Planning a project is a very complex and systematic process. Therefore, OBESSU decided to create these Project Planning Guidelines, which we hope will be beneficial for people who are willing to organise activities and improve social inclusion in their organisations.

Events and Project Plans

Firstly, before we start thinking about social inclusion, it is useful to define the difference between small and large projects, and to set out how this guide can help you in preparing them.

Small scale activities include trainings, panel discussions, online consultations or advocacy campaigns. These can be half-day or full-day events, or completely carried out online, and they are quite simple to organise even on a small budget. When planning these kinds of activities, you can make them more inclusive by following a simple checklist and focusing on particular topics which are relevant to your organisation or national context. Maybe you identified something that you should work on by doing our inclusion assessment quiz!

Larger scale activities include annual plans, large funding applications and development strategies – these, by their nature, take much longer to plan and implement. Therefore, if you want to make them inclusive, you should prepare a detailed needs assessment and an on-going evaluation plan, in order to check inclusivity throughout the project. Not just at the beginning and at the end. For more information on how to set out on this process, check out our Manual for School Students.

Practical Tips for Designing Activities

At the beginning, you should consider the theme or main issue that you want to address. Your activity can be specifically about including more diverse groups; such as a panel about empowering women and girls, or it can be something that doesn’t discuss inclusion directly;

such as an online forum about a new education reform. However, whether the theme is about inclusivity or not, there are different ways for you as the organiser to make the event inclusive.

When you have decided what kind of event you would like to work on – it’s time to define some objectives! Objectives are the ‘big picture’ ideas that you want to achieve, for example to raise awareness about an issue or to train the participants to improve their skills or capacity.

Once you have your objectives and theme, you can plan out concrete steps for making your event inclusive. Think about:

  • How to spread information about your activity to more diverse/ marginalised groups?
  • Which channels, media and organisations are you using to share the information?
  • Are there any more different ones that could help you reach a more diverse audience?
  • How to make sure that the design, layout, colours and fonts of your activity promotion materials are accessible for readers?
  • Did you consider people with vision impairments?
  • Is the most important information clear?
  • For example, for an event, the date, time, venue, guests and topic?
  • Where to organise your event, in order to make sure that it is accessible for as many people as possible; with wheelchair accessibility, public transport links and facilities for special needs.
  • Did you select a venue in a big city? If yes, be careful about always having events in the same places, and consider the people who are excluded, or have to travel long distances every time!
  • Did you organise it near a town where there are enough schools/ bus routes around, in order to have enough participants for the event to go ahead?
  • Did you contact the venue to ask if they have signs for visually impaired people and allow guide dogs in?
  • If you are organising an event, consider how to make the agenda and plan of activities inclusive
  • Is there some time at the start for ice breakers and a discussion on the code of conduct?
  • If your activity is a learning activity, did you take into account the different learning styles that people have – learning by listening, doing, and writing or seeing?
  • Did you include both group work and individual activities, to suit different learners?
  • If you are facilitating the event yourself, rather than inviting a trainer, make sure you know how to be an effective peer-educator and create a safe space environment (read further for more information on peer-to-peer education).

Peer to Peer Education

As a peer educator, you have a unique role in facilitating learning activities. Non-formal education, led by young people, can be a lot more engaging and effective in learning about new ideas. It is a brilliant way to open up people’s minds up to new ways of thinking about the world, and a lot of fun for both the facilitators and the participants.

You should look for activities from the OBESSU toolkit, or the resources listed for social inclusion, to organise according to the needs of your organisation. Also, there are general tips for facilitators which are important to think about when you are preparing to organise an event. Some of these include

  • Being prepared and organised
  • Make a plan and stick to it – Start with the goals of the session, then the content and at last the methods
  • Ask for help if you need it – brief a team to help you in facilitating or with the logistics – or, contact the OBESSU PoT!
  • Power dynamics
  • Peer educators don’t have to be experts or have degrees in particular fields –
  • But, they need to be good at facilitating dialogue between people and leading the group through a learning activity
  • Language and tone
  • Be friendly and approachable
  • Speak clearly and don’t use difficult words or terminology
  • Offer for anyone to ask questions or to interrupt if they don’t understand
  • PowerPoint presentation, and other materials
  • Make sure that you don’t have too many crazy colour combinations on your powerpoints!
  • Use accessible language and don’t write every single thing down in slides – only the most important points (if detailed information is needed, print some handouts!)
  • Try using Kahoot or Prezi, if you will have a good internet connection in the room, as a way to have fun and accessible technological tools

Feedback, Follow up and Evaluation

Following your activity, make sure you can compare the outcomes to the objectives that you have set out at the beginning.

If you ran an online campaign

  • Can you check the data from your posts/tweets/ads, and see if you reached the audience that you wanted?
  • Did you achieve the lobbying or advocacy goal that you were trying to reach, or make any progress?
  • Did you gather the information that you wanted, and were the participants from a diverse background? For example, if you ran an online survey to consult young people, did you ask them which part of the country they came from, to ensure that your answers come from a geographically representative section of the country/region.

If you ran an event:

  • Did you have a diverse group of people attending?
  • Did you collect the information that you needed?
  • Did you create a safe space?
  • Did you take steps to satisfy everyone’s needs?
  • Were the participants satisfied with the event?

It is very important to gather feedback from participants themselves after events or campaigns. If possible, use either online forms or paper surveys, and ask your participants to share their feedback. Make sure the forms are anonymous, unless the participants want to share their names.

Ask participants questions such as;

  • Did they enjoy the activity?
  • What did they learn?
  • Did they feel comfortable to participate?
  • If they could change anything, what would it be?

It can be useful to have a debriefing session and to gather some oral feedback from the participants as well. A debriefing session is an opportunity to reflect on how the participants felt in the activity and what they learned – it’s a very important element

Feedback is mostly important for internal reporting and learning from an activity. Use the feedback that you receive to develop a list of “Do’s” and “Don’t” for future activities and share the learning with your team!