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APPROACHING SOCIAL CHANGE AS A COMPLEX PROBLEM IN A WORLD THAT TREATS IT AS A COMPLICATED ONE: THE CASE OF PUNTOS DE ENCUENTRO, NICARAGUA.

by Virginia Lacayo C.

November, 2006

To the collective of Puntos de Encuentro. For their inspiring audacity to challenge what we know about social change and the courage to adventure in the alternatives.

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Table of content PREFACE ..................................................................................................................................................... 4 WITH MY SINCERE APPRECIATION .............................................................................................................. 7 APPROACHING SOCIAL CHANGE AS A COMPLEX PROBLEM IN A WORLD THAT TREATS IT AS A COMPLICATED ONE:............................................................................................... 9 THE CASE OF PUNTOS DE ENCUENTRO, NICARAGUA................................................................. 9 METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS ...................................................................................................... 11 I. PUNTOS DE ENCUENTRO: VISION, MISSION, AND STRATEGY ............................................ 13 CHANGE IS A NONLINEAR, CONTRADICTORY, MESSY, AND LONG-TERM PROCESS ......................................... 15 THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS: THE EMERGENCE OF “SOMOS DIFERENTES, SOMOS IGUALES” (SDSI) ...................................................................................................................................... 16 II. WHY DO WE NEED A FRESH APPROACH TO SOCIAL CHANGE? ....................................... 19 III. SIMPLE, COMPLICATED AND COMPLEX PROBLEMS: WHAT IS COMPLEXITY SCIENCE? .................................................................................................................................................. 22 IV. PUNTOS AND COMPLEXITY SCIENCE: SUCCESSES, CHALLENGES, AND PARADOXES ...................................................................................................................................................................... 23 COMPLEXITY SCIENCE IDEA #1. ORDER IS EMERGENT AND SELF-ORGANIZING: PUNTOS’ SELF-ORGANIZING EXPERIENCE WITH THE DISTRIBUTION NETWORK OF LA BOLETINA......................................................... 24 COMPLEXITY SCIENCE IDEA #2. AT THE EDGE OF CHAOS AND ORDER IS WHERE THE SYSTEM IS MOST ADAPTABLE AND CREATIVE: PUNTOS’ DE-CONSTRUCTION OF OPPRESSIVE RELATIONSHIPS AND BOOSTING OF ALLIANCES THROUGH YOUTH CAMPS................................................................................................. 26 COMPLEXITY SCIENCE IDEA #3. LIFE IS CLUTTERED, FULL OF PARADOXES, AND SELDOM IS EITHER/OR: BREAKING THE RULES OF E-E WITH SEXTO SENTIDO TELEVISION ........................................................... 29 COMPLEXITY IDEA #4. FREE FLOW OF DIVERSE AND MEANINGFUL INFORMATION IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE SYSTEM TO EVOLVE: IT MIGHT NOT CHANGE THE SYSTEM, BUT IT DISTURBS IT ENOUGH…. .................. 31 COMPLEXITY IDEA #5. THE WHOLE IS GREATER THAN THE SUM OF THE PARTS, THE QUALITY OF THE RELATIONSHIPS IS MORE CRITICAL TO THE SYSTEM THAN THE QUALITY OF THE INDIVIDUALS: PUNTOS’ ALLIANCES FOR SOCIAL CHANGE............................................................................................................. 35 COMPLEXITY IDEA #6. PLANNING THE UNPREDICTABLE: THE CHALLENGES OF DETAILED PLANNING IN A COMPLEX WORLD .................................................................................................................................... 39 MEASURING PROCESSES: THE CHALLENGE OF IMPACT EVALUATIONS ...................................................... 42 V. DISCUSSION AND FINAL THOUGHTS .......................................................................................... 45 REFERENCES:.......................................................................................................................................... 49 PERSONAL INTERVIEWS: .................................................................................................................... 53

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Preface Born in France in the early 1970s, I grew up in Nicaragua in the middle of the Sandinista Revolution. Both, my father and mother were actively engaged with the revolutionary process, each one in his/her own way. So I grew up surrounded by men and women talking about social justice, equality, social consciousness and other revolutionary concepts. My mother, Ana Criquillion, who later founded Puntos de Encuentro, introduced me to the notion of feminism and to other ways of thinking about social justice and equity, beyond class-related struggles. Before I began my Law degree at the Central American University in Nicaragua (from where I graduated with honors) in 1992, I had lived in four different countries (Nicaragua, Mexico, Colombia, and France) and had the opportunity to travel to many others -- accompanying my father in his political missions. These experiences gave me the opportunity to understand Nicaraguan and Latin America reality from both an insideroutsider perspective. My mother helped me to understand that there is no such thing as “normal”, so I grew up not being shy of asking the “why” of many things and also the “why not” of many other things. Also, because my personal life was enriched by my close personal relationships, including with my mother, I grasped the potential power hidden in relationships. I do not consider myself as being more clever or capable than anyone else, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to relate with the “right” people in the “right” moments of my life, and I eagerly grasped every opportunity as a treasure. The “turning points” in my life are better described in dialogues and connections with people than in singular events or teaching moments of any kind. An important “turning point” got underway in 1992, when I was 19 years old, and I was hired by Puntos de Encuentro to create and host an innovative talk radio show for young people -later called Sexto Sentido Radio. The program achieved the top ratings in its first year of being on air. Later, in 1997 together with Amy Bank (my friend, colleague and current Executive Director of Puntos), I co-created, and became executive producer and director of the first Nicaraguan-produced social soap television series Sexto Sentido (Sixth Sense), which is the only one its kind in Nicaragua, and perhaps in Central America. In 2004, at age 30, while serving as part of the Coordinating Board of Puntos de Encuentro, I decided to pursue a Masters’ Degree on Communication and Development Studies from Ohio University. My desire to pursue a masters’ degree, and now a Ph.D. in mass communication from Ohio University, responds to the same ongoing need of personal growth made possible by interacting with other people and exploring new environments and perspectives. The nature and quality of the faculty and students at Ohio University were fundamental in my decision to come here for my graduate studies. The question was not so much: what is the best school in the field? But where are the people with whom I want

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and can debate and discuss the issues that matter to me? The curricular flexibility of the Communication and Development program, the international and professional diversity of its faculty and students, and the non-traditional approach to inquiry and teaching of some of its faculty members, especially of Dr. Arvind Singhal, convinced me that, among all my options, Ohio University was the place to be. Books can be bought and read at home, but the opportunity to interact and learn from the relations with other people is irreplaceable. Since I started my graduate studies at Ohio University, I have learned (and unlearned) many things, and I have changed with each new experience. What has been constant for me has been my desire to open spaces for new voices and exchanges and see what emerge from it. That is why when I first heard of complexity science, it immediately grabbed my attention. It was November 2005, and with several Ohio University colleagues, I was in Morelia, Mexico, representing Puntos de Encuentro as a keynote speaker for what was the First Latin American Conference on Entertainment-Education. The second night at the conference, over a casual dinner with my two colleagues from Puntos de Encuentro -- Amy Bank and Irela Solórzano (Executive Director and Coordinator of Monitoring and Evaluation, respectively), Kate Gardner from BrooKenya (New York), my mentor and Ohio University professor, Arvind Singhal, gave us a very brief introduction to complexity science by explaining the difference between simple, complicated, and complex systems using the example of a cooking recipe (simple system), sending a rocket to the moon (complicated system), and raising a child (complex system). Arvind cogently argued that social change (akin to “raising a child”) was a complex process, however, social scientists and practitioners were “trained” erroneously in believing that they could be predicted, controlled, and even achieved in linear steps. Arvind attributed this problematic prevailing mindset to the overwhelming dominance of Newtonian science (where interactions between physical bodies could be measured and predicted) which had spilled over to social science thinking, and reified over decades in development programs, without much questioning. Arvind closed his introduction to complexity science by asking us: “Could the thoughts and actions of human beings be predicted and measured in the same way as the movement of heavenly bodies? And, shouldn’t we begin to question the faulty assumptions that characterized the social change enterprise?” I was deeply intrigued by this notion of simple, complicated, and complex systems. Arvind had become interested in complexity science a couple of years previously, since his involvement with the Plexus Institute in Allentown, New Jersey, an institution that promotes complexity science thinking to improve the quality of lives of individuals, organizations, and societies. Trained as a number-crunching social scientist two decades previously, Arvind had all but shed that garb, and seemed to intuitively embrace a new way of thinking about social change processes.

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My second conversation with Arvind about complexity science hit home. A week or two after Morelia, Arvind and I were on a small turbojet plane flying from Cleveland to Vermont for a three-day workshop on entertainment-education. I had just finished reading a book that he had recommended in his Diffusion of Innovations class (that I was enrolled in) by Margaret J. Wheatley Leadership and the New Science. I had been playing with some of the ideas expounded by Wheatley on this new science of complexity, and I asked Arvind if he would mind clarifying a few things for me. Arvind pulled out a piece of paper from his note-pad and started listing some concepts and then drawing circles and lines connecting them. The drawing, perhaps a little too abstract for a layperson, opened the door of a new paradigm for me. I started to see the role of relationships, connection and interactions, the concept of emerging orders, self-organizing, non-linearity, pattern recognition, the difference between the whole and the simple sum of the parts, the value of outliers and diversity, how small inputs can lead to great results and so on… Even though these concepts were not unfamiliar to me, the wholeness of them, gave me eyes to see Puntos and its work from a different perspective. I felt that complexity science could provide me with the language and metaphors to explain Puntos de Encuentro’s approach to social change. Writing this article was a complex journey for me. Not only did I read voraciously about this new science and the insights that it provides us to better understand our natural and social world, but also in order to make sense of this theory and to apply it to my professional experience, I had to experience complexity principles on my own. I was struggling with different ways of trying to organize my thoughts is a logical manner so other people could understand where my ideas and conclusions came from, including the logic and flow. This approach was highly frustrating. So I forced myself to stop thinking in a linear way and letting go. As the pages started to fill up fluidly, the ideas started to emerge. I was not struggling to keep the logical connections, to make sense of every detail, I was just being creative, and I was writing. Another big challenge for me was to write about Puntos, an organization of which I was once an integral part of, and with which I still have strong links, without loosing the necessary objectivity to critically analyze its vision and strategies. I tried to present its successes as well as its challenges in implementing a complexity-inspired approach to its social change work. I also requested other academics familiar with Puntos’ work to peerreview a draft of the present paper to assure a more balanced perspective. Another key challenge was to design a data-collection strategy that would be consistent with a complexity-based approach. I wished to have conversations rather than interviews, and develop a participatory process where information, concerns, reflections and critiques would emerge from the participants. So my conversations with my colleagues at Puntos were just that -- conversations: I let the discussions flow freely. I did not have any interview protocol. Each conversation was carried out in a calm atmosphere in one of the meeting rooms at Puntos’ Managua office, and I started each one of them by noting: “I want you to remember that it is ‘me’ whom you are talking to, Virginia, your colleague and friend, I am not a donor, I am not a journalist or an outsider that needs to

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be ‘impressed’ by Puntos. So let’s just have a nice chat about the things you/we are always eager to talk but we seldom get the chance to do”. And that is how the ambience for each interview was established. There conversations led to so many insights about so many issues that, at first, I wasn’t sure how I would put everything together. With the passage of time, I began to grasp the whole and understood the patterns; and the order emerged. So, more than anything else, this writing process, however long it turned out to be, was a liberating process for me. I hope this paper will spark in other people the freedom, creativity, and audacity to explore alternative ways of seeing the world, as was the case for me. We may not find all the answers, but we will perhaps ask new questions. And that seems to me a good place to start.

With my sincere appreciation Puntos de Encuentro will always have my eternal thankfulness and admiration. Puntos gave me the opportunity to see the world –how it is and how it should be – from a different perspective, and gave me the freedom and confidence to dare to be creative and irreverent. I will always bring in my heart the warmth of its staff and of its collaborators – especially Sara Bradshaw, Andrea Lynch, and Yerina Rock, for their remarkable contributions to this paper - and the hope that our path will cross again many times. I am honored to have been part of this cutting-edge organization, and it is definitely a part of myself. I am also grateful to my family and close friends, who supported me all these years of struggle to become the person I want to be. My special appreciation and high regard to my mother Ana Criquillion, my friend, my colleague, and my role model, and to Amy Bank, my dear friend and struggle companion. Both of you trusted me, helped me become the person I want to be, and hold me in the most difficult moments. This study would not have been possible without the unflinching support of my committee members at Ohio University, Professors Arvind Singhal, David Mould and Rafael Obregón. Arvind, the chair of my committee, apart from being a mentor and a friend, opened my eyes to mind-blowing worlds within and outside the academic sphere. He encouraged me to be creative and adventurous, and to trust my instincts and capacities, even when the challenges made me hesitate; and pushed me to bring out the best in me in each enterprise I took under his advice. Most importantly, he introduced me to complexity science and the different research methods that inspired this work. David Mould was the director of the Communication and Development program when I first came to Ohio University. He introduced me to the communication for development theories that supported my work for the last two years. Working with David for the past two years as his graduate assistant was a marvelous learning experience. He trusted me and gave me the freedom to experiment in many ways. Rafael Obregón has also been a big influence in helping me shape my research agenda in graduate school.

