C4C. They are welcome to

the annual strategy meetings if they are interested. They will receive updates and

reports as required.

Projects C4C’s track record, proposed and finished projects in 2018 and 2019. A short

overview:

Finished Projects

1. Review evidence base of faith-based organisations

In May and June 2018, C4C conducted a literature review at the request of the Joint Learning

Initiative, a Washington-based group that documents the evidence-base for faith-based

organisations. As part of the research project “Faith for Social and Behaviour Change

Initiative” we have been looking into the specific roles, caveats, most effective strategies and

demonstrated impact of Faith-Based organizations in social and behaviour change.

Our major conclusions:

➢ Building bridges between religious leaders, political decision-makers and secular civil

society organizations is essential in order to make a step forward.

➢ Approaching religion from a non- devotional, academic perspective, might help to get

different interlocutors at the same table while acknowledging that there are multiple

# Title Partners

1 Review evidence base of faith-based organisations Joint Learning Initiative, Washington USA

2 ‘Project Koln’: improve social relations in the neighbourhood.

Ein transkulturelles Bühnen-Projekt in Drei Modules

3 Child Marriage in humanitarian settings Girls not Brides

4 Angulimala Walks: Gender Based Violende in Cambodia

Monash University, Buddhism for Health

5 ‘Sans papiers’ in Brussels : « Liaisons Joyeuses » Medecins du Monde, Theatre & Reconciliation

6 SRHR & Covid: Mental Health and Female Genital Mutilation in Guinea

FMG, ITM

Culture4Change Update 2019 6

authentic expressions of religious devotion in the world, and to reserve judgment on

which ones are ultimately correct.

➢ Religious organizations may become an end in themselves; but the creative health of

religions lies in the recognition that the system is not the end.

➢ Ensuring that faith-inspired or religious women take part in the communication on

social and behaviour change is key in order to nurture an alternative, progressive

global discourse on faith and gender.

➢ Collecting data and documenting ‘what works why and how” is needed to build the

evidence base of interventions and practices that lead to long lasting and sustainable

social and behaviour change related to the health, development, protection and

empowerment of children.

‘Pipeline’ Projects

2. ‘Project Koln’: improve social relations in the neighbourhood. Culture 4 Change has been asked to participate in Ein transkulturelles Bühnen-Projekt in Drei

Modules in Germany. C4C is in the process of developing a Theory of Change for this 3-year

German project that aims to improve the living conditions in some neighbourhoods or in

other countries. The project is based on two theories.

➢ The Third Space Theory, a postcolonial sociolinguistic theory of identity and

community realized through language or education, or Homi K. Bhabha.

➢ The Polyvagal Theory ; a neuroscientific theory developed by Stephen W. Porges that

explains what happens in traumatic / stressful situations and which has many

implications for the study of stress, emotion, and social behaviour on a collective

level.

This project, which was supposed to start in 2019, has been delayed and will be done in 2020

– but now the Corona crisis is delaying it even further. The idea is to enable the population

to find creative solutions that should lead to more social cohesion within their

neighbourhoods. One of the tasks of C4C will be conducting research during the

implementation of the project. For the time being C4C is doing this on a voluntary basis

while undertaking efforts to find additional funding.

3. Child marriage, Nigeria (Submitted to Grand Challenges Canada) Nigeria has a Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) prevalence of 25%, but the size of the country

means that it accounts for 10% of mutilated women and girls, globally. Ebonyi state, the

planned project location, has the 2nd highest prevalence in Nigeria - 74% of women and girls

Culture4Change Update 2019 7

are circumcised. In Ebonyi FGM is performed as a ritual initiation into womanhood and is

used as a means of socialising women and girls, curbing their sexual appetites and preparing

them for marriage.

Once we have identified our local agents of change we will use make use of intra-community

dialogue and theatre which are evidence-based and effective methods of transforming

attitudes and behaviour, while giving a voice to those who have been deprived of it. Local

agents of change will create safe spaces of intra-community dialogue which facilitate

intergenerational and cross gender conversations. This will be combined with theatre

productions that use local actors and context-adapted storylines during which participants

are invited to reflect upon their lives and think critically about potential solutions

By combining theatre and intra-community dialogue, we aim to disseminate information and

translate national FGM policy into concrete actions in a way that it reaches the most

excluded and remote people and leads to long-lasting change.

Active Projects

4. Angulimala Walks: Violence in Cambodia The World Bank Group and the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) awarded $ 99,900

to Monash University, Buddhism for Health, and Culture for Change (C4C) to reduce gender-

based violence GBV) in Cambodia.

The Award, part of the 2018 Development Market for Gender-Based Violence,* will study

and support interventions by Buddhist monks and female devotees to stop violence.

Specifically, the award will help test how women, men, girls and boys use their local cultural

references to understand what they have experienced or witnessed. Through collaboration

with a Buddhist network, they will be responsible for and help GBV and mitigate its

effects. They will also document why perpetrators and survivors sought help from monks

and female devotees, and how it changes attitudes towards women and girls.

