Image source: Tufan Chakma

A Practical Guide for Community-Led Research and Social Change

The Feminist Participatory Action Research (FPAR) Toolkit is rooted in a methodology that challenges traditional, top-down research approaches by centering on community voices, especially those of women, and emphasizing collective action. FPAR is grounded in values such as inclusion, power analysis, intersectionality, community/women-led research, action orientation, and a strong commitment to ethics and safety throughout the process. The toolkit was developed to support women-led groups, researchers, facilitators, and grassroots activists in applying FPAR principles to their work, whether for research, community engagement, or advocacy.

Co-creation and Development Process

This toolkit was created through a collective process, drawing on diverse regional experiences and expertise, and community contributions through this co-creation journey ensure the toolkit remains contextualized, accessible, relevant, and user-friendly.

It integrates:

• Input from FPAR experts and practitioners across the Mekong region,
• Feedback from pilot workshops conducted with women’s groups, facilitators, activists, and researchers,
• Reflections from lived experience and practice in community based work.

This toolkit was adapted based on the feedback from the regional inputs and pilot insights to suit different contexts and user groups.

The structure:

• FPAR Foundations – includes key concepts and principles to get you started along with ethical considerations why FPAR is a great advocacy tool.
• Designing Research – delve into the design of your research by identifying issues, set questions and create a problem tree analysis to explore your area of interests.
• Participatory Methods – a step-by-step guides of the FPAR tools (mapping, storytelling, FGDs, etc.).
• Data collection and analysis – enables you to get started with skills to prepare your research through, note-taking, coding, ranking and collective analysis practice.
• Reporting and Storytelling – now that you have completed the research this section provides ideas for formats, framing, writing guides and templates for you to start preparing your story or report for publication and dissemination.

Who is this toolkit for?

This toolkit is designed for a diversity of women leaders, grassroots activists and community facilitators who are leading community change alongside marginalized groups. However the approaches can also be useful for seasoned researchers and practitioners committed to participatory approaches that are inclusive and drive ownership of stories that are generated.

If you are a member of a women’s networks or organization that supports gender equality, research and storytelling, then the structure of the toolkit also provides the basis to provide trainer-of-trainer (ToT) sessions so that you can build capacity across the network. Civil society organizations engaged in advocacy for social and environmental justice are also ideal users of this toolkit as many of the participants who co-created this are facing these challenges currently across the region.