Mid-Term Evaluation of Meshkat Community Project to Counter harmful Narratives in Jordan

PeaceGeeks is implementing its project “Meshkat Community'' in Jordan to respond to online and offline harmful narratives by building capacities to create new narratives that inspire positive attitudes, behaviors, and engagement through Transformative Narrative methodology.

Throughout the project, several vital tools and methods were used to build technical skills based on TN methodology to tackle both online and offline harmful content and related negative narratives. These tools include a transformative narrative curriculum, training materials, social media campaigns, Film for Change workshops, the Artists in Residence (AIR) program, and a hackathon event. The important aspect in this project is that content created during these activities remains available online for a wider circulation and visibility.

Overall, these activities have complemented each other to conduct online campaigns that counter harmful narratives. PeaceGeeks’s work on TN methodology has led to positive results around the curriculum's quality, use and effectiveness, and building the capacities of participants and partners. In addition, using a TN methodology led to an increase in information sharing and collaboration between communities. As the project was able to reflect on areas of its intervention at the community level, however, this was not always the case at the policy level due to a lack of experience and project contribution on policy concepts at national and regional levels.

The mid-term evaluation found that the project was context-specific and modified to respond to the needs of the target communities where the activities were implemented. As a result, PeaceGeeks' work on this project is in line with its mandate and expertise and makes the most of its strong relationships with local stakeholders.

Based on the result of data obtained from participants in the TN training of the Meshkat community project, it was found that PeaceGeeks has changed the understanding of the complex phenomenon of harmful anti-peace content circulating on social media. Moreover, the transformative narrative methodology has contributed to the formation of a new positive narrative that provides a solution to the issues of local communities caused by biased misinformation and targeted content. Therefore, an essential aspect of the project is to highlight how this positive outcome can be disseminated at the community level through the trickle-down effect. It's been noted that youth have a broader impact in making the project activities more effective at the community level - through working more coherently in their social circles.

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