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EXPERIENCES
1. Interactive Games Project - Bangkok, Thailand
A mass media project that uses a web-based interactive computer game to promote adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) among young people in Bangkok, Thailand. The game is intended to entertain 13- to 15-year-olds while it educates them. A game design expert from Microsoft Games visited Bangkok to provide training workshops and brainstorming sessions. The government is supporting the effort by following through on its commitment to provide computers to all schools around the country, including rural sites, and to provide Internet hookups.
Contact Ken Kutsch kenkutsch@hotmail.com
2. The Caribbean Disaster Information Network (CARDIN) - Caribbean
A network of institutions across the Caribbean whose purpose is to strengthen the capacity of the Caribbean community to collect, archive, and disseminate data related to disaster preparedness planning. Based in the library system of the University of the West Indies, the programme was initiated in an effort to create a sub-regional centre for disaster-related information. By working to develop a comprehensive database in English, French, Spanish, and Dutch, CARDIN hopes to improve access on the part of the following groups to disaster-related information: government agencies, statisticians, policy makers, researchers, the general public, and students.
Contact Beverly Lashley cardin@uwimona.edu.jm
3. Animating Democracy Initiative (ADI) - United States
Launched in 1999, The Animating Democracy Initiative (ADI) is a 4-year initiative of the nonprofit Americans for the Arts. Its purpose is to foster artistic activity that encourages civic dialogue on contemporary issues in the United States. Through the Animating Democracy Lab, ADI is working to strengthen a set of 32 arts-based civic dialogue projects. The ADI website and searchable database centralises information about arts-based civic dialogue. These tools are designed to facilitate the exchange of information and ideas - through discussion forums and a "share your story" page - as well as ongoing field discourse regarding arts-based civic dialogue. Face-to-face gatherings enable the sharing of information and lessons learned. The final meeting, National Exchange on Art & Civic Dialogue, was held Oct 9-12, 2003 in Flint, Michigan. The intent of this conference was to look forward as well as back at the work of the last 4 years.
Contact Barbara Schaffer Bacon bsbacon@artsusa.org OR Pam Korza pkorza@artsusa.org
4. Educational HIV/AIDS Campaign - Africa & the Carribean
This 6-month public education radio campaign was launched in Nov 2003 by the BBC World Service Trust, in partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Viacom Inc. It features 60-second public service announcements (PSAs); programmes and services are available rights-free to other broadcasters. The campaign incorporates 3 waves of spots, each lasting 2 months, with a break of 2 months between each wave. Specifically, 60-second educational radio spots are broadcast 3 times per day at peak listening hours. The spots carry messages about HIV/AIDS, tailored to suit individual languages and countries to which they are broadcast. A 5-minute special call-in segment is also being produced as part of the weekly English-language programme "Postmark Africa."
Contact Ben Williams ben.williams@bbc.co.uk
5. Postal Sticker Campaign - Nepal
An HIV-prevention campaign that places a sticker bearing the message "Protect yourself and others from HIV/AIDS" on every single piece of mail entering and leaving the country. Population Services International (PSI)/Nepal has printed 6 million stickers in an effort to reach rural and remote places of Nepal where people do not have access to televisions, newspapers, and radios, and where HIV prevalence is often higher than in urban areas. The black stickers have the Number One logo - PSI has been making and distributing this brand of condoms in Nepal since 2003 - and the message "Protect yourself and others from HIV/AIDS."
Contact Steven Honeyman steven@psi.org.np
6. Tingog sa Kabataan - Barangay Lahug, Cebu City, Philippines
Translated as "Voice of the Children," this 30-minute radio programme airs every Sunday on a local AM band radio station. First broadcast in 1999, the show is produced by 18 youth between the ages of 9 and 21, some of whom have at one time been victims of various kinds of abuse. The primary goal of the radio programme is to enable marginalised children to talk about and advocate for change related to issues affecting them - especially rights-related issues. The young people who produce the show meet each month to decide which topics and themes will be at the forefront that particular month. They have featured issues like child labour, juvenile justice, commercial sexual exploitation of children, and education, among others.
Contact Atty Anjanette T. Saguisag ecpatcbu@info.com.ph
7. Small Business Training Project - South Africa & Zimbabwe
Media for Development (formerly Radio for Development) launched the Small Business Training Project to address the need for basic entrepreneurship and small business training among low-literacy rural women in South Africa and Zimbabwe. The project had 3 components: an educational radio series, an Outreach Programme using community theatre, and the production of Multi-Media Resource Kits (based on the radio series). The radio series, broadcast in Shona and Ndebele in Zimbabwe and Zulu in South Africa, consisted of 12 episodes, each lasting 15 minutes. Following the radio series, the theatre groups featured in the soap opera of the radio programmes toured rural areas in the 2 countries involved. The Multi-Media Resource Kits were put together for future use by a trainer.