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Since he came to Ohio to take over the direction of the Communication and Development program, he has become my ally and advisor. I truly enjoy working with him, both inside and outside the classroom. Our debates about communication and social change in Latin America greatly enriched my knowledge and perception of the region and increased my admiration for the work done in those countries. I am also compelled to express my gratitude to Henri Lipmanowicz and his colleagues at Plexus Institute. The opportunities I had to speak with them have enriched my perception of complexity science and its potential to help us to draft a new paradigm of social change. And lastly, but not least, I want to deeply thank my husband Carlos. You are the best companion to have and you stood by me through all these years in the most supportive ways. I couldn’t have asked for anything else. Virginia Lacayo1.

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©2006. Virginia Lacayo. While this work is copyrighted, we encourage the reader to share it widely, with appropriate credit and citation, for education- al and non-commercial purposes. The author welcomes your comments on this article at [email protected]

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APPROACHING SOCIAL CHANGE AS A COMPLEX PROBLEM IN A WORLD THAT TREATS IT AS A COMPLICATED ONE: THE CASE OF PUNTOS DE ENCUENTRO, NICARAGUA. Over the years, most development professionals and organizations that I have exchanged ideas with about social change, agree that social change is a non-linear, long term, and often-unpredictable process requiring efforts at multiple levels. However, most organizations continue to frame their strategies in measurable, cause-effect terms as if their programs can be evaluated in isolation from other efforts, and can demonstrate effectiveness in the short-term. This paradox characterizes the field of communication for social change. As communication involves people, and people are unpredictable, attempts to assess program effects miss their mark when social change is construed as a predictable, linear process. For 12 years (1992 to 2004) I worked at a Nicaraguan NGO called Puntos de Encuentro (“Meeting Points” or “Common Grounds”), a feminist non-profit organization which believes in the role of communication, research, and education in fostering social change. Puntos de Encuentro (Puntos hereafter) advocates an innovative approach to design communication strategies to promote social change, believing that “while societies have to change, they have to decide for themselves how to change. Rather than seeking to change individual behavior, its work seeks to influence the social context in which individuals act and in which discussion about different aspects of daily life [public and private] occurs” (Bradshaw, S. and Puntos de Encuentro, 2001. p.1). To this end, Puntos uses its weekly television social soap series Sexto Sentido2 [Sixth Sense] as a launching pad for a multi-media, multi-level communication for social change strategy called Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales [We’re Different, We’re Equal]. The strategy combines entertainment-education outcomes, youth leadership training, alliances between partners, and strengthening social movements to promote change in Nicaraguan society. In spite of its wide recognition as a cutting-edge organization3, Puntos has been struggling to theoretically frame and justify its outreach strategy.

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The last episode was broadcast in Nicaragua in June 2005. Currently the series is being repeated in its entirety (80 episodes) on local TV stations around the country. As of August 2005, Centro America TV, a satellite station transmitted the show across the USA, and from September 2005 the programme has been shown on Costa Rican TV and Honduras. Puntos is in negotiations with Panamá, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Spain as to further transmissions. The programme is also now available on broadband on the Internet from the Puntos web page (in Spanish only). 3 Puntos de Encuentro’s communication strategy and its telenovela for social change “Sexto Sentido” (Sixth Sense), has won international awards and recognitions including the “Freedom Award” at the Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival in Los Angeles 2002; the Hollywood “SHINE Awards” 2004, together with HBO, for its excellence and its positive approach to sexual health and rights, among others. The strategy “Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI)” has being highlighted by the IDB, UNIFEM, World

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Traditional log frames, planning models, impact indicators, and research methods used and required by donor agencies to evaluate the impact of social change initiatives are steeped in behavior change communication (BCC) theories and methods, and respond to the standard criteria that scholars and granters have established to legitimize project outcomes. Rarely do they address, or question, how social change occurs. This disagreement begins with the lack of a single and shared definition of “social change” among theorists and practitioners. Even though there are many theories about social change, we have not yet agreed about what we mean by it, what is desirable change, how change happens, how to promote it, and how to measure it. So contradictions arise when organizations such as Puntos approach social change as a nonlinear, messy complex problem while most donors, social scientist, and practitioners approach it as a predictable, linear process. A minority of practitioners and scholars, who share a more holistic and complex definition of social change as a process, increasingly criticize the notion of conceptualizing social change as an event, which can be achieved by strategic behavior change communication inputs4. To understand the messy process of social change, I turn to complexity science for it provides insights that are not so easily derivable from traditional, behavioral social science conceptions of social change. Complexity science includes the study of complex social phenomena, especially those that involve multiple interactions between various agents and actors over time, with less than predictable outcomes. Since complexity science is increasingly used as a framework to analyze complex interactions between various actors in systems such as stock markets, human bodies, forest ecosystems, manufacturing businesses, immune systems, termite colonies, and hospitals (Plexus, 1998a; Singhal, A. 2005; and Singhal, A. 2006), I argue that complexity science can also provide a theoretical framework to analyze Puntos’ communication approach to social change. Puntos’ strategy also operates in a complex system with numerous actors interacting in various ways. This paper hopes to contribute to a deeper understanding of Puntos by providing an alternative way to frame its quest and strategy. In so doing, the present paper aims to raise questions for development organizations, grant makers, and researchers to think out of the box, and from a new perspective -- about the complexity of social change processes and interventions.

Bank, USAID, UNFPA as a successful project in work with young in the world and its materials has being used and adapted in many Latin American countries. 4

For more on this debate and alternative approaches to communication for social change, visit the Communication for Social Change Consortium’s website: www.communicationforsocialchange.org, and the Communication Initiative’ website http://www.comminit.com

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Methodological Considerations The methodology used in this exercise is the case study method. Several scholars argue that the case study approach is appropriate for exploratory, descriptive, or explanatory purposes. Case studies have been used to describe processes (Lawrence & Hardy, 1999), generate theory (Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997), as well as test theory (Yin, 1989). Complexity theorists also favor the choice of a case study approach as it enables the researcher to study a phenomenon as an integrated whole (Anderson et al. 2005). The data collection for this paper included a series of semi-structured interviews5 with the staff of Puntos, using open-ended questions about the challenges associated with (a) planning and evaluating Puntos’ strategies and (b) the gaps between Puntos vision and discourse and its practice. Also analyzed relevant internal documentation (internal essays, conceptual framework, grant proposals and institutional reports), Puntos’ external evaluations, analysis of complexity science’s literature, and academic renderings of similar communication for social change initiatives. Most importantly, I brought my own reflections and experiences of being a Puntos insider over a dozen years, as also my view of Puntos as an “outsider” for the past two years that I have been in the U.S. Due to my active role in the design and implementation of Puntos’ communication strategy6, the present analysis is one of an “insider” or emic7 (Agar, M. 2005) perspective of Puntos’ experience. My close relationship with Puntos and its workers officials allowed me to create a safe to and trusting worthy space to explore and debate sensitive issues, and to facilitate collective reflections about the gaps and challenges in the implementation and evaluation of Puntos’ strategic vision and strategies that other wise will be would have been difficult to achieve. A total of 12 individuals from five of Puntos’ teams (La Boletina, the radio show, the television show, Youth Camps and Alliances, and monitoring and evaluation) as well as Amy Bank, the Executive Director, and Ana Criquillion, one of the founders of Puntos de Encuentro, were interviewed for this paper. No outsiders were exclusively interviewed for this study. Thus the analysis of this paper is primarily limited to the findings of Puntos’ discourse and to the perceptions of Puntos’ workers, complemented by the findings of Puntos’ external evaluations and academic articles about Puntos’ work. To have more assurance about my claims in this paper and a minimum level of validity and 5

All translations were made by the author In 1992 I co-created, co-produced and hosted the first radio talk show targeting young people in Nicaragua. Then, in 1997 I co-created and became executive producer and director of the first Nicaraguanproduced "social soap" TV series, "Sexto Sentido" (Sixth Sense), which is the only one its kind in Nicaragua and in the rest of the Central America. The radio and TV programs are the central pieces of Puntos’ multi-media and multimethodic communication strategy for social change. From 1997 to 2004 I was also part of the Coordinating and Direction body of Puntos, and participated in the design and implementation of the whole strategy. 7 Emic and Etic are common terms in anthropology which permit the distinction of the insider’s and the outsider’s perspectives, respectively, and which Agar (2005) interprets as “the differences that make a difference” to the insider (emic), vs. differences that the outsider believes matter (etic). 6

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the reliability of the findings and analysis, I asked key informants from Puntos and three academic peers8 to review the draft case study report. The overarching questions that guided the present study include: 1. What are the main challenges faced by Puntos in justifying its social change theoretical framework and strategy? 2. What additional (or different) insights does complexity science provide us to understand and explain social change processes? 3. To what extent is the complexity science view of social change apparent in Puntos’ discourse and work? 4. What challenges does Puntos face in planning, implementing, and evaluating its strategy, and what lessons can we draw from its experience? Consistent with the basic tenets of complexity science, the above questions are addressed in our analysis, however, not in a question-followed-by-answer linear process. Rather, the questions are addressed with broad strokes, and often in a non-linear layered manner. Toward this end, the paper is organized in five sections: The first section describes Puntos de Encuentro, its vision, mission, and strategies. The second describes the challenges raised by theories and methodologies that drive most development agencies’ work. The third describes the key tenets of complexity science and why it is relevant for this study. The fourth section analyzes how Puntos’ work intersects and aligns with complexity science, and discusses the challenges faced by Puntos in implementing its complexity-inspired approach to social change. The concluding section summarizes the insights gleaned from this analysis, and raises questions and reflections for future studies and discussions.

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Yerina Rock, M.A in social anthropology at Cambridge University, UK; Andrea Lynch, graduate student at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton, England; and Sara Bradshaw, PhD and a professor at Middlesex University, UK, are collaborating with Puntos’ systematization process, and kindly revised the draft of this paper. Most of their comments and suggestions in the first draft were related to the structure of the paper and the organization of the ideas in order to make clear the links between complexity principles and Puntos’ vision and strategies. They also suggested certain literature to support my analysis, and Sara was of great help in my reflection process about the paradoxes highlighted by the findings.

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I. PUNTOS DE ENCUENTRO: VISION, MISSION, AND STRATEGY If I have to highlight two basic complexity science’s principles embedded in Puntos vision, mission, and strategy since its very beginning, these will be the notion of (1) change as a nonlinear, complex, contradictory and long-term process; and the conviction that (2) the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Both these principles are integral to Puntos’ discourse and strategies. Puntos was born in Nicaragua at the end of the 1980s when many around the world followed the process of political, economic, and social change in the country led by the Sandinistas. The Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (The Sandinistas), a leftwing movement, brought together college students, peasants, and middle and upper class intellectuals, and led a popular revolution that, in 1979, overthrew the Somoza political dynasty, and proposed to the country, and to the world, a new political and social system based on broad socialist principles. Between 1979 and 1990, over eleven years, the Sandinistas established democratic elections and a national constitution in Nicaragua, among other sweeping populist reforms. Thousands of foreigners were attracted to Nicaragua by the Sandinista revolutionary project. One of them was Amy Bank, a California-based activist who is presently the Executive Director of Puntos. Foreigners, such as Amy Bank, working with the Nicaraguan citizenry, were trying to re-invent the social, cultural and political fabric of the country. The Sandinista revolutionary project was strongly supported by women who believed in the promise of a new gender culture based on principles of democracy and equality (Molnyeux. 1985). Although the new government achieved important political and social gains for women in the initial years of the revolutionary decade -- by abolishing legal discrimination against women, creating new marriage and divorce laws, and others -- the purported equality between men and women was not realized mainly because of the embedded gender inequalities in Nicaragua’s socio-cultural fabric. Gender roles were defined over a long period of time, and were reflected and reproduced in the relationships between men and women, and from one generation to the other. It is in this Nicaraguan context that three women, active in the revolution, were experiencing the complexity of implementing a utopia in the reality of their daily lives. “Ana Criquillion, Vilma Castillo, and Olga María Espinoza, as many other Nicaraguans, found that the progressive, egalitarian agendas of Sandinista ideology clashed with the oppressive, authoritarian everyday practices embodied by Sandinistas themselves in their interpersonal relations. These women found that one thing was to believe in an abstract utopia, but that the challenge to implement it in the quotidian was a much more difficult task. While many Nicaraguans succumbed to the sense of malaise provoked by a revolution that had been unable to dissolve oppressive everyday cultural practices, these

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three women decided to re-direct their work toward the transformation of everyday life”. (Rodriguez, 2005, p.369). After the defeat of the Sandinistas in the 1990 elections by a conservative neoliberal government, the need for a shift in gender norms became even stronger for activists. There was an urge to seek a revolutionary process that not only addressed classcentered economic oppression and discrimination, but also unequal power relations embedded in Nicaraguan society. Activists felt that the oppression, discrimination, and violence suffered by Nicaraguans based on gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, and ethnicity needed to be challenged. Only then a society free of oppressive power relationships, with equal right and opportunities for everyone, could be realized. These ideas became the guiding foundation of Puntos de Encuentro (literally “Meeting Points” and figuratively “Common Ground”).

