This document describes the PEARLS (Partnership Education: Action Research & Learning Scenarios) approach used by the Community Media 4 Kenya (CM4K) project. CM4K partners with marginalized communities, universities, and organizations in Kenya to empower local voices and support development through community media. The project began as a student community project and has expanded to include training workshops, video productions, and information centers. The goal of PEARLS is to promote mutual learning between community partners and university students through participatory, experience-based activities for the common good.

1. DEVELOPING A COMMUNITY-BASED
LEARNING APPROACH - PARTNERSHIP
EDUCATION: ACTION RESEARCH &
LEARNING SCENARIOS (PEARLS)
Dr Peter Day
School of Art, Design & Media

2. Intro slide

3. Doug’s Questions
1. How is your work related to collective
intelligence?
2. How is your work related to the common
good?
3. How is your work related to strengthening
this nascent community / network? (content,
communication, structure, etc.)
 What is the purpose?
 Consumers or citizens?
 Who decides?

4. Collective Intelligence & the Common
Good
The
Common
Good
Citiz e nship ,
c o lle c tive
a c tio n, a nd
a c tive
p a rtic ip a tio n
The no tio n o f
the c o m m o n
g o o d …
a s s e rts
tha t. . . p e o p le
c a n a nd
sho uld live
the ir live s a s
c itiz e ns
d e e p ly
1. "Collective" refers to any entity constituted by other
entities. In this case, it usually refers to human social
entities such as groups, organizations and communities.
2. Intelligence is variously defined as "the capacity to
acquire and apply knowledge," "the ability to effectively
adapt," or simply "the ability to solve problems."
3. Intelligence can also be defined as strategically useful
information
4. http://www.co-intelligence.org/CollectiveIntelligence1.html
5. Observation from the earlier sessions:
1. Conceptually, the common good & collective intelligence
should not mean the standardisation of sameness -
homogenous
2. In my opinion design for the common good should not seek
to measure, calculate or predict human behaviour – we are
culturally diverse & heterogeneous
3. Societies/communities are contested spaces

5. Community Media 4 Kenya
 Partnership of marginalised communities,
NGOs, INGOs, Kenyan Universities & UoB
Media Studies students
 Community media = tools, spaces and
processes
 to empower local voices;
 support opportunities for socio-economic
development;
 promote diversity and mutual cultural understanding
between students and communities (inter & intra)
 Tribal differences – 2007/8 pre & post electoral violence

6. Community Media 4 Kenya – evolving
partnership network
 4th year- started as an experiment in
community-based learning (LM376 Community
Project)
 Totally self-financing
 Students pay their own air fares and raise funds for
equipment & training
 Partner communities provide hospitality when in field
 Student goal - skills, knowledge, expertise and
enthusiasm makes a difference as they learn
 Students and community - focus of mutual
knowledge sharing and learning environments

7. CMR4K Vision – A participatory &
empowered citizenship engaging with ICT
 Training the trainers based model
 Citizens appropriate digital technologies to assist
in taking responsibility for the decisions that
shape their daily lives.

9. PEARLS: a multi-level community
based learning approach
Partnership Education: Action Research & Learning Scenarios

10. Partners – marginalised
communities

11. Youth groups & NGOs

12. Activities
 Year 1 – community reporting & blogging
In Kibugat village in Kericho
 Year 2 – Voices 4 Peace video production
knowledge sharing…..capacity building 
empowering diverse voices (FYI; Faces of
Peace/Model ITU & International Youth Council in
Kenya)
 70+ youth from 5 different tribes – Kipsigis (Kalenjin);
Luo; Kikuyu; Meru & Kisii

13. Activities
• Year 3
– Video production & Blogging workshops in Nairobi
• 3 UoB students facilitated 20+ participants
– University College Rongo (Moi)
– Dean, Senior Lecturer + students
– IYC (Kenya)
– Accord
– Oasis Peace Organisation
– K Youth Media
– Focus Youth Initiative & Kingsway Preparatory
School

14. January’s fieldwork partnership
• Stories from our cities
– Photography training & exhibition
• Rongo University College – Information
Centres
• 2 day video production workshop on campus
• Training the trainers
– Fieldwork video production – FGM & Poverty &
exploitation in nearby gold-mining village
– Youth empowerment – Nyandiwa

15. Future plans
• CM4K as a student driven Community
Interest Company?
• New module Social Action & Community
Media
• Kingsway (Londiani) electricity from
grid and then into school + dorms
• Ruiru Day Orphanage (FYI)
• Continue to develop partnerships with
IYC Kenya
• Community Media Centres network
• Raspberry Pi using solar
power
• Collaborative documentaries
• SEMA Youth Film Festival
• Community media as an agent of
social change & empowerment
• Rather than the passive digital
consumer of current policies

16. Community-based Learning
Considering
the impact of
introducing
academic
partners into
the
community
learning
networks as
equal
learning
partners
 Learning by doing ‘with’ rather than
‘to’ or ‘for’
 Knowledge sharing through
dialogue and reciprocal actions
 Learning as a process of mutual
inquiry & discovery
 Enrich student learning
 Strengthening and empowering
communities

17. Community Learning
Interactions
between
human
social
entities
Problem
solving
Information
&
Knowledge
sharing
Common
good?
 Participation as citizens
 Voice & empowerment
 Information/Knowledge exchange
 Conversational communications
 Learning by doing – experiential
action
 Dialogue - communications
 Networking
 Transactional exchanges, e.g. social
capital - trust

18. Contribution to emergent community
network of learning
 Collective intelligence for common good
 Who decides the agenda?
 Purpose
 The consumerist model of the Network Society or
democratic engagement and active participation
of citizens?
 The PEARLS approach of CM4K seeks to
encourage full participation of community citizens
with academic students in learning partnerships for
the common good.
 Our contribution to the network.