This is an excellent starting point for a PAR project! Engaging the community in identifying issues is the foundational step, crucial for building trust, ensuring relevance, and empowering local voices.

Let's design a PAR project focused specifically on this initial phase.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) Project Design:

Phase 1: Co-Identifying Community Issues & Assets

Project Title (Placeholder): "Our Community, Our Voice: Co-Creating Solutions for a Stronger Future"

Overall Project Goal: To empower community members to collectively identify, analyze, and prioritize key issues and existing assets within their community, laying the groundwork for community-led action and sustainable change.

Core PAR Principles Guiding This Phase:

• Participation: Ensuring diverse community members are actively involved in all stages of issue identification.


• Empowerment: Shifting power from external researchers to community members, valuing their lived experiences as expertise.


• Collaboration: Working with the community, not on it.


• Knowledge Co-Creation: Generating knowledge together through shared experiences and analysis.


• Action-Oriented: Identifying issues with the explicit aim of addressing them through future action.


• Reflexivity: Continuously reflecting on the process and adjusting methods to best serve the community.

Phase 1: Engaging Community in Identifying Issues & Assets

This phase focuses on building relationships, trust, and a shared understanding of community strengths (assets) and challenges (issues).

Objectives for Phase 1:

• Build a Core Community-Researcher Team: Establish a diverse group of community members and external researchers committed to co-leading the PAR process.


• Foster Trust & Relationships: Create safe and welcoming spaces for open dialogue and genuine participation.


• Map Community Assets: Identify existing strengths, resources, skills, and positive initiatives within the community.


• Identify & Articulate Key Issues: Facilitate processes for community members to name, describe, and discuss the challenges they face.


• Explore Root Causes: Move beyond surface-level problems to understand underlying factors contributing to identified issues.


• Prioritize Issues & Assets: Collectively determine which issues are most pressing and which assets can be leveraged for future action.


• Develop Shared Vision: Begin to articulate a collective vision for a desired future.

Detailed Steps & Methods for Phase 1:

Step 1: Initial Outreach & Relationship Building (Pre-PAR Team Formation)

• Goal: Establish initial contacts, build rapport, and identify potential community co-researchers.


• Methods:


• Informal Conversations & "Walk-Abouts": Researchers spend time in the community (e.g., at local markets, community centers, parks), engaging in informal chats, listening to everyday concerns, and observing community life.


• "Key Informant" Interviews: Conduct one-on-one, semi-structured interviews with respected community leaders, elders, organizers, and service providers to understand initial perspectives, identify potential allies, and learn about community dynamics.


• Community Mapping (Initial): Create a basic map of the community (physical and social) noting key gathering places, local businesses, schools, places of worship, and existing community groups.


• Attending Community Events: Participate in existing community meetings, festivals, or gatherings to demonstrate genuine interest and build trust.

• Goal: Recruit and orient a diverse group of 5-10 community members who are interested in becoming co-researchers and leading the issue identification process.


• Methods:


• Open Invitation & Nomination: Based on initial outreach, issue open invitations (via flyers, word-of-mouth, community leaders) for people to join a "Community Action Group." Also, specifically invite individuals identified as passionate and respected.


• Initial Meeting/Workshop: Hold an introductory session to explain PAR principles, discuss the project's goals, and clarify the roles and responsibilities of co-researchers. Emphasize shared power and decision-making.


• Skills-Building (Introductory): Provide basic training in facilitation, active listening, note-taking, and ethical research practices (e.g., confidentiality, informed consent).


• Developing a "Team Charter": Co-create an agreement outlining the team's values, communication protocols, decision-making processes, and shared commitments.

• Goal: Gather broad input from diverse community members on both challenges and strengths. The Core Community-Researcher Team leads these activities.


• Methods (Choose a mix based on community context, literacy levels, and preferences):


• A. Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) Mapping:


• Description: Instead of starting with problems, begin by identifying and mapping all the positive capacities, skills, and resources within the community. This builds confidence and provides a foundation for addressing issues.


• Activity: "Treasures of Our Community" workshops. Use large paper, markers, and visual aids. Ask participants to draw or list:


• Individual skills (e.g., cooking, carpentry, storytelling)


• Associations/Groups (e.g., sports clubs, faith groups, informal networks)


• Institutions (e.g., schools, libraries, clinics)


• Physical Space (e.g., parks, community gardens, historic sites)


• Local Economy (e.g., local businesses, markets)


• Outcome: A visual map and list of community strengths.


• B. Photovoice/VideoVoice:


• Description: Community members are given cameras (or use their phones) to photograph/video aspects of their community that represent its strengths or challenges.


• Activity: Participants take photos/videos, then gather in small groups (facilitated by co-researchers) to discuss their images, sharing stories and perspectives using the "SHOWED" method:


• See: What do you see in the photo/video?


• Happened: What is happening in the photo/video?


• Own: How does this relate to your own life?


