Peer Exchanges: A How-to Handbook for Grassroots Women’s Organizations

Peer exchanges are a learning tool that grassroots women’s development organizations have employed for many years to learn from the experiences of other groups. Peer exchange is not a training programme but usually consists of one community visiting another, seeking to experience how that grassroots organization approaches their work and to share their perspectives on development. Peer exchange means sharing collective, unique talents and experiences with others.

This volume draws on almost 15 years of experience of the Huairou Commission. This organization was established in 1995 as a global coalition of networks, institutions and individual professionals that links grassroots women’s community development organizations to partners for access to resources, information sharing and political spaces. The Huairou Commission focuses on sustaining grassroots women’s leadership in redeveloping families, homes, communities and economies in crisis situations; local governance and asset-securing approaches that anchor grassroots women’s participation; and collaborative partnerships that strengthen and upscale grassroots local knowledge and advance alternative development policies. It has initiatives around topics of governance, community response and resilience, AIDS, land and housing, and peace building in several parts of the world.

The handbook describes the five elements that are core for peer exchange:

• Place: collective learning takes place in the spaces where hosts normally do their work, because these spaces are reflections of their norms and values.
• Participatory learning methods: peer exchange is not a conference where attendees passively sit and listen, but an experience that encourages the participation of women in the learning.
• Collective learning: facilitators and organizers should structure dialogue sessions in order to share experiences.
• Co-learning: interaction is based on anyone’s responsibility to share their learning and support others’ understanding.
• Evaluation and dissemination: groups involved begin to create a collective history together. The point of every peer exchange is that it serves as a guide for future experiences. Therefore, appraising the experience and figuring out how to share what was learned with other grassroots groups are essential means of marking trail as they go, making it easy for those who may choose a similar path in the future.

This handbook covers various practical topics, including the responsibilities of a host committee and the preparation of arrangements; searching for potential partners and funders; planning the programme; creating a budget; logistics; planning evaluation and monitoring; and managing the programme. Several examples, experiences and illustrations are included.