"Cambodia has important advances against gender-based violence, but

understanding cultural attitudes is important to GBV succeed," said Miguel Eduardo

Sanchez Martin, World Bank Acting Country Manager for Cambodia. "We

congratulate the winners on this innovative approach and look forward to learning

about the effects of GBV."

See under ‘Results’ for some first findings.

5. ‘Sans papiers’ in Brussels : Les Liaisons Joyeuses Médecins du Monde Belgium (MDM-B) has asked the support of C4C to help migrant women

in Brussels. Many live in precarious situations without legal status, while having no or limited

Culture4Change Update 2019 8

access to health care and other basic services. Their access to care is hampered by a lack of

information, limited financial resources and poor experiences in the past.

C4C develops the methodology for the MDM project “Avec Elles”. The goal of this project is

to help women re-gain control over their health and social life, which includes their mental

health and psychosocial well-being. The overall goal will be achieved with the help of

Theatre & Reconciliation, a partner organization of Culture 4 Change.

Migrant women without legal status are invited to participate in a theatre production that is

developed together with other women and men, professional actors and amateurs. The goal

is to make these women proactive, to give them the floor, and get them out of their

isolation. Through active participation in theatre people feel safe enough to share and

discuss sensitive issues like sexual or gender based violence and give words to feelings and

experiences that are usually surrounded by rumours and suspicions. C4C and Theatre &

Reconciliation have built experience with this approach in Rwanda.

An important component of the initiative is to invite other members of the same target

group to come and see the final production and to invite them to participate in the round

table discussions that will be organized immediately after the show. The ultimate objectives

of this initiative are to reinforce the autonomy of marginalized migrant women, to build

mutual trust and social cohesion among a larger audience and to find together potential

solutions for practical problems.

C4C determines whether the theatre method indeed results in feelings of more trust and

psychosocial well-being among the target group that participates directly in the theatre

production, and whether there are changes in perception among the audience: does the

show indeed make members of the target group want to break out of their isolation and to

communicate with others?

See under ‘Results’ for some first findings.

Approved projects

6. SRHR, Mental Health and Female Genital Mutilation in Guinea (subcontracting for FMG)

In Guinea, quality of maternal and child health is among the lowest in the world. The

Guinean health system lacks infrastructure and skilled health workers, especially in rural

areas. The high rate of teenage pregnancy, combined with the widespread practice of female

genital mutilation (FGM), contributes to infant mortality and maternal mortality.

Gender-based violence is highly prevalent and Family Planning (FP) adherence is low due to

different causes such as pro-natalist culture, religious beliefs, lack of health staff, rumours

Culture4Change Update 2019 9

about the side-effects of contraceptive methods, low decision-making power of the woman

in general, the many taboos around sexuality etc.

C4C works with the highly respected local agency Fraternité Médecins Guinée (FMG) on the

overall idea to create more synergy between different actors and partners in the search for

solutions to the main challenges related to Sexual and Reproductive Health in Guinea. The

different obstacles to SRHR and their underlying causes will be addressed through the

following major axes.

• Reinforce the capacity and involve authorities and key people in promoting SRHR and

preventing SGBV

• Improve the access to SRH services among youth and marginalized groups in order to

ensure that people can make informed choices about sexual behaviour

• Sensitization of the population at large on SRHR and SGBV through theatre, an

effective and evidence based method for transforming people's behaviour, including

the most remote and poor populations.

The project starts in May 2020. During the implementation period the active partnerships

will be established with other actors and stakeholders working in the same area in order to

seek complementarity that should lead to the achievement of the expected results.

A Selection of Results

Violence in Cambodia: In Cambodia, a field team is productive under guidance of Prof Maurice Eisenbuch of Monash University, Cambodia and Willem van de Put (C4C). The team collects and analyzes cases of domestic, gender based, and child violence. The cultural aspects include three clusters, the main groups being a variant of GBV and triangular love. “Many of these cases are said to be mediated by magical love charms, and we have found disturbing cases of abuse(of boys and girls) perpetrated by monks, as well as a series of grotesque cases of people who attempt or commit suicide by drinking acid. Some die, others develop horrible surgical injuries of the oesophagus. We’ve been trying to obtain information from the monks about the Buddhist perspective on this and what they think they can do about this nasty new trend. For some cases the monks have played a role in intervention. An important collaborator for the team was the Venerable Luon Savath , a political activist monk re public violence, and is seen as the Buddhist vanguard of human rights in Cambodia. The Venerable Luon Savath has agreed to continue working with us. In response to the Cambodia Study on Violence against Children of 2013, the Cambodian Ministry of Cults and Religion and The Supreme Patriarch Council, and in cooperation with UNICEF, our team is committed to promote the role of pagodas and monks in effective prevention and response to violence against children and unnecessary family separation. Wat Sangkahak Komar policy (or called the Child Safeguarding Policy) is part of the comprehensive mechanism within pagodas to respond to suspected and reported cases of violence against or abuse of children. It includes a) establishment of Child Safeguarding Focal

Culture4Change Update 2019 10

Points with responsibilities for reporting and monitoring in each pagoda and at various levels of the Buddhist structure in Cambodia; b) a detailed mechanism for reporting and responding to reported cases; and a code of conduct for monks and other adults affiliated with the pagoda. To ensure the effectiveness of the policy implementation, the Pagoda Child Protection Programme is developed to be attached with the policy. The team is now contributing to the developing a Training curriculum on Pagoda Child Protection (Making Pagodas a Safer Place for Children) - using the research findings in the curriculum.

