Evaluation of a Philippines-Based Tech Camp and Peace Promotion Fellowship

The RAND Corporation recently carried out an evaluation of EAI’s tech camps and Peace Promotion Fellowship program in the Philippines. To evaluate the process for this program, RAND Corporation researchers conducted in-depth interviews with the 11 PPF fellows and with the EAI staffers charged with running the program. The report also contains information on research on EAI’s countering violent extremism–themed programming in Mindanao. The findings have been published in a book for purchase or available free online.

The Philippines continues to experience the travails of militant violence, much of which is focused on the southern island of Mindanao and its neighboring Sulu archipelago. Equal Access International (EAI) trained local civil society members on Mindanao to design and implement locally based countering violent extremism (CVE) campaigns.

This training was provided through two five-day tech camps. EAI then selected 11 activists from the tech camps to participate in a six-month Peace Promotion Fellowship (PPF) program. This program offered mentorship and funding for these activists to implement their own community-based micro-CVE campaigns.

To evaluate the process of implementing this program, RAND researchers conducted in-depth interviews with the 11 PPF fellows and the EAI staffers charged with running the program. During these interviews, researchers also asked the PPF fellows about their experience during the tech camps. This report contains a series of recommendations that are based on the information gained from these interviews to improve future tech camp and PPF programming.

Read more about the evaluation, purchase the book, or download the free PDF version here!