Who we are

Equity

Equity recognizes people who have been historically marginalised have different circumstances and needs, and therefore need different resources and opportunities allocated to them in order to thrive.

Equality

Equality is giving everyone the exact same resources across the board, regardless of individuals’ or groups of people’s actual needs or opportunities/resources already provided to them.

What we are about

We work at the cutting edge of diversity, equity, inclusion, equality and social justice in evaluation.

We are a values driven organisation with clear value commitments that bring minority voices to engagement, decision-making, review, policy design and evaluation processes. We reject the notion that evaluations, reviews and strategies must be objective and culture free and we reject a deficit approach that positions communities or their members as problems. Instead we seek to identify and respect local strengths and resilience.

Our work is guided by the ethical assumption that evaluators/evaluations/reviewers/facilitators need to:

E

Describe and Explain the Cultural Context

fully describe and explain the cultural context of the program or project being evaluated, so they are culturally responsive and so issues such as bias, historical perspective, power, oppression, and privilege (or lack thereof) calibrates the our work, and provides equity in perspectives.

E

Address Issues

consciously address issues of systemic discrimination on whatever basis that occurs in order to challenge an oppressive status quo and move forward for increased justice.

We work with our clients to identify potential culturally bound biases in evaluation theory and practice by bringing pluralism, multiple cultures and contexts to evaluative reasoning (e.g., judgments of merit and worth).

About our Values

Evaluations, strategic public policy making review, program design and delivery and project development (including service need analysis, service planning, feasibility studies and strategic assessments) reflect the cultures of stakeholders that are indirectly (beneficiaries, commissioners) or directly (theorists) involved.

We are able to produce more culturally responsive designs that are, in a best case scenario, relatively unencumbered by the values of the evaluator and more representative of a community in which an evaluation or review is being conducted.

We value participatory practices that promote equity, liberation, fundamental human rights, and justice. To that end, considering and centering culture, context, and equity undergirds our work.

Our policies, practices and approach to evaluation and research are guided by the following principles, which have been adapted from Verna J. Kirkness and Ray Barnhardt, 2001 work on the Four R’s of Indigenous Education.

Respect

for knowledge, reflecting cultural humility, adapting cultural protocols and incorporating ancestral languages.

Relationships

forming collaborative, non-exploitive, sustainable, long term ethical and relevant relationships.

Responsibility

acknowledging that diverse communities own their own knowledge, have a leading role in shaping content design and evaluation with them, should have access to and control over their data (data sovereignty) and that evaluators should adhere to culturally and religiously appropriate protocols.