Les Liaisons Joyeuses:

The workshops and performances appeared to be an excellent medium to gently re-establish feelings of trust, confidence and social interaction while also acknowledging, de-pathologizing and safely fulfillin g the expression of emotions like sadness, anger and frustration. The methodology of T&R permitted to deal with challenging material by introducing “ice breakers”, encouraging movement (so that participants came out of their “frozen” state) and by integrating scenes with little movement, soft music or silences (so that participants started to relax). Such strategies lead to enhanced learning, less anxiety, more creativity and higher and more integrated functionality (See the extensive work of Dr. Peter A. Levine, resulting from his multidisciplinary study of stress physiology, psychology, ethology, biology, neuroscience, indigenous healing practices, and medical biophysics, together with over 45 years of successful clinical application).

Similarly, the group work permitted to reinforce the social cohesion between participants. Discussions after the final performances revealed that the target group felt encouraged and that feelings of empowerment as experienced during the implementation phase continued after the end of this specific project. The ladies have established some interesting contacts with other participants . Our core group is visiting each other in their respective homes, they start to take part in other activities (choral, cooking class) and several among them have been participating in a new production of T&R; A simple evaluation of the effect on the audience showed remarkable results; on the question if people wanted to stay engaged and act as a reference person for the migrant population, half of the people answered positively and provided their contact details For more details about the overall process and the results, we refer to an article that is in the process of being published in the “Community Mental Health Journal” under the title: Inspiring life in frozen communities; Supporting migrant women in Brussels to regain control over their lives

Culture4Change Update 2019 11

Financial report 2019 and Budget 2020

An extra introduction is needed to explain the financial report as it is included below. The

annual accounts have been drawn up in accordance with the Directive on Fundraising

Institutions as published by the Annual Report Council (richtlijn voor fondsenwervende

instellingen zoals die door de Raad voor de Jaarverslaggeving is gepubliceerd (richtlijn 650)).

This is done to be compliant to the Dutch law, although the amounts that actually passed

though the C4C channels in 2019 are so small that they officially do not require an official

financial report. Up till 2019, C4C had no direct or indirect project income – although C4C

had direct and indirect project-related activities, as reported above. The reason for this first

financial report is that C4C- income is expected to begin in 2020.

All projects reported on where developed by C4C, in collaboration with the partners

mentioned in the overview on page 5. The budgets involved were run by and through the

partners, and fees were paid to consultants by them. C4C has proposed consultants, but

these consultants were hired and paid on an individual basis between partners and

consultants.

We hope to have direct project income for C4C in 2020. Contracts are prepared and include

local NGOs in Guinea and Belgium as first direct project contractors for C4C. Other income in

2020 will be generated by activities of C4C staff such as lecturing in Belgium and the

Netherlands and course-directorship for Fordham University New York (Mental Health in

Complex Emergencies).

The hesitation to engage in direct project management comes from lessons learned in NGO-

management over the last decades. In order to be fully accountable for subsidies from

institutional donors, one needs to have ‘free funds’ to complement the requested budget.

These free funds are to be found within the constituency of the NGO. C4C is still building it’s

constituency, and hopes to contribute to that by the initiatives reported here.

As a ‘test’ C4C initiated a face-book based ‘fundraiser’ in 201,9 that brought in 255,69 euro.

One extra donation was made after that, and part of the money was used to pay for the

server for the website and the costs of the bank account, and the balance per 31-12-2019 is

279,05. We sincerely hope – and will work hard – to have this figure brought to a more

serious level by next year.

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Culture4Change Update 2019 13

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Budget 2020

The budget depends on the results of fund raising activities; the level of activities depends

on the budget. To break out of this vicious cycle we present our plans to private donors,

asking for core funding to build up C4C. We made detailed plans on what can be done on

what income level. These are available for potential donors. The table shows a summary of

three scenario’s, where the basic income to get started is some 20K euro’s, and a fill-blown

scenario where we can even kickstart projects is put at an income of 175K – not taking into

account designated project funds of course, that would be added to these scenario’s.

Supervisory Board (Raad van Toezicht):

• Drs MEJ Merkx, chairman / treasurer

• Prof Dr JBM van Woensel, secretary

• Drs. Santing, member.

Members of the Supervisory Board receive no remuneration for their activities.

Management / Board of Directors (Raad van Bestuur):

• BMNR van Mierlo

• WACM van de Put

Members of the Board of Directors did not receive remuneration for their activities in 2019.

ANBI Status

C4C is recognized by the Dutch government as a 'General Benefit Organization' (ANBI). With this C4C and its donors benefit from certain tax advantages in inheriting and donating.