“Our interest in transforming power relations in daily life arose of not wanting [the revolution] to remain an abstract idea but to be embodied in the ways we interact” (Hernandez, T. and Campanille. 2000, p. 2)

Puntos was formally established in 1991 as a feminist social change organization that worked in the realm of communication, research, and education, and was dedicated to promote individual and collective autonomy and empowerment of young people and women (Hernández, T. and Campanile, V, 2000). Its institutional strategies have evolved over the past several years while its core goals have remained fairly consistent: That is, to (1) promote social dialogue, influencing the issues discussed, the way those issues are discussed, and influencing who participates in the discussion; (2) link the personal and public sphere in ways that the analysis of personal experiences could feed and improve collective actions; (3) strengthen individual and organizational leadership capacities, especially of women and youth; (4) promote movement building through the creation and strengthening of alliances between organizations and their collective actions; (5) promote formal and informal systems of social support for individual and collective actions; and (6) create and use of its own mass media programming to influence public opinion, promote critical thinking, and promote attitude and behavioral change toward more equitable relationships (Bank, 1997; and Puntos de Encuentro, 20069).

“Social change must be a goal beyond achieving personal change and personal change must also be a goal for social movements. Our work at Puntos de Encuentro is to help people make the links and meet these challenges” (Puntos de Encuentro. 2004, p.11)

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While these institutional strategies have been described in Puntos’ constitutional document and grant proposals the documents referred say more about these institutional strategies.

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Change is a Nonlinear, Contradictory, Messy, and Long-Term Process Puntos’ goal is to promote new values, attitudes, and patterns of social and interpersonal relationships based on the principles of inclusion, respect, solidarity, nonviolence, cooperation, and diversity with equity -- so people and societies can decide by themselves the kind of change they want, and fully participate in the debate and decisionmaking processes that affect their life. But this is a utopian dream. In order to achieve it, we need to start by changing the different forms of oppression that permeate our lives. But in order to address and deconstruct these oppressive relationships, we need to understand why and how they happen. Puntos’ believes that it is the pattern of unequal power and dominance in our relationships that makes equity unachievable. “People don’t suffer In our societies, oppression is a consequence of ‘issues’ in isolation. The an unequal distribution of power based on different oppressions are superiority/inferiority, prejudice/bigotry -- about gender, interrelated and must be age, sexual preferences, physical and mental conditions, addressed as such” racial and/or ethnical background, social class, (Puntos de Encuentro, nationality and religion among others -- that give some 1996. p.8). groups a “legitimate” mandate to abuse those who are weaker or powerless. Change happens, when it does, as the result of the interaction of multiple elements in the system. Individual behavioral change is only one kind of change. Change in policies, social organizing, strengthening of civil society, individual and collective selfefficacy, and others represent a complex web of variables influencing the process of change. So, personal change and social change are closely interrelated and needed at the same time. Personal changes are absolutely necessary but are not enough. We must change laws and institutions, the rules of the economic and political game, political culture, labor culture, the educational system, and discourses in the mass media. Puntos believes and has learned that such a process of social change is not linear and orderly because human beings are not always rational, because the personal process of transformation lasts our whole life, and because people don’t need to be totally free of internalized oppression to participate in collective actions (Puntos de Encuentro, 2004). We also know that social change happens as the result of multiple factors during a long period of time. Factors that act at different levels simultaneously and that provoke a chain of contradictory processes, often expressed in two-steps-forward and one-step-back. This is because life is complex… and so is change.

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The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts: The Emergence of “Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales” (SDSI) Complexity science advocates that complex systems grow by chunking. “Complex systems are not easily to build in detail from the ground up. Chunking means that a good approach to build complex systems is start to small. Experiment to get pieces that work, and then link the pieces together […] and when you make the links, be aware that new interconnections may bring about unpredicted, emerging behaviors” (Plexus Institute, 1998b, p.11). That is similar to how Puntos’ communication strategy for social change, Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI) [We are different, we are equal], evolved.

Figure 1: Training manual "We are Different, We are Equal" to work with youth organizations

Puntos started its communication activities by producing its own media outlets: a feminist magazine, a youth radio show, and then more integrated mass media campaigns to address social issues. However, according to Amy Bank (2002), the present executive director of Puntos, SDSI evolved as a result of lessons learned by Puntos in its first ten years of work in the area of communication for social change. As a “homegrown strategy that was largely developed in isolation from social communication experts and best practice guidelines” (Bradshaw et al. 2006, p.11), Puntos had to constantly learn how to make sense of the lessons – its own and of others’. Some communication practitioners and scholars indirectly influenced Puntos work (e.g. Paulo Freire, Albert Bandura, Miguel Sabido, Arvind Singhal, and Clemencia Rodriguez), however, because most of Puntos’ staff do not have ready access to English-language literature, Puntos’ work has been carried out and improved over the years mostly on the basis of internal and external evaluations and feedback, practical experiences, and internal reflection. Over a period of 15 years, Puntos discovered the various pieces of the puzzle that made for an effective long-term communication strategy.

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From its own and from others’ campaign evaluations, Puntos grasped that there’s a cumulative message dose effect: the more messages people are exposed to, and the longer the period of exposure, the more likely they are to have a “positive” attitude toward the issue, and be motivated to change. Second, as Amy explained, Puntos came to the conclusion that short-term, single-issue campaigns although “very useful and often the best way to raise initial awareness and break the silence on difficult topics – such as violence and reproductive health -- were not necessarily the surest way to achieve deep and sustainable individual and social change”. Not only was this a matter of costeffectiveness, but also, she continued, “we know that people don’t process issues in isolation, and mono-thematic campaigns are often too oversimplified in their treatment of the issue at hand. We felt the need to address issues that are interrelated with each other in order to promote dialogue and debate around the complexity of each one” (Bank, 2002. p.2). It was in this poly-thematic and methodological integration that Puntos’ found its “aha!” In the “We need to be able to talk” campaign, we were not only unknotting issues like HIV/AIDS and sexual abuse, accompanying our young audience through the process of denial, decision making and social support network building, but also we were promoting “acts of courage” (like denouncing the abusive grand father or speaking out about being HIV positive) and linking these issues with sexism and other forms of oppressive power relationship as part of our vision that everything is interconnected and that we can not approach one form of discrimination and oppression with out approaching all the others (Bank, 2006, p3).

Another important moment for Puntos was the creation of our television soap opera Sexto Sentido which became the centerpiece of its SDSI strategy. Entertainmenteducation formats such as television soap operas, given their rich multi-pronged narratives, represent effective means to address complex and interrelated issues (Singhal, et al. 2004). Bank, A. (2002) argues that the engaging nature of mass media narratives assures audience popularity; emotional identification, role modeling that promotes efficacy; intertwined and on-going storylines that allow complex and layered treatment of multiple themes (like sexual abuse and machismo, or abortion and the emergency contraception pill); long-term, repeated exposure to different aspects of the same theme; and other gains (See also Bandura, A. 1985; and Singhal, A, et al. 2004). Further, Puntos’ adoption of engaging television narratives is consistent with the value that complexity science places on story telling as a way to understand complex social problems. As Wheatley, M (1999) states “any process that encourage nonlinear thinking and intuition, and uses alternatives forms of expression such as drama, art, stories and pictures […] leads us to new ways of comprehending” (p.143) Puntos’ experience with the 1999 campaign directed at men, “Violencia contra las mujeres: Un desastre que los hombres SI podemos evitar” [Violence against women: a disaster that we CAN avoid], was geared to stop male violence against women after Hurricane Mitch. In implementing this campaign, Puntos saw first-hand the value-added benefits of having media campaigns accompanied by training materials, on-the-ground

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collaboration with organizations such as the Men's Association Against Violence, and partnerships with local media and services providers in targeted locations. After this campaign, Puntos came to the conclusion that complex problems require complex approaches. Puntos knew that “change is not immediate or even particularly rational. There is no linear or cause-and-effect relationship between knowledge and attitudes and practice. There are many factors and many catalysts of different kinds, on different levels, and at different moments necessary to bring about change, and that there is lot of internal and external conflict along the way” (Bank, A. 2002, p.2). So, Puntos realized that combining media and methodologies for an ongoing period of time will produce more cost-effective outcomes, and will be more aligned with its mission to move toward the realization of messy, long-term change. Puntos’ strategy of Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI) combines popular mass media appeal, on-going coverage and environment-enabling benefits of television and radios shows; support of the local media; community mobilization and coordination alliances with over 200 organizations; training activities, interpersonal reinforcement mechanisms, and links with service delivery; ongoing monitoring and evaluation; and dissemination of the results (Bradshaw et al. 2006; and Bank, A. 2006). So, how does Puntos’ strategy work on the ground? Consider a young woman living in the northern Nicaragua who watches Sexto Sentido on the weekend on the national television station, then watches again the re-broadcast of the program on the local channel, and then listens to, and calls in, Puntos’ radio show during a weekday to express her opinions and feelings on issues that concern her. Through the radio show and the billboards in her locality, she finds out about organizations that address those social issues, participates in their activities, and seeks needed services within her community. She has an opportunity to talk more about social issues that concern her with her classmates, especially when the casts of Sexto Sentido radio and television programs visit her school. Finally, as a member of a youth organization, she participates in one or more of the workshops and/or camps lead by Puntos around the country. Here she will be involved in deeper discussions on the topic, and acquire skills and materials to address these issues back in her local community. The community, meanwhile, has more favorable public opinion on the social issues given the coverage on the national and local media, and the collaborative effort of partner organizations on the ground. “We believe the magic is in the mix”, Amy concludes, “because then you have both individual AND social change catalysts operating simultaneously and over time. You get the benefits of both big scale and more concentrated face-to-face reinforcement at the local level. And, you can still do specific thematic campaigns for awareness rising. The results is that the synergy of the integrated whole is definitely more than the sum of the parts” (Bank, A. 2002, p.4).

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Figure 2: Necesitamos poder hablar campaign's billboard. This is one of the billboards for the “We need to be able to talk” campaign which can be found d all over the country (English and Miskito versions were used in the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua where Spanish is not the main language) that shows how the campaigns link Sexto Sentido TV and Radio with local media and services providers while emphasizing the importance of communication as a key factor for preventing HIV and sexual abuse.

