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ROAD JOURNEYS
Linda Mayoux, Draft 2005
WHAT ARE THEY?

Road journey diagrams chart a journey from point A to point B, generally over time. They show the
starting point, ultimate aims, ups and downs of the journey and opportunities and obstacles along the
way.

Enterprise Road Journey,

Green Home, Uganda

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Group Road
Journey, KRC,
Uganda

TYPES OF ROAD JOURNEY

Road journeys may be of many different types including, but by no means only:
Journey to the future:
Charts the ultimate goal of a group, identifies the steps along the way and whether or not the journey
is expected to be easy and straight upwards, or up and down.
Road from the past:
Charts the history of a group from its origin, showing the different achievements and steps or
interventions which have helped or hindered them.
Empowerment journey:
Charts the ultimate goal of an individual in relation to empowerment showing different stages which
that person expects to go through.

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WHAT ARE THEY USED FOR?

Road journey diagrams are useful for:

Raising awareness
Road journey diagrams are often used in awareness-raising. They clarify a group or individuals aims
and how original aims relate to what actually happened and why. Road maps are very attractive
pictures to have on walls of meeting buildings to keep groups focused on their aims and objectives.
Gathering information
Road journey diagrams are good for bringing together information at individual or community level
about peoples perceptions or actual experience of change and development interventions.
Advocacy and lobbying
For lobbying and advocacy at local or national levels different road journeys can be qualitatively and
quantitatively analysed for an overview analysis containing eg numbers of successes and failures with
one or two very well developed graphic case studies.
Monitoring, evaluation or impact assessment
Here the forward-looking journeys can be used as strategic plans against which actual changes are
assessed at a future date. Backward-looking diagrams can see what people think they have achieved
and used as a basis for further investigation.
Taking field notes
Journey diagrams are a useful means of taking clear field notes on a group or individuals history.

HOW TO DO IT

STEP 1: What is the starting point for the journey and what direction is it in?
Choose an appropriate starting point at the beginning, middle or end of the journey and start to
draw the road. Is it straight diagonally upwards, does it go down? Does it have ups and downs?

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STEP 2: What are the key events, opportunities and constraints

Put buildings, bridges or other symbols to mark key events, achievements, support received,
problems or shocks.

STEP 3: What are the significant dates and quantitative details along the way
For example, mark dates of key events or support, numbers of people who are members or joined,
attended training etc.

STEP 4: Are there any differences between people, or other qualitative information?
For example, note any gender differences or different experience of the most disadvantaged
members. Mark these by showing eg men and women in different colours, old widows with a stick
etc. Were any cows sickly, crossbreed etc?

STEP 5: What are the key conclusions?

Does the group feel it has succeeded in its objectives? have they now changed? What have been
the main achievements? What have been the main challenges? These should be marked in a
corner of the chart or a separate sheet.

STEP 6: What are the main implications for the future?

Following from the key conclusions discuss implications for the future eg in the light of experience
were the original objectives these too ambitious? or too limited? What changes might be needed
in membership requirements? In activities? To increase gender balance and social inclusion?
These should also be marked in a corner of the chart or a separate sheet.

Use symbols as well as words and make a key which is understandable to all.
Throughout the process observe levels of participation of different people and feed this back to the
group.

GOING DEEPER: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Once the map is drafted, or during Step 4, go into further depth relating to each key building, bridge or
symbol. Write detailed notes on a separate sheet of paper on:

STEP 7: What happened exactly?

E.g. details of trainings, for those trained how many actually used the training?

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STEP 8: Why did things happen?

E.g. why did particular opportunities or constraints occur, go into more detail about reasons for
gender differences or different experiences of very poor people.

STEP 9: Are the proposed solutions realistic?

Why did these things not happen before? What are potential constraints? Are they gender
sensitive? Do they increase social inclusion?

Discuss with participants how the detailed written notes can best be presented in a form accessible to
illiterate members of the group.

ADDING IMPACT: QUANTIFICATION

For quantification of individual or group level data

Check and get more details of any numerical information eg numbers of trainees, amount of land
purchased, numbers and amounts of loans. This can usefully be done as part of Step 3.

For overview information on many groups

In order to translate the diverse pictorial diagrams into standardised statistical information: devise a
standard checklist of questions and criteria. Then code the pictorial information on this e.g. what were the
actual aims of the group? Was the group very successful in relation to its aims, average or poor? Was the
training successful not only in terms of numbers of trainees, but numbers of people using training? This
can usefully be done as part of Step 6.

COMBINING DIAGRAMS

Road journeys are very useful initial diagrams to use to get to know a group. They can be used on their
own as an appraisal tool or for monitoring and evaluation.

When used for more in-depth analysis it is useful to combine them with:

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Diamonds
Diamond can be used to get a more detailed understanding of different interest groups and potential
conflicts of interest and to crosscheck how representative the group is of the community as a whole.
Social maps
Social maps can be used to crosscheck or go into more detail about the quantitative information eg
how many people and who took credit or training, how representative are they of the community as a
whole.
Trees
Trees can be used to look in more detail at the key challenges or issues identified, their different
causes and potential solutions.

GENERAL POINTS FOR CONSIDERATION

In general they point to a number of important points for consideration:

In what direction should the map be drawn?
Is it always from one corner to another? It may be necessary at some stage to redraw the map if ideas
change during the discussion.
It is always important to include a key.
Otherwise it is difficult to interpret diagrams again at a later date, or for people who were not present.
It is generally useful to differentiate between external and internal events
External events can be drawn as buildings on the outside of the road lines, internal developments e.g.
increases in number of members or livestock drawn between the two road lines.
It is important mere recording of events to look at impact and wider effects
Go beyond merely recording increases in numbers of livestock or changes in activities to think of
benefits gained by members and the wider effects. These could be shown as offshoot roads.

Road Journey is one tool out of a number of PALS (Participation Action Learning) and GALS (Gender
Action Learning) tools. More about PALS and GALS can be found under
http://www.wemanresources.info/Page2_GenderActionLearning/21_RockyRoad.html
and
http://www.wemanresources.info/Page2_GenderActionLearning/21_RockyRoad.html