Strategic planning through a participatory learning and action framework: a Kenyan study

This paper reflects on the use of a participatory learning and action (PLA) framework in a strategic planning process (SPP) at a primary school in rural Kenya. Successes and challenges are discussed, focusing on the barriers to fully implementing the PLA framework. Additionally, lessons learnt and ways forward for participatory SPPs are outlined. The PLA framework allowed the project stakeholders to engage in a planning process that gave participants a voice in the process. Although PLA methodology faces shortcomings, the application of this model is a step towards making community development more sustainable.     

The Day I Will Never Forget: an interview with Kim Longinotto

The documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto talks to Catherine Fowler about her latest film The Day I Will Never Forget (2003) about female genital mutilation (FGM) in Africa. Longinotto’s films have consistently interrogated our understanding of womens’ place in the world, and her latest film is no exception. She discusses how she found her subjects: Fardohsa, a midwife who has been campaigning against FGM, a group of girls who have (successfully) taken their parents to court in order to prevent FGM being practised, and Fouzia, a girl of nine who reads a poem that she wrote the day after she was circumcised, asking her mother to explain why she put her daughter through such a painful experience. Longinotto also discusses the ethical issues raised by her filming of a circumcision of two sisters, and the wider issues that her film engages: the powerless position of women in African societies, the confusion of religion and culture in discussions of FGM, and the impact of saying ‘no’ to this practice.     

‘Sharpening the wooden sword’ in Imperial Germany: marital status and education in the work of Helene Lange

This article addresses the views of Helene Lange (1848-1930) in the campaign to reform German female education during the imperial period (1871-1918). A former educator, Lange was a key leader in national discussions of both female education and women's rights. Education, middle-class interests, and marital status formed the pillars of Lange's reformist vision. Lange contended that nineteenth-century education was misguided in its emphasis upon marriage as the primary goal of middle-class female lives. She cited a perceived surplus of unmarried women (Frauenüberschuss) as a key reason to change the nature of female education. Lange saw this surfeit as particularly problematic among the middle and elite classes. In doing so, she acknowledged derogatory depictions of unwed women but inverted such stereotypes in order to promote her cause of improved female education. As a solution for the perceived female surplus, Lange advocated educational and professional experiences that would embrace the maternal character of women. Helene Lange believed that women were not to be educated to compete with men, but to stand beside them in creating a better world – patriarch and matriarch renewed.