II. WHY DO WE NEED A FRESH APPROACH TO SOCIAL CHANGE? While Puntos experiments with alternatives approaches to promote social change through its communication interventions, it still has to contend with legitimized behavior change theories and social science methods that reduce outcomes to simple numbers. Communication for social change strategies that use entertainment-education narrative formats (like television and radio soap operas) have become increasingly popular in Latin America, Africa, and Asia and have shown to be effective in educating people about sexual health, family planning, gender issues, and literacy (Singhal and Rogers 1999). These strategies, however, subscribe to a behavioral change approach to promote health issues premised on the thesis “over time the beliefs and behavior of individuals who share the same information will change and converge toward a state of ‘greater cultural uniformity’” (see Kincaid 2000). According to Sara Bradshaw (personal interview, September 4th, 2006) the behavioral change models used by development agencies come from health organizations

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that primarily subscribe to cause-effect (linear) approaches to solve population problems. Many of them use evidence-based interventions – especially in the realm of public health – and/or are premised on Bandura’s (1985) theories of social cognition which suggests that individuals learn through watching the behavior of others, and this behavior may be adapted if it is seen to be ‘rewarded’ or ‘punished.’ The positive results demonstrated by impact evaluations of these strategies have created expectations of regularity and predictability about social change. This positivist approach leads us to think that there are “effective” ways to change societies. Many organizations (especially international aid organizations and foundations) use concepts as “best practices” to reinforce the idea successful experiences in one setting can be replicated in different settings. This notion that what works in one place will work in other places privileges the importance of “outside experts” and reinforce beliefs that local organizations and communities need them in order to find the “right” solutions. Here it may be useful to introduce the complexity science principle which states: “Complex adaptive systems are history and context dependent.” Complex systems learn new strategies from experience and they are shaped and influenced by where they have been. While it is important to recognize what does work to promote social change and use it as an inspiration for other interventions, it is risky to scale it up and/or replicate it in a different context. Even in the same locality, a single intervention would unlikely have the same results twice. The environment and the community are constantly changing and social actors, unlike robots, do not react in the exactly same way. So instead of looking for the formulae for social change, it may be more useful to understand the processes that led to effective interventions. “This may seem obvious and trivial, but much of our traditional approaches ignore this point: what is good in one context doesn’t make sense in all contexts” (Plexus, 1998a, p.9). There is value in understanding entertainment-education initiatives that have “not gone as well” – as per the accepted standards of “success”-- as has been the case, for instance, for projects promoting gender equality that have produced contradictory results (Singhal, A. and Rogers, E. M. 1999; and Papa, M.J., Singhal, A., and Papa, W.H. 2006). Several E-E evaluations have suggested that is very hard to asses the direct cause-effect relationship between the intervention and the evidence for change, especially when it comes to complex issues like domestic violence or HIV prevention (Usdin, S. et. al., 2006; Muirhead, et al. 2001; and Bradshaw et al. 2006). Another problem with traditional cause-effect approaches to social change is that change is conceived for, and not by, the community aimed to change. As Bradshaw, S. et al. (2006) state: The notion of change being promoted appears to be one agreed to be a good thing for the majority, if not agreed as good by the majority […] Viswanath and Demers (1999: 15) have likened the notion of change underlying early

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communication initiatives as akin to that inherent within Modernization Theory. The same notions, the desire to replace the ‘traditional’ with the ‘modern’, that the new is better than the old, and the premise that the West knows best, remain apparent in many contemporary social communication initiatives. Perhaps programming promoting the provision of modern contraceptives as the ‘answer’ to the population ‘problem’ best illustrates this notion of modern advances as ‘good’ change” (p.4). Raymond Boudon (1983) notes that the “impressive” array of cases, where prediction derived from theories of social change failed to yield expected outcomes, have led to a general disenchantment with such theories. The problem, he identifies, is that scientists have developed theories based on mental constructs derived from the study of macroscopic regularities, but erroneously these mental constructs are operationalized as empirical “laws” about social change. Instead, he argues, they should be taken as models that can be applied to social systems while being open to the possibility of contradictions, inconsistencies, and paradoxes. This positivistic and modernistic approach to social change is increasingly criticized by practitioners and scholars that share a more holistic and complex definition of social change as a process.10 However, barring some exceptions, these criticisms have not translated into revamped field-based interventions (Bradshaw et al. 2006). Meanwhile, organizations that use E-E formats deal with the pressure of sustainability and the need to demonstrate -- with legitimized standards indicators -- their “success” in order to compete for funds necessary for their work. In the development enterprise, even those grant-makers and leaders who may intrinsically believe that social change is a long term, complex process silently collude to support theories, indicators, methodologies, and policies favoring a linear, step-by-step, cause-effect approach. The hegemony of behavior change theories and steps to change models persists. Planning and evaluation are important to social change, but we need to open our minds to new ways to understand how social systems evolve. Wholeness matters. As complex adaptive systems, societies – made up of thinking, feeling, and believing people -- are for the most part unpredictable and uncontrollable. They do not respond to general laws. Yet, while social change is complex and incoherent, it is not at all unintelligible.

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For more on this debate see: Parks, W. et al, 2005; Figueroa, M. E. et al. 2002; and Singhal, A. 2001

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III. SIMPLE, COMPLICATED AND COMPLEX PROBLEMS: WHAT IS COMPLEXITY SCIENCE?

The Difference between Simple, Complicated and Complex Systems: As Glouberman and Zimmerman (2002), note: For addressing simple problems – take cooking for instance -- a recipe of various ingredients is essential. “It is often tested to assure easy replication without the need for any particular expertise. Recipes produce standardized products and the best recipes give good results every time.” To address complicated problems, like sending a rocket to the moon, formulae or recipes are critical and necessary, but are often not sufficient. “High levels of expertise in a variety of fields are necessary for success. Sending one rocket increases assurance that the next mission will be a success. In some critical ways, rockets are similar to each other and because of this there can be a relatively high degree of certainty of outcome.” “Raising a child, on the other hand, is a complex problem. Here, formulae have a much more limited application. Raising one child provides experience but no assurance of success with the next. Although expertise can contribute to the process in valuable ways, it provides neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to assure success. To some extent this is because every child is unique and must be understood as an individual. As a result there is always some uncertainty of the outcome. The complexity of the process and the lack of certainty do not lead us to the conclusion that it is impossible to raise a child.” Source: Glouberman, S. and Zimmerman, B., 2002. p.6.

Complex problems, such as social change, disturb us “because their characteristics are not reducible to their constitutive parts. When solved, the solutions do not function as recipes, which can be applied to others like problems” (Glouberman, S. and Zimmerman, B. 2002. p.7). Complex problems are hard to predict and control, they are not linear, adaptable and heavily influenced by context. Yet, we deal with them as if they were complicated problems. Complexity science addresses aspects of living systems that are neglected or understated in traditional social change approaches. Complexity science provides us with insights to better understand how complex social systems work and change, and invites us to examine the unpredictable, disorderly and unstable aspects of organizations and societies. Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) are the units of study in complexity science. As explained in Plexus Institute (1998a): All three terms “are each significant in the definition of a CAS: 'Complex' implies diversity - a great number of connections between a wide variety of elements. 'Adaptive' suggests the capacity to alter or change - the ability to learn from experience. A 'system' is a set of connected or interdependent things” (p.6).

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Complexity Science is not a single theory, is a combination of various theories and concepts from different disciplines (biology, anthropology, economy, sociology, management, and others). Complexity science seeks to understand how complex adaptive systems (CAS) work -the patterns of relationships within them, how they are sustained, how they self-organize and how outcomes emerge- in a quest to answer some fundamental questions about living, adaptable, changeable systems (Papa, Singhal, & Papa, 2006). Contrary to the cause-effect Newtonian paradigm, complexity provides us with the opportunity to look at problems with multiple perspectives, studying the micro and macro issues, and understanding how they are interdependent. So, instead of describing how systems should behave, complexity science focuses the analysis on the interdependencies and interrelationships among its elements to describe how systems actually behave (Flynn, P. 2004).

Key Tenets of Complexity Science:

• The whole is greater than the sum of the parts thus living phenomena cannot be • •

understood by studying the parts. Living phenomena – like societies- are complex adaptive systems that are unpredictable and uncontrollable but we can still comprehend them through the patterns of behavior (principles) they seem to share. The questions asked by complexity science do not seek to find a way to predict and control life but to understand how living systems work and thus enhance their potential for change and improvement.

Source: Plexus Institute (1998a)

IV. PUNTOS AND COMPLEXITY SCIENCE: SUCCESSES, CHALLENGES, AND PARADOXES According to complexity theorists, all complex adaptive systems, such as organizations or communities, are governed by a few basic principles and share a number of linked attributes or proprieties. Understanding these principles could provide clues to designing and implementing interventions that evoke the natural quality of living systems to change and re-create themselves. The following descriptions of complexity principles were distilled from different sources about complex adaptive systems (Glouberman, S. and Zimmerman, B. 2002; Plexus Institute. 1998a and 1998b; Wheatley, M. J. 1999 and 2005; Knowles, R. N. 2002; Flynn, P. 2004; Kimball, L. et al. 2004; Allen, P. 2003; and Lipmanowicz, H. 2005).

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In this section, I focus on principles and ideas that speak to illustrate the alignment (or lack of) between Puntos’ experience and complexity science, and also explore the challenges and difficulties involved in applying complexity science ideas into Puntos’ social change strategies.

Complexity Science Idea #1. Order is Emergent and Self-Organizing: Puntos’ SelfOrganizing Experience with the Distribution Network of La Boletina. For Wheatley, M. (1999), the most illuminating paradox of all is that in complex adaptive systems “the more freedom in self-organization, the more order” (p.87) In a healthy complex adaptive system, control is distributed rather than centralized which means that the outcomes emerge from a process of self-organization rather than being assigned and controlled externally by a centralized body. Order emerges from the interactions among the individuals. “Emergence results as a function of the patterns of interrelationships between the agents, and is characterized by unpredictability, the inability to state precisely how the interrelationships between the parts will evolve” (Kimball, L. et al. 2004. p.1). Also as the environment changes, the system changes to adapt itself to the new conditions. From Puntos’ experience, a good example to illustrate how self-organizing systems work is the distribution network of its magazine, La Boletina. La Boletina is a national feminist magazine designed to share news of the growing women's movement in Nicaragua. It addresses a variety of subjects relevant to women's lives, and to women’s groups and organizations -- that use it as educational material to promote study circles, discussion groups, and workshops. It has also been used for facilitation of adult literacy programs, and as a tool to establish and strengthen connections among women and other groups. External evaluations hail La Boletina as the most important contribution of Puntos to the Nicaraguan Women’s Movement (Carrión, L. and CIET Internacional, 1996; and Rivera, L.M, 2000). La Boletina’s circulation has gradually increased from an initial print-run of 500 copies to the present 26,000 copies, making it the largest circulation magazine in Nicaragua. According to Marta Juarez (personal interview, August 29th, 2006) Director of La Boletina, this growth happened because La Boletina is free of charge and it is distributed by hundred of volunteers that travel long distances in buses and canoes to Managua to pick up packages of the magazine and hand carry them to towns and villages all over the country where they are then distributed to local groups. Some times, these

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groups further distribute the magazine to smaller groups that cannot go to Managua to pick up the Magazine. The distribution network of La Boletina is a unique phenomenon of selforganization. It works on the principle of solidarity and is sustained by mutually supportive relationships between women’s groups. Puntos didn’t plan the distribution strategy, and has no direct control over it. “It just weaved itself,” Marta Juarez explained. This absence of centralized control in the distribution of La Boletina provides a lot of freedom for emergence in the system. This freedom, however, cuts both ways and can also threaten the existence of the magazine (as I describe later). As Martha explains “because the distribution is voluntary, we cannot force the groups to get the magazine to smaller groups by a certain time for their activities. We depend on this mutual support and feedback to appeal to upholding the cooperation agreements made by partners in the women’s movement”. Also, as the context changes, the network patterns change as well. Sometimes an organization may close their office, and then the whole distribution system in that location has to change to respond to the needs and conditions of what is left behind (Marta Juarez, personal interview, August 29th, 2006.). This independence and autonomy of La Boletina’s distribution network has ironically jeopardized it’s own existence. The lack of control exerted by Puntos over the distribution and use of La Boletina makes it hard to demonstrate its impact as per the indicators established by Puntos’ donors. Ana Criquillion (personal interview, October 6th, 2006), founder and former executive director of Puntos, explained: “We rely on anecdotes shared by the groups and evaluations based on self-reported data. Our lack of control means that we cannot know with certainty how La Boletina is being used and who is using it, making it difficult to demonstrate its impact and relevance for the women’s movement to our donors”. Martha Juarez (personal interview, August 29th, 2006) agrees: “The impact of La Boletina is hard to measure partly because it is a ‘collective’ impact, meaning that while we produce the magazine, the organizations partners exert a different kind of ownership in the way they use it”. Based on the reach and growth of La Boletina, some donors have suggested Puntos to sell the magazine in order to contribute to the sustainability of the project. Some others have suggested that Puntos control its distribution more closely and use it for assessing its impact. But, as Ana Criquillion (personal interview, October 6th, 2006) stated “by doing so we will tear down what we value as the most important distinctiveness of La Boletina: its volunteer-self-organized distribution network.”

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Complexity Science Idea #2. At the Edge of Chaos and Order is Where the System is Most Adaptable and Creative: Puntos’ De-Construction of Oppressive Relationships and Boosting of Alliances Through Youth Camps. Juan participated in Puntos’ Youth Camp last year living for 15 days in an isolated farm with more than 150 men and women, most of them around his age. They hailed from different parts of Nicaragua and other Central American countries, belonged to different social, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds, and had different physical abilities, different sexual preferences, and different religions. On the first day, the facilitators asked everyone to cross to the other side of the room if they were male. Juan crossed over proudly. All the women looked at him from the other side of the room. Then, the facilitators asked people to cross over if they were poor. Juan crossed over to the other side, but this time, he was somewhat ashamed. Then the facilitators asked people to cross over if they were literate, with disabilities, or had sexual preferences other than heterosexual. And so on. Juan crossed over for some and stayed put for others. There was some nervous laughter and some emotional moments, but at the end, everyone, included Juan, understood that everyone was different and each one found themselves on the side of “power” on one criterion or another. Juan is young, dark skinned, and poor, and had suffered discrimination and violence because of these conditions. But he is also male, heterosexual, and literate and has discriminated and abused others based on the power that he derived from these conditions. Juan and the other 150 young participants spent the rest of the days in the camp listening to each other, deconstructing and understanding how different forms of oppression affect our potential as human beings. They proposed new ways of relating with each other, forging friendships, and constructing alliances with each other to be able to return to the “real world” and deal with those issues in a different and empowered manner.

