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Teen Talk - Dominica

Country

Dominica

Regions

Global, Caribbean

Programme Summary

The ten-part radio series Teen Talk was produced and presented by young people as part of a pilot youth advocacy project focussing on reproductive health issues. Broadcast in Dominica, the purpose of the series was to provide accurate health information while also encouraging young people to take responsibility for their health needs and to demand youth-friendly health services from providers. Radio for Development (RfD)'s goal in organising the advocacy campaign was to educate 38,000 young people, thereby contributing to the reduction of sexually transmitted and other disease infection, and to the reduction of maternal death rate and infant ill-health due to unplanned or unwanted teenage pregnancy.

Communication Strategies

Young participants in the advocacy project worked with health professionals, health educators, and media specialists to design Teen Talk. The programme format was determined by youth working in groups that were formed through a series of participatory workshops held in Dominica in October, 2000. This methodology was designed to help maximise the appeal of the radio series to a broad range of young people in Dominica, including poorer and illiterate sections of the youth community who could not be reached through schools and who were often excluded from formal health education interventions. In addition, the project's design was intended to help young people secure future employment by equipping them with the skills needed to be creative and to explore issues from their own perspective.

Specific topics addressed in the radio series included sexual health, hygiene, and disease avoidance issues, as well as more general issues relating to teenage sexuality and lifestyle.

To supplement the series, Multi-Media Resource Kits were developed. These kits included copies of the radio programmes on audio cassette supplemented by written materials for the use by a youth facilitator within a workshop environment.

Development Issues

Youth, Health, Family Planning.

Key Points

An outgrowth of the youth advocacy project is the RfD/International Planned Parenthood Inter Regional Learning Initiative, which will link young people in the Caribbean with their peers in island states in other parts of the world. The purpose of this four-year programme is to increase young people's access to both radio and television, as well as to provide peer educators with contemporary and culturally sensitive resources for teaching life skills and sexual and reproductive health issues.

Partners

RfD, Dominica Planned Parenthood Association, Population Concern, and Caribbean Family Planning Association. Participatory workshops were funded by European Union, UNICEF, and Laing Trust (USA).

Contact

James Greenshields

Director, Radio for Development

2nd Floor

19-21 Phipp Street

London EC2A 4NP

United Kingdom

Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7729 8866

Mobile: +44 (0) 7980 272634

Fax: +44 (0) 20 7739 4810

jgreenshields@rfd.org.uk

RfD website


RfD, Dominica Planned Parenthood Association, Population Concern, and Caribbean Family Planning Association. Participatory works

Source

Letter sent from Sarah McNeill to The Communication Initiative on November 7, 2002; RfD website (Youth Advocacy Campaign link).


Placed on the Communication Initiative site November 12 2002
Last Updated November 12 2002



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