“Duh!” written on numerous post-its were placed on a human body drawn on butcher paper.  The body was one of three, each one representing a different audience that would receive findings from the youth survey.  The body represented Khmer youth and workshop participants felt that the response of youth to each finding they reviewed, would be – of course, we already knew that.

If you’ve been reading our newsletter, you’ve heard about this project.  Khmer Girls for Action (KGA) launched a participatory (youth-designed and implemented) research project to assess the needs and conditions of Khmer youth in Long Beach.  Last year, DataCenter created trainings and curricula on how to design a survey project and instrument.  In January 2010, DataCenter went back to Long Beach and did a day long training for the staff on data analysis. The training will be replicated by the KGA staff with their youth members this spring.

We used results from their pilot survey and presented it to KGA through Data Feud – a Family Feud inspired game that challenges audiences to guess the survey results.   Having warmed up to data and the survey results, we prepped them with some basic statistical and data analysis which they then used to review survey results.  At this stage, discussion already began on how the data could be understood in so many different ways.  We then drew up key audiences and asked how each audience would respond and what did they want them to do with the results.   Here, it became clear that one finding had different impacts depending on the audience.  The workshop explored messaging, packaging and how to best understand and use the data.

The workshop was able to take data, that could often be seen as bland and alienating, and bring it to life – through deep discussions about the meanings of the data and then through its application in their communities.  Numbers became a part of their storytelling.