Embedded in Puntos’ notion of change is the idea that diversity and equity should go hand–in-hand. Puntos promotes new values, attitudes, and interpersonal relationships based on the principles of inclusion, respect, solidarity, non-violence, cooperation, and diversity with equity. It advocates that people need to start by analyzing and deconstructing the patterns of oppression rooted in their personal and collective interactions. They also need to understand how such patterns of oppression occur, and how new relational patterns can be forged. The starting point of this deconstruction process is painful yet enlightening. Puntos believes that when people remember, recognize, and analyze the experiences of discrimination and oppression in their own life, they are able to identify with other oppressed people, and better understand the mechanisms through which different forms of oppression and discrimination work (Puntos de Encuentro, 2004)

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Yet, a safe and diverse environment is needed for people to let go of their old mental models and to open themselves to new possibilities and potentials. This process involves risk-taking as putting people in a position to question their core beliefs and values is usually painful and cognitively chaotic. However, theoretical studies of complex adaptive systems suggest that complex adaptive systems (people and groups) increase their capacity to be creative and to change when they are at the edge of order (status quo) and chaos (newness) (Plexus Institute, 1998b). Kimball et al. (2004) state: “To create an edge, we need to find ways to engage people in and around [their] boundaries [these can be related to stereotypes, gender roles, prejudices, sexual identities, etc.]. We want to put participants in the zone where they grapple with the differences among or transitions between their familiar patterns”. (p.5) In other words, by challenging peoples’ mental models, pitching “old” ideas against “new” ideas, new ways of thinking, and different lifestyles; unexpected attitudes and behaviors can emerge and flourish. Puntos’ strategy to create this edge is through Youth Leadership Camps. Youth leaders from different parts of Nicaragua and other Central American countries have an opportunity to see the world of discrimination and oppression with different lenses. Through its experiential methodology, it translates abstract “concepts” into daily life experiences that young people can relate to and use to analyze their daily lives. Beside very few security-centered rules, the participants collectively construct the rules to operate each camp. Most of them are framed to assure an atmosphere of safety, confidentiality, solidarity, respect, and care where they can open their hearts and share their personal stories and feelings. For most participants, this experience is a novel one. As complexity science does, Puntos also believes that “small changes can generate big effects”. According to Kimball et al. (2004) “In complex adaptive systems, small changes might create big effects. This phenomenon represents a very different notion from the Newtonian view that actions and reactions are equal and opposite. (p.3). The well known “butterfly effect” illustrates this principle by reminding us how apparently negligible, disturbances in one part of a living system can lead to significant unpredictable change in the whole system through continually iterative amplifying processes of positive feedback. Evelyn Flores, from the team that leads Youth Camps and Alliances explained, “That is why we focus our efforts on young leaders and people that are already organized” Sheila, another member of the team added, “We expect that when the youth

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leave the camps they “will share and reproduce what they learned in their circle of influence and build alliances toward collective actions” (personal interview, September 5th, 2006). With such a purpose in mind, the last few sessions of each camp provide young leaders with tools and strategies to enact what they have learned in their own organizations and communities, promoting reflection on such topics. Puntos hopes that the youth camps trigger a snowball effect. This expectation of non-linear change is common in social and organizational strategies that embrace a complexity-based approach. According to Wheatley (2005), people can come together rather swiftly as they recognize their mutual interests: “working together becomes possible because they have discovered a shared meaning for the work that is strong enough to embrace them all […] they know they need each other. They are willing to struggle with relationships and figure it out how to make them work because they realize this is the only path to achieving their aspirations” (p.81) Internal and external evaluations (Montoya, O. et al. 2004) of Puntos’ youth camps suggest strong impact in terms of participants’ attitude and behavior change, as well as a rise in empowerment among participants. For most, if not all of them, the camp is a life-changing experience (see Montoya, O. et al. 2004). Such personal change, Puntos believes, is a necessary step in the long-term social change process. However, it is difficult for Puntos to neither guarantee long-term results nor demonstrate the impact of youth camps beyond the change that an individual leader experiences. “We know that the participants left the camp willing to change, but we cannot know if they are going to be able to do it and to reproduce the change they experienced in the camp, partly because they are influenced and constraint by their environment. And even if they do it [act accordingly], we can’t control how, when, and where they will enact it so that we may be able to completely assess the effects. We rely on what they share with us,” as a Puntos team member noted. Puntos still doesn’t know how to deal with the post-camp challenges that the leaders face. People feel transformed but at the same time they are afraid to go back to the “real world” with a new consciousness and not knowing how to manage it. They feel that they don’t yet have enough tools and social support to implement by themselves the changes they want. While some of them continue to feed the alliances and friendships that were formed during the camp and even coordinate collective actions, most of them return to their organization doing whatever they can do to influence their environment. Many others just feel helpless, lost, angry, and alone. “There is so much a youth camp can do”, says Karla Bojorge, another member of the Puntos’ Youth Camps team. “We are trying to find mechanisms to follow up on our participants’ needs through our work and by forging alliances” (personal interview, September 5th, 2006). Puntos feels responsible for pulling the rug under the young leaders’ feet. But Puntos also knows that change is a collective process, and it has to find a balance between perturbing the system enough to provoke a chain of reactions, and also to do what is needed to bring change by its own efforts (which it knows is impossible).

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Complexity Science Idea #3. Life is Cluttered, Full of Paradoxes, and Seldom is Either/Or: Breaking the Rules of E-E with Sexto Sentido Television “As you study the world through a complexity lens you will be continually confronted with 'both-and' rather than 'either-or' thinking. The paradoxes of complexity are that both sides of many apparent contradictions are true” (Plexus, 1998a, p.14) One of these paradoxes is that in any living system (people and communities) interdependence and independence co-exist. Life is complex and cluttered; issues should be considered and analyzed from all perspectives and in its complexity. Complexity theorists also believe that the system changes when it chooses to be disturbed by the information it receives. It will only choose to be disturbed when the information provides a new meaning to the system. In other words, “the system becomes different because it understands the world differently” (Wheatley, M. 2005, p.86). It is not just the intensity or frequency of the message that gets our attention; but mostly how meaningful the message is to us personally. The key word here is “choice”, the system “chooses” to be disturbed by something it considers meaningful. People do not want to be bossed; they want information to make their own choices and decisions. That is where Puntos’ strategy is fundamentally different from most other communication for behavioral change initiatives. First, instead of following the general advice “keep it short and simple” Puntos believes in making it “long and complicated.” This orientation allows Puntos the opportunity to show how social issues are closely interrelated with each other, and how people often engage in contradictory behaviors. Second, Puntos believes that people have the right to decide what they want, so rather than presenting some forms of behavior as ‘good’ behavior, or model the behavior “socially desirable,” or endorsed by international donors and population control organizations, we promote the right for each individual to make informed decisions and take responsibility for the decisions they make. We do this by showing different alternatives to analyze and deal with different realities and issues. Puntos believes that “appropriate behavior” may vary from person-to-person, is complex, and should be decided upon by the people affected by the situation and after analyzed all the alternatives, so they can take responsibility for the decisions made. For instance, during the first season of Sexto Sentido TV, we saw Sofia, a main character, dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and deciding to keep the baby even though she rejected her boyfriend’s offer to marry her. In the same season, Alejandra, another main character, is desperate to lose her virginity as a reaction to her overcontrolling parents. Losing her virginity is one decision that she can take on her own. She engages in unprotected sex while drunk and the storyline was used to bring in the emergency contraceptive pill as an alternative in those situations. Two episodes later, another female character Frankie, is raped by a stranger in the street. As a consequence,

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she becomes pregnant and has to contend with everyone’s opinions before deciding to get an abortion. Sofia, the one who chose to keep the unwanted pregnancy, supports Frankie, showing how each women and each decision is different, and should be analyzed in its all complexity and uniqueness. Also, the story of the emergency contraceptive pill intersected with Frankie’s rape and abortion story when Sofia helped Frankie to analyze her options until they both realized that it was too late.

Figure 3: Sexto Sentido TV poster

Showing complex and contradictory behaviors, instead of stereotypical ones, doesn’t make for a short-and-clear message -- bad guys lose, and good guys win, but it allows audiences to reflect more deeply about their attitudes, behaviors, and options. It shows that people aren’t bad or good, but often both. We all make mistakes and make bad decisions, but we can reflect on them, learn from them, and change. As Charlie Weinberg (2006), one of the scriptwriting coordinators for Sexto Sentido noted: “Having a ‘bad’ character that does not change or does not reflect on his/her acts in a series like Sexto Sentido is useless. For instance, Martha’s husband -a ‘macho’ character who spends most of his time cheating on his wife without using condom and refusing to use one with Martha, became HIV positive (and that is how Martha got infected) but he also ended up by looking for help and accepting responsibility. This way, Sexto Sentido shows that we all have the capacity to improve ourselves, to reflect, and to change into the kind of person we want to be. The ‘bad’ character is not much use in a program where what we are primarily trying to show are the internal processes of reflection and the kind of decisions that lead us to our personal development” (p.11) Not having stereotyped characters doesn’t mean that characters that make mistakes or hurt other people do not have to deal with consequences of their actions. In the case of Alejandra having unprotected sex her ‘un-healthful’ actions were not

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‘rewarded’, but they were not unduly ‘punished’ either. As Bradshaw, S. et al (2006) explain, “The storyline was used to promote [the idea that] young women [should] think more critically about their own aspirations, actions and decisions and to take control of their own lives” (p.11). So what matter most to Puntos is the reflective process that accompanies the mistakes and decisions taken by the characters. The kind of mistakes that Sexto Sentido’s characters make, are often the type of mistakes that real people make. So Puntos deliberately put on the national agenda the issue of the emergency contraception pill (also called “morning after pill”) and abortion not as an attempt to convince people what is right and wrong, but to convince people that they can think for themselves, and open their minds to new possibilities, other ways of living, and solving their problems. As an alternative to commercial media and messages of other social institutions (e.g. the Catholic Church, the Ministry of Education, family, and others), Puntos encourages people to make their own decisions, without letting other people or social norms dictate what's right for them.

Complexity Idea #4. Free Flow of Diverse and Meaningful Information is Essential for the System to Evolve: It Might not Change the System, But it Disturbs it Enough…. Puntos believes that while social systems have to change, they must decide by themselves how to change. In order to make decisions about their lives, people need to reflect on their condition. Bringing in diverse and meaningful information about alternatives is essential to this process. Providing information alone is far from being enough to achieve social change. Yet, complexity science suggests that the relationship the system has with information, particularly to new and disturbing information, is essential for its evolution. Wheatley, M. (1999) states, “Information must actively be sought from everywhere, from places and sources people never thought to look [or hear] before. And then it must circulate freely so that many people can interpret it. The intent of this new information is to keep the system off-balance, alert to how it might need to change”. (p.83) Information that disturbs may be perceived as a threat to the stability of people’s beliefs, but this disequilibrium forces them to analyze their values and beliefs and make choices, probably new ones. And Puntos considers the right to choose as a human right, and thus it promotes it. Diversity and participation are key elements to promote the kind of democratic and participatory change Puntos espouses. Diversity means not only to have different voices on an issue, but also to address issues that are generally considered taboo, or too sensitive to discuss. Participation means creating an environment so that everyone can feel comfortable sharing opinions and feelings. Mainstream ideas need to be questioned in a healthy debate. As Wheatley, M. (2005) explains, “We don’t have to agree on an interpretation or hold identical values in order to agree on what needs to be done […] but

