The British Council has launched a project in South Africa to find out more about ordinary people’s lives and give them an opportunity to say how they would like things to improve.
The Wish Tree project is a collaboration between the British Council and Lemos&Crane, a social research organisation based in the UK. It has been running since the beginning of May and will end on 15 July 2009. The project has also been run in China and India.
British Council Project Coordinator Danilo Hendricks says the aim is to sound out what people feel about their lives and their futures.
‘We want to know what will make them feel more secure and what they want to achieve. Our aim is to give people a voice and use this to influence decision makers and policy makers to make informed decisions, based on a firm foundation of huge numbers of people’s opinions.
‘The idea was to get people involved in a creative activity, presenting them with a wish instead of posing long, complicated questions, so the idea of the Wish Tree was created,’ Hendricks says.
| According to the Wish Tree website, ‘People are presented with a leaf-like card that has four questions on it: |
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How would you describe yourself? |
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What event changed your life? |
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What is your greatest fear for the future? |
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What do you wish for?’ |
Once people have written their answers on the card, it is stuck to a big poster of a leafless tree.
According to Hendricks, the British Council is responsible for creating a space for the data to be collected.
‘We will also be hosting seminars in September to discuss the findings. This conversation will involve government, civil society and business.’
Hendricks says once all the data has been collected, the common threads will be identified.
This should create a picture of how South Africans perceive social welfare, which can be compared with the Wish Tree pictures created in China, India and Brazil and used to inform development plans and policies.
The Wish Tree will not be moving around the country physically: people can take part virtually on the website.
‘The British Council believes that this project can reach thousands of South African says Hendricks.
‘This is a wonderful opportunity for all South Africans to affect the policy-making process on a different, exciting platform.’
For more information, visit the Wish tree website. To find out what’s been happening in Africa visit our news in Africa section. To see upcoming events visit our events page.
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