Contact bres@mediafordevelopment.org.uk
8. Afghan Humanitarian Reporting & Journalists' Training Project - Afghanistan
This programme supports the recovery of the Afghan media by training journalists, syndicating articles on humanitarian recovery and democratisation to the local press, and supporting joint research and other projects with regional publications and training institutions. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) places international trainers in Kabul to provide intensive, practical training. Stories written by trainees are published in the Afghan Recovery Report (ARR), which appears each week on IWPR's website in English, Dari, and Pashto. This bulletin is also distributed free of charge by email. This international platform reflects a strategy of enabling local opinions on the recovery process to reach and, possibly, influence international decision-makers.
Contact Lisa Schnellinger iwprkabul@hotmail.com
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Faith-based Community Outreach on Immunisation
UNICEF and the Communication for Social Change Consortium will be collaborating on a forum bringing together communication experts, public health leaders and community-based religious organisations to talk about effective ways that religious groups can help ensure healthier communities through immunisation outreach.
Are you a faith-based organisation that works on public health projects in communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe or the South Pacific? If so, please share what you are doing, and how you use communication and public dialogue to effect change in public and private attitudes about immunisation. Especially interested in hearing narrative accounts on ways that religious groups have helped minimise harmful rumors and stigma about vaccines.
Deadline March 31, 2004.
For details see the Communication for Social Change Consortium site or contact info@communicationforsocialchange.org
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STRATEGIC THINKING
9. Empowerment through the Internet: Opportunities & Challenges for Indigenous Peoples
by Bjorn-Soren Gigler
Provides an overview of internet use by indigenous peoples and offers policy recommendations on how these groups can benefit from the new information economy while maintaining their cultural values and identities. Several case studies are offered.
10. A Frati Dialogue on Media & Social Change
by James Deane
In a paper delivered at the Bellagio Symposium on Media, Freedom and Poverty, James Deane emphasises the important role of media in society stating that issues of hunger, development and poverty are closely intertwined with issues of media freedom.
11. Singapore Blazes Trail in Anti-Smoking Drive
by Marwaan Macan-Markar
According to this article, by Aug 2004, Singapore will be the first country in Asia to show graphic pictures that warn smokers about the health risks they are taking. The new law requires that cigarette packets will have to have up to 50 percent of its front and back cover showing any one of six pictures that the Singapore Government has chosen to appear on a rotational basis.
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4th World Summit on Media for Children & Adolescents preparatory e-discussions
a 4-week dialogue from March 15 - April 9, 2004.
Discussion will focus on the 4 themes of the Rio Summit: One World, Many Voices; Media: Market, Audience & Values; Challenges to Quality, Alliances for Quality; and, Commitments to the Present & Future. Moderated by an adolescent Summit delegate and a UNICEF facilitator and held in English, French, Spanish and Russian.
Click here for more information
The discussions are available and archived:
English
Russian
Spanish
French
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MATERIALS
12. Protecting Women & Children: A Handbook on Community-Based Response to Violence
by Maria Leny E. Felix & Regina Dela Paz-Ingente
This book is an attempt to highlight concrete practices or responses to violence against women and children (VAWC), build on previous or existing initiatives of advocates, as well as share the authors' insights and experiences. Grounded in experiences and settings in the Philippines, the framework, model and lessons may have significant relevance for other regions.
13. Hearts N' Parks Community Mobilisation Guide
This community mobilisation guide is designed to help local community, park, and recreation agencies promote heart-healthy lifestyles and changes such as increased physical activity and heart-healthy eating among children and adults. The guide provides tools for implementing a Hearts N' Parks programme including background information and materials, techniques for creating and delivering heart-healthy activities to participants, tools and strategies for reaching targeted groups, forming partnerships, and working with the media, as well as assessment tools to measure programme performance.
14. Information Feudalism: Who Owns the Knowledge Economy?
by Peter Drahos & John Braithwaite
This book covers the evolution of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the charter that governs intellectual property disputes across the world. It uses interviews with key players to show how transformations in information ownership have taken place. It also describes the story of how a small group of multinational corporations "wrote the charter for a new global information order."
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SURVEY - HIV/AIDS Conferences
The Synergy Project, in conjunction with the International AIDS Society, is conducting an informal survey to gather information to enhance coordination and collaboration across regional HIV/AIDS conferences. Goals are to promote information-sharing, suggest cost-control measures, and avoid loss and duplication of work by documenting best practices and facilitating transfer of information among conference organisers.
Deadline: March 30 2004.
Survey is available in:
English
Español
Francias
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PULSE POLL
International Days are not useful in developing countries.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat 238]
Do you agree or disagree?
VOTE & Comment - click here!
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Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann
dheimann@comminit.com
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