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entering into a world of shared significance is only achieved by engaging in conversations…” (p.92) Having its own media outlets gives Puntos the kind of autonomy it needs to promote dialogue and debate, and to provide a space for diverse and marginalized voices to be heard and legitimized. It allows for the citizenry to participate at many levels in reflecting on diverse social issues. Having its own magazine and television and radio programs has allowed Puntos to broaden the public's access to diverse points of view. It also gives us Puntos a permanent space to share ideas and information without being tied to commercial considerations (Bank, 1997). This relative autonomy also allowed Puntos to address diverse sensitive issues (e.g. abortion) which commercial media do not touch for it goes against the dominant conservative ideology. Lynch (2006) describes this phenomenon in very simple words: “In Nicaragua, where a conservative government and a Catholic hierarchy, both deeply hostile to reproductive rights, recently joined forces to attempt to deny a therapeutic abortion to a 9-year-old girl who has been raped in Costa Rica […] Puntos was producing a wildly successful, nationally distributed TV social soap called Sexto Sentido (“Sixth Sense”). In its first season, Sexto Sentido broke all the rules of conventional development communication (Bradshaw et al, 2006), taking on the controversial topics of abortion, homosexuality, emergency contraception, rape domestic violence, racism, homophobia, disability rights, substance abuse, single motherhood by choice, and youth sexuality – all the while presenting positive images of young people fully engaged as competent, capable decision-makers in every aspect of their lives” (p.1) Puntos makes a point of taking 'taboo' subjects out of the closet and getting them into mainstream consciousness and on the public agenda in order to de-stigmatize them and explain their relevance within a human development process based on equality and rights. At the same time, it pays careful attention to the language and structure of its arguments so that they have more of a chance to be accepted without "watering down" their intent. (Bank, A. 2006, p.1). The issue of gay rights is a good example. According to Nicaraguan law, homosexuality is illegal. Article 204 of the Penal Code states that anyone who "induces, promotes, propagandizes or practices cohabitation between people of the same sex in a scandalous manner is guilty of the crime of sodomy, punishable by up to three years in prison.” Notes Amy Bank (1997), Puntos’ present executive director: “In addition to a rather shaky definition of sodomy, the law also threatens freedom of speech on the issue (depending on your interpretation of "propagandize"). Instead of retreating on the issue for fear of persecution and prosecution, we [Puntos] decided to demystify it” (p.1) So Puntos took the decision to have Angel, one of the main characters of Sexto Sentido TV, to be a young, proud, openly gay man from episode one of the series. Later, Sexto Sentido introduced two more characters: Vicki, a lesbian character who challenged

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myths and stereotypes around the relationship between homosexuality, sexual abuse, and substance use; and Christian, an HIV-positive transvestite activist and former sex worker whose pioneering character offered Nicaraguans a complex, humanized portrait of transvestite identity. Puntos was surprised by the response of the audiences to these highly taboo issues. While the programs had their critics, presenting these topics on public television opened discussion about these and other related issues within the circles of family and friends. So, when Puntos decided to address the topic of HIV in its last two seasons (2004 to 2005), it was because it had received numerous requests from young viewers to deal with this issue. Why? Amy Bank (2001) explains “possibly because of a kind of nebulous perception of risk, of having heard about AIDS and knowing enough about it to know it's deadly, but not enough to know if it could affect them... but my hunch is that it's a kind of code for saying: we want a ‘legitimate’ way to talk about sex. Which is a code for saying: we want to talk about relationships and identity and self-esteem. Which is a code for saying: we want to TALK and feel connected, we need space to talk about our lives, all the things we experience and feel and want and fear that you're not supposed to talk about. The issue of HIV/AIDS can open up those spaces” (p.9) Complexity science advocates participation as being important for the information to freely flow in the system so it can evolve. It is not just about what information is being shared, but who is sharing it. The wider the variety of people who share ideas, the greater the opportunity exists for new associations to form, and new patterns of meanings to propagate (Wheatley, M.1999). To enhance participation, it is important that the core ideas and analysis that is presented should be understandable to everyone. “We try to 'translate' complex ideas and analysis into simple and straightforward language, so people with little academic training can understand them. To us, it is vital that the debates that affect people's everyday lives, for instance, public policy are broadened beyond professional circles, so ‘regular’ people -- folks not involved in the high-level meetings -- would understand what was at stake and be able to form and express their own opinions on the various issues” (Bank, 1997, p.3). Vanesa Cortez, one of the radio producers at Puntos explained, “Puntos’ radio show Sexto Sentido Radio “provides an

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on-going space for teenagers and young adults to voice opinions and talk about their problems and concerns with other young people without the mediation of adult 'experts' disseminating advice” (personal interview, August 29th, 2006). Puntos validates the wisdom and expertise people have on their own life, while consciously working to legitimize diverse and marginalized voices. External evaluations of Puntos (Montoya, O. et al. 2004) suggest that this orientation of Puntos has positively influenced its audiences. By talking with peers that have different experiences and perspectives in life, young people can engage in a healthy debate and exchange of information about alternative approaches and solutions to their concerns. Puntos’ purpose is not to create consensus around a topic, but to explore and be exposed to different points of view, in a climate of respect and tolerance. Through the radio and television show, young people not only claim the right to have an opinion on issues and to make decisions about matters that affect their lives, but also it strengthens and legitimizes the voices of minorities that are not active, or visible, in the mainstream public sphere.

"Rather than preaching to the converted, we're trying to open up a dialogue with people who don't necessarily agree with us, but who also aren’t totally closed to what we might be proposing." (Amy Bank, 2002, p. 3)

Sexto Sentido Radio motivated other young communicators to use the medium of radio to address social issues. Since 1992, when the radio show first aired, it gained iconic status in the Nicaraguan broadcasting system. Dozen of radios stations and young groups use it as a model to produce their own radio shows explains Hazel Jirón, coproducer of Sexto Sentido Radio (personal interview, August 29th, 2006). Its recorded shows and scripts are in high demand. Young communicators draw upon its content or just simply rebroadcast the show on their own local station. Based on this groundswell of demand, Puntos launched workshops with young broadcast journalists to help them create their own productions, providing them technical and content advice. Puntos also launched, in alliance with 10 local radio stations, a Youth Radio Network that airs the Sexto Sentido Radio show lively in 10 main cities of the country. “When the system is far from equilibrium, singular or small influences can have enormous impact. It is not the law of large numbers or critical mass that creates change, but the presence of a small disturbances that gets into the system and is then amplified through the network.” (Wheatley. 1999, p. 87)

This multiplier effect -- comprising of multiplied messages in multiple locations -- contributes to the social change enterprise. “In nonlinear systems, iteration helps small differences grow into powerful and unpredictable effects” (Wheatley, M. p. 122). Iteration is important. Ongoing debates around important issues, not only in Puntos’ own media but in others as well, creates a favorable public opinion toward discussing difficult topics. At the same time, the legitimization of such topics in the public sphere, contributes to the ground-based efforts of local organizations that work on those issues.

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However, this kind of social impact is hard to assess. Puntos has no control, and no effective way to measure in quantitative terms, where, how, and who is using its materials. So the process of discourse and message iteration is something that Puntos knows happens at multiple levels, and also it is highly valuable, but it is difficult for Puntos to demonstrate such effects in its reports to funders. Also, while Puntos’ programs have contributed greatly to raising the level of public discourse in Nicaragua, and have generated numerous collective actions on part of Nicaraguan youth, they are not enough. Youth organizations and local media actively seek to be more involved in Puntos’ work and wish to be more intimately in the production of Puntos’ media outlets. They do not wish to be just its users and consumers. The yearning to do more, do it differently, is ever present (D’Angelo, A. and Welsh, P. 2006; and Montoya, O. et al. 2004) Puntos’ current capacities do not allow the organization to be more democratic in the production processes of its programs -the media programs are still being produced by Puntos in the capital city by Puntos’ staff. However, Puntos tries to involve its audiences by conducting forums in various localities, tours of its Sexto Sentido Radio and TV cast to schools and local media outlets, and workshops, public debates, and coordinated activities with local media outlets and through its website. In 2001, the tours made by the cast of Sexto Sentido TV and Radio fed local media stories on important issues for young people like drug abuse, gender-based violence in young couples, migration for work, and HIV/AIDS prevention (Weinberg, 2006, p.9).

Complexity Idea #5. The Whole is Greater than the Sum of the Parts, The Quality of the Relationships is more Critical to the System than the Quality of the Individuals: Puntos’ Alliances for Social Change. In complex adaptive systems, the interacting agents are independent and interdependent at the same time. But when an individual agent in the system changes, the system will change only if the change in the individuals affects the way agents relate to each other. Individual change per se is not enough to change the system. This way the entire system emerges from a dense pattern of interactions that reproduce themselves to create a new order. Wheatley, M. (1999) describes the world as “one divided not into different groups of objects or subjects but into different groups of connections. What is distinguishable and important is the kind of connections.” (p.73) We see this frequently in team sports. “The team with the best individual players can lose to a team of poorer players. The second team cannot rely on one or two stars but instead has to focus on creating outcomes, which are beyond the talents of any one individual. They create outcomes based on the interrelationships between the players. This is not to dismiss individual excellence. It does suggest that individual abilities are not a complete explanation of success or failure. In management terms, it shifts the attention to focus on the patterns of interrelationships and on the context of the issue, individual or group” (Plexus Institute, 1998a, p.7). The conclusion that complexity

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science draws from this is that the quality of the relationships is more important for the evolution of a system than the quality of its elements. Puntos believes that social change results from both individual and collective change. Individual leadership is critical to push change forward, but Puntos also knows that “One robin doesn’t make spring” and social change won’t happen without collective action. So an essential part of Puntos’ mission is to strengthen both individual and collective leadership (especially among women and the youth), and to improve the capacities of organizations to coordinate and implement collective actions by making alliances with each other. In “Starting point: our key concepts,” a document that was put together in 2004 to present Puntos’ conceptual framework to a consortium of grant makers (to fund the second phase of SDSI), it was noted: “The capacity to resist oppression increases when, beside our individual behavior, we join efforts with others who are in the same situation –when women for instance get together to promote laws against gender-based violence. It increases even more when different oppressed groups make alliances with each other – adult women partnering young women to confront adultism, women ally to lesbian and gay groups to defend their sexual rights, African-Caribbean groups ally to indigenous people to combat racisms, and so on. This kind of alliances each group not only fight oppression that affect them directly but also oppressions that affect other groups in a more effective way. These battles get even stronger when we arrive to build alliances between oppressed and dominant groups”. (Puntos de Encuentro, 2004, p.8) In this sense, building and strengthening alliances is a key component of Puntos’ work. Indeed, the strategy Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales (SDSI) could not have been implemented without Puntos’ long history of developing collaborative relationships with partner organizations as well as active involvement in Nicaragua’s women and youth movements. The continual exchange of material and information, the bilateral and multilateral support between Puntos, its allies, and other organizations strengthen the capacity of the social movements to make a deeper analysis of the political and social context, to improve their own performance and outcomes through feedback, to lobby for changes in existing policies and laws, and to implement nationwide campaigns and interventions. For instance, few organizations in Nicaragua can muster the resources and capacity to create their own media outlets, however, mass media are essential to create an enabling environment that supports the organization’s goals. Vanessa Cortez (personal interview, August 29th, 2006), from the Puntos’ radio team states: “It's vital to have mass media initiatives in addition to local ones to provide a kind of legitimation for the local

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initiatives. The more it gets done, the easier it will be for local organizations in small towns and villages to talk about these kinds of things.” The nationwide campaign on raising awareness about Law 230 (the domestic violence law) is a good example of such organizational synergy. During the first season of Sexto Sentido TV, Puntos carried out, in coordination with other organizations, a campaign designed to legitimize the view that violence is not a private issue. Law 230 was approved in 1996 but few Nicaraguan women knew about its existence, or how to apply it. The television program portrayed the story of Elena, a girl dealing with an abusive father, who was trying to help her mother get out of this domestic situation while coping with their social and economical constraints. In addition, special vignettes were produced and aired at the end of Sexto Sentido’s episodes with the actress who portrays Elena talking about the issue, showing the informational pamphlet on Law 230 that had been produced, and telling viewers where they could seek more information and help. The content of the mass distribution pamphlet which included guidance on how to identify a domestic violence situation, what to do and where to go in case of violence, was discussed with participating organizations and printing expenses were shared. Some 50,000 pamphlets were distributed through local organizations in Nicaragua, and the issue was also a central component of Sexto Sentido Radio’ programming during that season. The Law 230 campaign was coordinated with the Women's Network against Violence and 125 service providers all around the country. The national and local media in Nicaragua backed up the efforts by re-broadcasting the radio and television shows and/or publishing articles about the topic (Bank, A. 2003). Such coordination among organizations helps them to make the best of limited resources to put issues of their interest on the public agenda. As Bank (2002) explains, “We’ve invested more than 10 years working with and developing relationships of mutual respect and trust with these organizations – now more than 250 of them. That means that the storylines of the TV, the printed learning materials and the coordinated activities are grounded in local realities and respond to collective interests and priorities. From the local groups' point of view, the materials they receive and get to use as part of their own program –and especially the tours by the TV cast members to local communities to talk about these issues-- give them a value-added boost that they wouldn't otherwise have access to” (p. 3). Also, the interactions and exchanges that occur in the Youth Leadership Camps, social campaigns, and other multilateral efforts, have often blossomed into new alliances for collective actions in Nicaragua and also in the Central American Region. Moreover, explains Evelyn Flores (personal interview, September 5th, 2006), a member of the Puntos team that coordinates alliances with other organizations: “These kinds of alliances help local media and small organizations to gain visibility and credibility, to de-centralize the resources that are usually held in the capital city, and allow them to access new resources and to improve their effectiveness.”

