Monitoring and Evaluation
The CAIRN Trust is committed to delivering projects that are efficiently and effectively run in order to provide the greatest benefits to children in the rural Nepal. We conduct monitoring of our projects on an ongoing basis to:
Track project delivery to ensure that we work effectively toward our mission.
Identify strengths and opportunities in order to make timely improvements.
Provide accurate, relevant and timely data and information to our donors.
We have trained people in place to visit our projects regularly and conduct regular monitoring and evaluation. Our staff use a number of methods e.g. interviews, site visits and surveys with key people such as students, teachers, village communities’ members and other NGO’s to gather information about the project delivery.
What We Do
CAIRN Schools – Our team review how our CAIRN Schools are being used based on the following criteria- occupancy, attendance rate and pass rate/year, on an annual basis.
CAIRN Educational Award - We review a child’s performance and attendance at school and also their home environment on a quarterly basis. Where a child requires additional support at home we will look at them as part of the CAIRN Communities project.
CAIRN Communities – We identify and support children through a range of projects as part of the quarterly CAIRN Educational Award review. Our family group trial will run until January 2010.
Lessons Learnt
CAIRN Schools – Over the last year, we have realised that building schools is only the beginning. Schools are more than just four walls, and essential teaching supplies and equipment for both the teachers and children are also needed. As a result, in October 2008, the Schools Maintenance Programme was started. This project initially assesses what teaching equipment each school requires ranging from blackboards to chalk. These requirements will be further reviewed on a six month basis and any additional supplies distributed. In future, all new schools built will have this incorporated. We have also learnt that two of our schools are not performing to our required standards. These schools are being reviewed to see what further action is needed.
CAIRN Educational Awards - Through our initial assessments to identify the children who would receive a CAIRN Educational Award, a small number of vulnerable children were also identified. These children were living without regular food and supplies. The CAIRN Trust, through our Communities project has started offering these children Emergency Support through the provisions of basic food (rice, dahl, oil) on a monthly basis. This will be reviewed in January 2009. Our believe is that hungry children cannot perform well at school, so through the Emergency Support, we will give them an opportunity to perform better.
The Future
In 2008-9, we will be focussing our efforts on strengthening our monitoring. Our challenge is to develop new and relevant monitoring systems to ensure our key projects meet the CAIRN mission and the needs of the local village communities.
