This issue of The Drum Beat features a small selection of summaries available on The Communication Initiative website from 3 of our knowledge sections - Strategic Thinking, Evaluations, and Experiences - which illustrate how communication and media are contributing to positive development action, around the world.

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This will be the final issue of The Drum Beat in 2008. We thank you for sharing with us the past year full of exciting new communication and media for development projects, evaluations, articles, and publications. We hope that we have provided to you at least a small portion of the support that we have felt from you over the year. Whatever your celebrations at this time of year, we wish you warm, safe, and peaceful transitions into 2009.

• The next Development Classifieds e-magazine will be published January 7th, 2009. Please submit your vacant posts, opportunities, and books, videos, and journals for posting as soon as possible.
• The next Drum Beat e-magazine will be published January 12th.

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The Drum Beat 474 contains:

•  Summaries of selected C4D STRATEGIC THINKING.
•  BLOGS on communication, media, and development policy.
•  Summaries of selected EVALUATIONS of C4D projects.
•  POLL on translating internet materials into local languages.
•  Submit info to The CI's next DEVELOPMENT CLASSIFIEDS.
•  Summaries of selected C4D PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES.

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STRATEGIC THINKING

1. Cambodia: Malaria on the Decline Due to Concerted Awareness Efforts

This Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) article describes the awareness campaign for Malaria Day (April 25 2008) and other efforts to communicate the importance of prevention and early treatment of malaria in Cambodia. Health education, wide-scale distribution of insecticide-treated bed nets, and providing awareness training to village volunteers are part of the efforts that are decreasing the incidence of the disease. Early intervention includes community-based participation of village health volunteers who are trained to test blood for infection, make diagnoses, and provide medication.

2. Can Hygiene be Cool and Fun?

by Myriam Sidibe and Val Curtis

This document shares information from a research project conducted in primary schools in Dakar, Senegal. The research suggests that relatively simple low-cost interventions can have far-reaching effects in improving children's hygiene practices, if communicators take into account motivational factors and children's sensitivities in relation to toilet practice and personal hygiene. Researchers from the Hygiene Centre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found that in many cases children are fully aware of good sanitation and hygiene, and that the following factors motivated children to wash their hands: conformity, sensory benefits, fun, disease avoidance, and getting better marks (because their books were cleaner). The results will be used to inform the design of sanitation and hygiene programmes in schools.

3. Local Officials Learn How to Raise Awareness about Bird Flu in Myanmar

by Sandar Linn

This article details an approach developed in Myanmar by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to equip frontline communicators with skills in disseminating avian influenza messages to families and community members. UNICEF worked with the Ministry of Livestock and Fisheries, the Ministry of Health, and local authorities to offer a 3-day training session for more than 60 health and livestock professionals in Shan State. Active group discussion and role playing were key techniques used to bolster communication skills. Following the training, an awareness-raising presentation on prevention of avian and pandemic influenza was held; more than 400 people attended the public talk. Posters in local ethnic languages, pamphlets, booklets for children, and television and radio spots have also been produced and distributed.

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COMMUNICATION, MEDIA, AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY BLOGS

This is a blog space for analysis, ideas, and debates on development policy issues from communication and media perspectives. Please read the blogs of interest to you and contribute your reactions and comments through "Post a Comment or Question". Three recent blogs include:

Winds of Change - Media Development Trends and Questions

The Fairness Doctrine: is this the first big media debate under Obama and what does it mean for media development?

Disaster-affected communities are and should be the architects of their own recovery, not merely passive recipients of international goodwill

Read blogs, post comments, become a contributor...

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EVALUATIONS

4. Andrew Lees Trust, