How to challenge the world of impact measurement
[Music]
[Music]
the first woman with her own character
in the fifa 20
str sports street legends team and
i don’t know do you know how many people
play this game fifa
it’s crazy it’s over 10 million people
all over the world it’s one of the most
popular games out there
i didn’t know that i don’t even have a
playstation
and i definitely never expected
this to happen so let’s talk about
expectations
wait um you probably expect me to do a
football trick
right because you know i don’t want to
disappoint you so okay let’s just get it
over with
let’s meet those expectations and
done growing up
as a girl society expected me
to do girl things and that’s definitely
not
playing football i was ridiculed for
playing football
people were trying to figure out if i
was a boy or a girl
and that had a huge impact on my
self-image
expectations can be destructive and
definitive because if i don’t live up to
their expectations of me they write me
off
but it also works the other way around
because
if you don’t live up to my expectations
i’m not very open to connect with you i
think we all know
how this works like i said
expectations can be destructive and
definitive
and to me it felt like a bar was set for
me
i either accepted it or i don’t
but what happens if you change the bar
and what happens if you answer
expectations
by creating new ones
that’s what happened and that’s what i
discovered
and that’s also the foundation of my
organization
favela street i
expected to play football for the rest
of my life
but that all changed after just one
tackle
my career ended at least that’s what i
thought
because i knew how i could use football
to connect with people and i knew how i
could use that magic
to connect with people who otherwise are
disconnected
from society and this is the foundation
on which the programs of
feather streets are built the young
participants
are often written off by society
no proper education no opportunities to
excel and so on
and we help them reconnect with
themselves and society
and through the process that we take
them on
they detach themselves from the negative
expectations that society projects on
them
they discover that they can be somebody
and it all starts with play
getting to know each other and playing
football together
and learning how to be a team and after
we establish
this safe environment where the
participants feel
comfortable we focus on create they
learn how to organize football
activities in their
in their communities and we talk goals
and dreams
and they create their story through
storytelling and last but not least
we celebrate and we connect because it’s
important to share
and celebrate your successes and
especially for these young people
and we connect them to people and
organizations to
build their network and to create a
sustainable connection
and this whole approach is based on the
belief
that one individual can impact an entire
community
these young people can turn expectations
around
and it works like a ripple effect so i
said
one individual can impact an entire
community
we have many individuals in our program
so let me tell you
about stephanie stephanie from curacao
before i met her i already heard people
talking about her
from the outside she was seen as
dangerous and
negative and when i met her she told me
that from the inside she wasn’t happy
she said that she was too lazy and that
she was lacking discipline
and she joined our program without very
many expectations of herself
and through the program she learned more
about herself in a different way
she learned about her value as a team
player
she learned about what she really wanted
to achieve in life
and she learned how to go beyond her
expectations and the expectations that
were set for her
her set of expectations shifted
and by shifting those expectations
her behavior changed and
by that she was empowered and it gave
her the freedom
to create new expectations for herself
and for others for the people around her
because at first
people didn’t want to talk to her they’d
rather avoid her
but now now she’s a sports teacher at a
school
and that was one of her dreams and the
funny thing is that the teachers at that
school come to her to ask her for advice
and to help them
with the children who don’t want to
listen to them because the children do
listen to
stephanie we all know
a stephanie we think we know someone
and we don’t we judge people without
even knowing them
but look what happens if you have the
courage to go beyond your expectations
stephanie is one success story but we
have many
and there are similar programs like
favela street
because it works and it’s so rewarding
to see
individuals thrive and affect their
community
in a positive way and as an ngo
in order to survive i’m subjected to
impact measurements
and this is not something we only see in
the ngo world
this is something that people from the
corporate world education
anywhere can recognize
it’s all about numbers and statistics
and upscaling is the magic word which is
understandable because you want to
increase your impact
and that made me think do i have to
shorten the time of my program so i can
do more programs
do i need more participants so i can
reach more people
but that just didn’t seem right to me
because it takes time
to make a real connection with people
and it takes time to create a cultural
shift
and it definitely takes time to change
expectations
so why not measure
the real change that people make why not
measure the personal growth of the
participant of the people
and the effect of that growth on the
people around them
can we shift the bar within impact
measurement
from a quantitative approach with focus
on scale and numbers
to a more qualitative approach with
focus on measuring
the sustainable change and that’s what
we’ve done
together with researcher laura juncker
specialized in self-regulation and
sports psychology
we created an innovative impact
measurement tool and this tool
measures the personal growth of our
participants
and the effect of that growth on the
people around them
the so-called ripple effect and at the
same time this tool provides our
participants
insights into their process of growth
they can see and feel that they’re
making steps forward
it’s designed to increase the motivation
and self-image of the participant
this should be new criteria with an
impact measurement
this should be the new bar if you’d ask
me
it could influence governing bodies
policies and so on
and you know the funny thing is that i
just said like
one individual one individual can impact
an entire community
then i think one ngo can impact and
change the world
and i’m now representing an innovative
way of
thinking within this world of impact
measurement
never expected that to happen and
answering expectations by creating new
ones
it isn’t easy you want to know what’s
easy to me
football but yeah you already knew that
and you already expected that for me
challenging expectations it’s a
difficult process
and i’m still learning and i still catch
myself sometimes having expectations
about others about myself
limiting myself it isn’t easy yet
it takes practice just like football
give yourself the time and space to
practice
and to always expect the unexpected