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Building and strengthening alliances is incorporated into all of Puntos’ activities. Members of the Puntos team visit national and regional organizations and media allies to develop linkages, exchange information and experiences, and coordinate efforts and activities. The number and diversity of Puntos’ allies increase the potential for emergent and self-organizing outcomes. The Law 230’s campaign and the radio network are good examples of the outcomes that emerged from such alliance-based relationships. The simple experience of building relationships with other organizations and participating in a growing network is a whole learning process by itself. It is through its relationships that Puntos has been able to improve its practices and –outcomes, and to constantly adapt its strategies in an environment that is dynamic and unpredictable.

Figure 4: Billboard of the "We need to be able to talk" campaign linking the issues of HIV/AIDS, sexual abuse and machismo, as well as linking mass media outlets with local organizations and service providers.

In spite of heartening outcomes, there are still several challenges for Puntos to overcome to create the kind of relationships it aspires to have with its organization partners. It is paradoxical that the resources and expertise that allows Puntos to contribute to building other organizations’ capacities also provides Puntos a great deal of leverage and power over these organizations. Some partner organizations complain that, while Puntos’ work and collaboration initiatives are highly appreciated, they often feel used by Puntos to fulfill its own goals. Some of Puntos’ external evaluators (D’Angelo, A. and Welsh, P. 2006) argue that there are organizations in Nicaragua that perceive Puntos as not having invested enough in developing reciprocal relationships, nor has it systematically worked toward developing

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the leadership capacities of these groups. Some groups feel they do not have “voice and vote” in the planning process of Puntos’ agenda, thus they do not perceive their relationship with Puntos as being an alliance, but more as being its bilateral coordinator. However, these same organizations that complain have their own agenda and expectations, and are more focused on achieving their own goals than investing resources (time and personnel) in building the kind of relationships they claim they desire. Organizations, especially smaller ones and service providers, expect Puntos to play the role of a provider (with materials and training activities), an organizer (of collective actions), and a political leader – that is, more than the role of an equal partner. Karla Bojorge (personal interview, September 5th, 2006) noted: “The main objective is to strength the capacities of organizations – Puntos included – to coordinate collective actions in line with the changes we want to make, but in the process we let ourselves be sidetracked by organizations asking Puntos to responds to their specific needs, to become a ‘provider’ of different kind of resources, and to help them to achieve their own agenda…. so we end by mixing the concept of alliances with simple coordination and links.” When the organizations that Puntos works with subscribe to a linear approach to social change, it becomes hard for Puntos to carry out its vision of strategic alliances and coordination. Also, even those organizations that identify with Puntos’ vision and mission have to often deal with donor-dictated requirements of linear plans, cause-effect indicators, and measurable outcomes. As Irela Solórzano, coordinator of Puntos’ monitoring and evaluation team noted (personal interview, September 6th, 2006), speaking for Puntos, explains, “Many organizations’ mission and work are based on the hegemonic behavioral change model, so even if they like ‘the discourse’, they keep asking us for measurable outcomes [in this sense] …we are also determined by the environment we aim to change. Alliances, as any other of our programs, are permeated by the unique nature and mental model of the organizations we work with.” So, there are many questions for Puntos to address and answer, and it has begun to seriously reflect on them. For instance, how can Puntos promote organizational alliances based on a complexity approach, while being required to plan and predict in advance the development and outcomes of these relationships? How can we influence other organizations to take a more complexity-based approach in their work, especially those whose mission is not to promote social change (i.e. private sector and services providers)? And how can we lead those processes without centralized controlling and directing?

Complexity Idea #6. Planning the Unpredictable: The Challenges of Detailed Planning in a Complex World Every three years, all Puntos employees, from its Board of Directors to receptionists and drivers, come together to think about the next three years of work (previously, this planning was for 5 years, but Puntos realized that reality is much too

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complex to be able to predict for such a long period). In these sessions, we discuss and then, as appropriate, revise our vision and mission, revisit our principles and values, assess our past experiences, and try to make sense of our present context to dream a bit about the society we want, and the kind of contribution we can make to achieve it. At the end of this session (usually longer than a week), we return to our desks full of excitement and energy. That is when the problems begin: We need now to translate those dreams onto log frames, operational plans, activities, outcomes, and indicators. The paradox here is that the collective dream is based on a complexity approach to social change, but the operative planning follows a “complicated” linear, step-by-step approach required by our donors and by the expectations of our collaborating partners. How do we reconcile the messy, unpredictable, and complex notion of social change with a short-term, cause-effect based schemata that can frame results as quantifiable and measurable? Part of this frustrating process is the elaboration of the log frame, a format that asks you to plan your mission and goals in terms of actions, activities, outputs, outcomes, and measurable results. For instance when Puntos plans its youth leadership camps, it has to somehow “translate” its goals of “deconstructing the notion of oppression” and “creating new ways to relate with each other”, “Bringing people to the edge”, “letting new directions emerge”, and others into boxes that describe what and how many activities it will implement, how many participants do we expect to attend, how are we going to reach them, what and how many materials are going to be distributed, how much will it cost, what are the specific outcomes predicted, and how are we going to measure them. Although some planners would argue that a log frame is a guiding tool, not a straight jacket, the way the boxes are organized is linear, connecting each one to the other by arrows that show the cause-effect relationship between one and the next (I will do this>this will happen> these will be the outcomes> and this is how I am going to measure them), forcing one to think in a linear way about one’s “guiding tool”. One can see Newtonian thinking etched on these log frames. But does social reality work out that way? First, not all social processes are linear, meaning that not every action has a direct and single effect. Second, there are many unpredictable events that can influence one’s strategy, and one should be flexible enough to change the strategy. Third, by detailing in advance how one is going to measure the expected outcomes, not only does one assume that those are going to be the exact outcomes and thus, be predisposed to them, but one also focuses one’s attention on measure them only, overlooking other important factors and contextual information. Sara Bradshaw (personal interview, September 4th, 2006), a professor at Middlesex University, U.K. and a long-time collaborator of Puntos, continued this argument by saying “…when academics talk about impact evaluation in traditional terms, we [the academics] assume that we already know what is going to happen and how, so what we need is to demonstrate that we were right in an objective manner, however, what we [Puntos] are interested to know is what actually happened and how.”

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As Vanesa Cortez from the radio team said: “some great ideas have emerged from our ongoing exchange and coordination with other people and organizations…. if we had all that information from the beginning we will be able to include it in our plans, but we can not afford to loose an opportunity [to improve our work] just because we did not plan it that way… and that is what this [social change is] all about anyway” (personal interview August 29th, 2006).

“We keep making the mistake of conferring to much prophetic capacity to the planning process, specially with five-yearslong projects …and we make the same mistake over, and over…” (Flores, E. et al. 2006).

In a world that asks for measurable outcomes, it is easier to go with the flow and not resist the dominant currents. When the measure of success is defined in quantitative terms, what begins to matter more is how much did one do, and not what the quality of the processes and the relationships was. Furthermore, this log frame especially becomes a constraint when the organization’s institutional agenda does not agree with the donors’ agenda. For example, Sara Bradshaw (personal interview, September 4th, 2006) describes, “Puntos gets financial support to introduce the topic of contraceptive use in one of Sexto Sentido’s stories, but the message must be embedded in a wider storyline or else it will be merely a public information broadcast, and the wider storyline gives Puntos the chance to explore other issues that they see to be important – such as abortion”. Satisfying donors then is very much dependent on impact indicators such as increases in numbers going to family planning clinics etc – if these are shown then the project can be said to have been ‘effective’. The irony is that some of Puntos’ donors, not all, are somewhat implicitly supportive of Puntos’ more diffused strategy, but this is a very unique situation that most development organizations do not enjoy. “You don’t have to be ‘sure’ before you proceed with anything” (Plexus, 1998b. p.9) “Predicting is less important than reacting” (Wheatley. 1999, p.38)

At the end of each year, Puntos usually ends up achieving the initial expectations and often finishes the term by adding a number of extra activities and events to its originally-stated plans. While this is usually applauded, Puntos staff members feel exhausted, acutely aware that the problem is not simply the lack of more detailed planning. In other words, planning in more details will not make the challenge easier.

Complexity science recognizes the difficulty to plan everything in detail, especially when working within an unpredictable and constantly changing environment. “You can never know exactly what will happen until you do it. So, allowing the flexibility of multiple approaches is a very reasonable thing to do […] When we do find ourselves in situations far from certainty and agreement, the

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management advice contained in this [complexity] principle is to quit agonizing over it, quit trying to analyze it to certainty. Try several small experiments, reflect carefully on what happens and gradually shift time and attention toward those things that seem to be working the best (that is, let direction arise). These multiple actions at the fringes also serve the purpose of providing us with additional insights about the larger systems within which every system is inevitably buried” (Plexus, 1998b. p.9). This complexity-based approach to planning is especially useful when the organization’s mission is to promote changes in the environment and in the pattern of relationships between agents, rather than producing pre-determined outcomes. Such is also the case when the organization works in a somewhat uncharted territory, that is, where there are no previous experiences that can serve as a reference. This doesn’t mean that social change organizations must not plan; it means they should change the way they plan. As Glouberman, S. and Zimmerman, B. (2002) explain: “Interventions in complex adaptive systems require careful consideration and planning, but of a different kind than in a mechanic systems. It is more important to understand local conditions and be aware of the uncertainty and feedback that accompanies any intervention” (p.12). Complexity science suggests that the best way to plan is by establishing minimum specifications and a general sense of direction, that is, describe the mission the organization is pursuing and a few basic principles on how the organization should get there. The organizational leadership should then allow appropriate autonomy for individuals to self-organize, adapting as time goes by to a continually changing context (Plexus Institute, 1998b, p. 3). In a perfect world, Puntos and its allies (organizations and donors) should get together routinely, with a shared vision about the complex nature of social change, and to agree on the main strategies (or minimum specifications) to achieve common goals. Then let each one trust the process and plan its activities and indicators accordingly. Puntos is still far from realizing that perfect world. In fact, this idea of minimum specifications is frightening. In a world that expects activism rather than reflection, and assured outcomes rather than experiments, it is hard to suggest such an evolving approach. Yet, we do know that planning harder, and in advance, will not do any better. In fact, may do worse.

Measuring Processes: The Challenge of Impact Evaluations Evaluations and impact assessment is also another big challenge for Puntos. Because the evaluation process starts during the planning process, when the teams are establishing the activities, outcomes and indicators, the evaluation methodologies have to respond to those indicators, which makes it difficult to take advantage of opportunities

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and unexpected changes that came along during the process of implementation, letting along other questions and issues not answered by the measurement of success of the predicted specific outcomes. Puntos de Encuentro defines itself as a learning institution and as such, takes monitoring and impact evaluation seriously. It claims that the kind of broad individual and social change the organization aims for involves complex processes over a period of time. Developing methods and indicators that can tap into some of these complexities to better understand how change happens is a challenge. (Bank, 2006, p.1) To explain change associated with entertainment-education initiatives, such as Puntos’, scholars have drawn on traditional behavior change theories from the discipline of psychology and Bandura's (1985) Social Cognitive Theory has been influential as a starting point for those theorizing about the field. However, whereas most studies about the impact of EE interventions show positive results, some scholars question the subjectivity involved in the design of the study and the way results are presented to show an initiative as success (see Yoder, S., Hornik, R. Chirwa B, 1996), while other argue that even though the success of a program can be shown, this success “depends on the extent to which it reinforces existing shared values among the targeted group or community” (Brown, W. J., and Singhal, A. 1999). While such explanations may be adequate for those initiatives that fit neatly the behavioral change models, initiatives like Puntos’ – which seek to promote collective empowerment and complex, long-term changes and are not shy of challenging dominant power relationships or majority viewpoints -- may need further explanations (Bradshaw, S. et al. 2006). In trying to assess the impact of Puntos’ strategy, the challenges have been many. For instance, the impact evaluation of the first phase of SDSI was affected, among other considerations, by financial issues. The survey questionnaire was administered only after the series had gone off air, meaning there was no baseline study for comparison. The survey questionnaire needed to be limited to two pages, which didn’t allow to address many of the topics covered in the series. Further, the questionnaire adopted a rather unusual format -- of the same kind as quizzes found in magazines aimed at teenage girls where questions set up hypothetical situations –“what/how would you do/think/react if…” with multiple choice responses. Such was done to make it suitable for administration to 13 year olds, so that it could engage their interest and raise ‘sensitive’ issues in such a way that would not upset them or their parents. Despite, the limitations of such research methods, they allowed Puntos to explore issues not usually addressed in survey research. As Amy Bank (2002) explains: “the most exciting part has been to inventory and analyze the enormous variety of individual and collective change processes that have been sparked by this project, things that were not included in the original indicators we had developed, and that we definitely want to follow up on, thing that have to do with social cohesion, leadership, and the like” (p.4). Yet such an orientation raised polemic discussions among experts. On one hand, communication experts in the field criticized the methodology and thus the findings in terms of ‘scientific rigor’, but on other hand, development professionals approached the