• Why: Why does this strength/problem exist?


• Empower: What can we do about it?


• Do: What action can we take?


• Outcome: Powerful visual narratives of community issues and assets, with accompanying explanations and initial ideas for action.


• C. Community Storytelling/Narrative Circles:


• Description: Provide a safe space for community members to share personal stories related to their experiences, challenges, and aspirations within the community.


• Activity: Facilitated circles where participants respond to prompts like: "Tell us about a time you felt proud of our community," or "Share an experience where you faced a challenge here, and how you dealt with it." Co-researchers listen actively and record themes.


• Outcome: Rich qualitative data, deeper understanding of lived experiences, and identification of recurring themes/issues.


• D. "Problem Tree" / "Solution Tree" Workshops:


• Description: A structured visual method to analyze issues (Problem Tree) and then transform them into solutions (Solution Tree).


• Activity:


• Problem Tree: On a large sheet, the community-researcher team helps participants identify a core problem (trunk), its causes (roots), and its effects (branches). This helps uncover root causes.


• Solution Tree: Once the problem tree is built, participants transform each negative statement into a positive one (e.g., "lack of safe spaces" becomes "presence of safe spaces"). This generates potential solutions.


• Outcome: A clear visual representation of interconnected issues and their underlying causes, alongside potential pathways for action.


• E. Participatory Mapping (Physical/Social):


• Description: Community members collaboratively draw maps of their neighborhood, highlighting areas of concern (e.g., unsafe crossings, lack of green space) and areas of strength (e.g., friendly neighbors, community garden).


• Activity: Provide large blank maps (or aerial photos), markers, and sticky notes. Participants mark, draw, and write directly on the map.


• Outcome: Geo-spatial identification of issues and assets, revealing patterns and hot-spots.


• F. Co-Designed Surveys/Interviews:


• Description: The Core Community-Researcher Team develops and administers surveys or conduct interviews relevant to the community's context.


• Activity: The team designs the questions, pre-tests them, decides on distribution methods (e.g., online, paper, spoken interviews), and collects data.


• Outcome: Quantitative and qualitative data, allowing for broader reach and specific question targeting. Crucially, the community team must lead this.

• Goal: The Core Community-Researcher Team, with broader community input, analyzes the gathered information to identify key themes, patterns, and priorities.


• Methods:


• Thematic Analysis Workshops: The team reviews all data (photos, stories, map annotations, survey responses). Using affinity mapping or sticky notes, they group similar ideas, identify recurring themes, and name them.


• Community Feedback Sessions: Present preliminary findings (e.g., "We heard that these are the top 3 issues...") back to the wider community in an accessible format (e.g., visual displays, short presentations) to validate and enrich the analysis.


• Root Cause Analysis (Deeper Dive): Using techniques like the "5 Whys" (asking "why?" five times) to delve deeper into the root causes of prioritized issues, building on the Problem Tree exercise.

• Goal: The community collectively decides which issues are most critical to address first and begins to articulate a shared vision for change.


• Methods:


• Dotmocracy/Voting: List identified issues and assets. Community members are given stickers or dots to place next to the issues they feel are most important or the assets they feel are most valuable to leverage.


• Impact/Feasibility Matrix: For the top-prioritized issues, community members can discuss and rank them based on:


• How much impact would solving this issue have?


• How feasible is it for our community to address this issue?


• "Preferred Future" Workshop: Ask participants to imagine their community five years from now if these issues were addressed. What does it look, feel, and sound like? This helps define a shared vision and desired outcomes.

• Goal: Create accessible documentation of the identified issues, assets, and priorities to serve as a foundation for the next phases of the PAR project.


• Methods:


• Community Report: Co-create a report (visual, accessible language, possibly multilingual) summarizing the findings, priorities, and shared vision.


• Public Presentation/Exhibit: Host a public event where the Core Community-Researcher Team presents the findings to the wider community, local stakeholders, and decision-makers. This could involve displaying Photovoice images, maps, and problem/solution trees.


• Digital Storytelling: Create short videos or digital presentations based on the collected stories and findings.

Moving Forward (Briefly, Beyond Phase 1):

Once Phase 1 is complete, the project transitions into:

• Phase 2: Action Planning: The Core Community-Researcher Team, along with broader community input, will develop concrete action plans to address the prioritized issues, leveraging identified assets. This involves setting goals, identifying resources, assigning roles, and developing timelines.


• Phase 3: Taking Action: Implementing the action plans.


• Phase 4: Observation & Reflection: Monitoring progress, collecting data on the impact of actions, and critically reflecting on what's working and what's not.


• Phase 5: Evaluation & Sustaining Change: Assessing the overall success of the project, documenting lessons learned, and planning for ongoing community-led initiatives.

By meticulously designing this first phase, you ensure that the entire PAR project is truly grounded in community needs, driven by local expertise, and built on a foundation of trust and shared ownership.