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findings in a different way, initiating debates around what the outcomes actually meant, what were the deeper issues, and the like. Internal discussions, and qualitative research techniques have also helped Puntos in its quest to understand the processes that result in the outcomes reported. “The 2001 findings suggest that Sexto Sentido as a change agent in and of itself might not be as complete a behavior change ‘success’ compared to the successes claimed by other soap opera initiatives. When considered as part of the wider multi-component strategy a cumulative impact is apparent, and the importance of working at different levels is clear […] The ‘chain reaction’ an initiative like Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales may set up in organisations working with young people is not easy to quantify nor is the relative importance and ‘dialectical’ nature of the relationship between the collective and the individual easy to determine” (Bradshaw et al. 2006, p.22). In summary the first assessment experience of Sexto Sentido was extremely useful for Puntos to design the second phase of SDSI. For instance, the story about sexual abuse emerged as a result of this evaluation. However, this experience increased the pressure on Puntos to conform to international standards of indicators and measurement in order to be able to participate in global forums. It also meant Puntos to spend its energy trying to address the methodological concerns raised during evaluation processes. The quantitative component of the evaluation of the second phase of Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales was led by experts in research methods and conformed to international standards. This quantitative evaluation was complemented with qualitative methods that included data gathering from television viewers, radio listeners, and the local organizations that Puntos works with. This second phase assessment will provide Puntos the chance to discuss the outcomes of the initiative with greater authority. Puntos wants to position its work as being different from those that follow linear and staged models of behavioural change as also the participatory model of evaluation promoted by the Communication for Social Change Consortium (Parks, W. et al. 2005). While both provide valuable insights, neither alone is enough to explain the kind of changes that Puntos is promoting. “The former do not allow us to asses changes beyond the individual, that is, the changes in the environment; and the latter has the constraint of being applicable only to the local level, and our work cannot be delimited local boundaries [places and communities]. We need to build a paradigm that rather than reject one of the approaches, integrates both in a complementary and interdependent manner” (Irela Solórzano, personal interview September 6th, 2006). But this is easier said than done. Puntos is still struggling with the challenge of developing more wholesome indicators and to more fully integrate the complementary qualitative components into its outcome analysis. Irela Solórzano (personal interview, September 6th, 2006) states: “We need to gain external legitimation for our work, but we

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also wanted to have an opinion and to participate in the design [of the evaluation] to guarantee that it will be coherent with our vision and mission. The problem is we still haven’t developed enough theoretical and methodological frameworks that allow us to offer effective alternatives. We need new indicators, but they can only be validated during the implementation and that affects the evaluation because it cannot be planned in detail at the beginning of the project.” Puntos needs to invest more in developing its theoretical and methodological capabilities to be able to make sounder project proposals. Having a complexity-based approach to social change is not enough; Puntos needs to be able to operationalize that vision and implement it. But Puntos cannot broach a new paradigm in isolation. It is a complex issue, and it should be addressed collectively as such. In this sense, a supportive social, political, and economic environment is needed. An environment that encourages alternative thinking, construction of complexity-based indicators, and evaluation methodologies that can test new theoretical propositions that explain rather than justify, understand rather than measure social change processes. V. DISCUSSION AND FINAL THOUGHTS The present study aspired to forge a theoretical framework to understand Puntos’ strategies for social change by drawing upon concepts of the new science of complexity. This exploratory analysis suggests that Puntos has inadvertently engaged with the ideas of complexity science to promote change in what it sees to be a complex world. How does Puntos’ engagement with complexity science manifest itself? First, by highlighting the fact that personal issues are political and vice versa, Puntos draws attention to the patterns of oppression and discrimination in Nicaraguan society, while acknowledging the interdependency between actors and environmental factors in the social change process. Not only is its communication strategy designed to enhance the synergy between its different communication and training components, but it is also geared to reinforce the autonomy and the power of change vested in individuals while promoting alliances and cooperation at the collective level. Puntos’ promotion of alliances and collaborations as a key element of its strategy responds to the notion that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Puntos’ purpose is not to compete with organizations working for similar purposes but to complement their efforts with its own strengths and abilities, even if it makes it harder to later isolate its work for impact evaluation purposes. Second, Puntos honors its vision and mission by promoting decentralized control and valuing diversity that allows for greater levels of creativity and flexibility to learn from experiences, take advantage of opportunities, and to adapt oneself to a continuously changing and unpredictable environment.

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Third, Puntos, as a mindset, trusts people and their capacity for change. It trusts the capacity of local organizations and communities to understand and find solutions to their problems by themselves, rather than having external experts come in with formulaic solutions. In this sense, Puntos also believes that social change is a long-term, nonlinear process where there is always room and need for many projects (for example, given the enormity of the problem there is room for more than one campaign against domestic violence), in a way so as to not be in competition with others but to complement others’ efforts. However, in spite of its strong beliefs, and concomitant efforts, Puntos faces obstacles and challenges to operationalize this complexity-based approach to its work and relationships. First, while as a collective Puntos can embrace a complexity-based approach to addressing problems of social change, the individuals working at Puntos are still permeated by the positivist paradigm with which they grew up and deal with outside the organization. This could perhaps partially explain why Puntos as a collective can dream about social change in complex terms, and then as individuals we plan our work in terms of activities and results. Second, while Puntos is planning its strategies in accordance with its notion of complex processes, most of its counterparts (organizations and individuals with which it establish partnerships) do not necessarily follow the same line of thinking and may believe in cause-effect strategies, measurable results, and different follow up activities to achieve their own agenda and expectations. “Many organizations that Puntos works with do not share the same values, mission, vision, and goals of Puntos. We have conceptual differences that shape our plans, organizational language, and strategic thinking” (Ana Criquillion, personal interview, October 6th, 2006) Third, Puntos’ sustainability still depends on development agencies’ approval of funds to implement its projects. Most of these grant makers, driven by modernization theories and positivist methods, keep requesting Puntos to justify, plan and evaluate its communication for social change strategies based on indicators and methods that have been legitimized as standards criteria of “success”, but which are not enough to respond to the vision and questions related to social change as argued by Puntos. This lack of agreement about the definition of ‘social change’, what constitutes ‘good change’, and how to promote and measure it, leads Puntos and its supporters (grant makers) to see the world from different paradigms. Donors ask Puntos to achieve macro changes with a micro investment, to achieve sustainable measurable outcomes (mostly related to behavioral change) in a short period of time, and to include in their plans possible risks and “unexpected” changes in their interventions and results. But Puntos conceptualizes “change” at multiple levels, over a long period of time, and its goal is to promote changes in the social and cultural context rather than just in individuals.

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Fourth, an indicator driven context for outcomes poses particular challenges for communication strategies such as Somos Diferentes, Somos Iguales. “As much as success stories may attract new converts to social communication strategies, the pressure to ‘succeed’ in traditional terms may also prevent innovation within the field, not only in terms of project design and implementation, but also in terms of evaluation. Those who do not conform to the standard evaluation framework, as was the case with the first series of Sexto Sentido, may be penalised in that their findings may be questioned in some quarter” (Bradshaw et al. 2006, p.24). In other words, indicators of change in attitudes and behaviors are not enough. There is an urge to develop and legitimate new methodologies and indicators that could capture the complexity of social change processes: How does one “measure” processes? How to measure a “supporting environment”? Or how to measure “empowerment?” or furthermore, when to measure empowerment? When, for instance, is a process of “youth empowerment” completed and ready to be measured? Needed are evaluations that explore the processes that lead to outcomes rather than only focus on demonstrating those outcomes. Certain social change initiatives are purposely promoting participatory communication for social change that involves the development of indicators that measure not only outcomes but also processes. The Rockefeller Foundation, John Hopkins University, UNICEF, and the Communication for Social Change Consortium have advocated participatory monitoring and evaluation in an attempt to bring attention to alternatives methods and indicators to evaluate development initiatives, especially those with a communication component (Parks, W. et al, 2005; and Figueroa, M. E. et al. 2002, Singhal, A. 2001). These organizations argue that practitioners should develop questions, measures, and methods ‘with’ those most affected and involved rather than apply predetermined objectives, indicators and techniques to measure impacts ‘on’ those most affected and involved. Some alternative indicators to measure processes and other intangible outcomes have also been proposed. While such initiatives are getting more attention from practitioners and scholars, but there is still a long way to go with grant makers to have them accept alternatives methodologies, indicators and data gathering processes as valid and legitimate. Puntos agrees with these participatory initiatives about the need to understand not only how many or how much, but also the “hows” and “whys” of social change. The same way, “Puntos’ experience highlights the need to think further about what successful change looks like; both in terms of what is seen to be a ‘success’ and what is considered to be ‘good’ change” (Bradshaw et al. 2006, p.25). However, participatory methods are more useful to employ in interventions that can be easily localized (in a community, a territory, or a group), and also in situations that those affected and involved in the process of change can be reached and be encouraged to participate in the planning, monitoring and evaluation of the project. Such is not the case with most large-scale interventions, including Puntos’ initiatives, where the boundaries are difficult to localize and where multiple media and partnerships make the assessment of the intervention even more challenging.

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In the process of answering the main research questions of this paper, new questions were raised: How does Puntos’ view of society and social change affects the patterns of relationship of individuals, organizations and communities with which Puntos interacts? How are complexity approaches affecting (or could affect) the way donors and development organizations plan their strategies and evaluate their impact? How can we facilitate, rather than control, the conditions to promote emergence and self-organizing processes, and what role should Puntos and other organizations play in this process? Where are traditional evaluation approaches and methodologies more appropriate, and where and how do complexity approaches add more value to innovate new strategies and research methods? And finally, how can we improve our planning processes and methods if everything is context related and everything is changing, including us? These are some of the questions that are not answered by this paper but worthy to explore in further studies. These questions, however, are not new. Indeed, some of the 'answers' proposed by complexity science are not new. But as some complexity theorists state, “in many contexts, these 'answers' were not explainable by theory. They were the intuitive responses that were known by many but appeared illogical or at least idiosyncratic when viewed through out traditional scientific theories. Complexity science provides the language, the metaphors, the conceptual frameworks, the models and the theories which help make the idiosyncrasies non-idiosyncratic and the illogical logical. It also provides a rigorous approach to study some of the key dimensions of organizational life” (Plexus Institute. 1998a, p.4). In this sense, Puntos’ experience is a useful case to draw new information about how social change happens and to create new methodologies to plan and assess the impact of such interventions. This, together with traditional interventions and strategies could provide us a better understand of societies, interventions, and processes of change. There is still much more to learn from, and understand about, complex adaptive systems and complexity science, as well as much more to understand about social change. Complexity science is still in development. Debates about complexity-based indicators and research and evaluation methods are strongly needed in order to be able to provide with better contributions to communication for social change strategies and interventions. However, complexity science applied to social change strategies (such as Puntos’) can open our mind, and help us to look for different ways to do things; to ask different questions; to get different answers; to try different strategies; and to better understand what does work and what doesn’t in each context, but most important, how and why social change happens.

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Personal Interviews: Bank, Amy. (2006). Personal interview. Puntos de Encuentro’s Executive director and Executive Producer of Sexto Sentido TV. Puntos de Encuentro, Managua, October, 2006. Bradshaw, Sara. (2006). Personal interview. Professor at Middlesex University, UK and Puntos’ collaborator. Puntos de Encuentro, Managua, Nicaragua. September 4th, 2006. Cortez, Vanessa and Jirón, Hazel. (2006). Personal interview. Sexto Sentido Radio’s team. Puntos de Encuentro. Managua. August 29th, 2006. Criquillion, Ana. (2006). Personal interview. Puntos de Encuentro’ founder. Puntos de Encuentro. October 6th, 2006. Flores, Evelyn; Reyes, Rubén; Bojorge, Karla; and Vega, Sheyla. (2006) Personal interview. Leadership, Alliances and Coordinations’ team. Puntos de Encuentro. Managua. September 5th, 2006. Juarez, Marta. (2006) Personal interview. La Boletina’s team. Puntos de Encuentro. Managua. August, 29 2006. Solórzano, Irela. (2006) Personal interview. Monitoring and Evaluation’s team. Puntos de Encuentro. Managua. September 6, 2006.

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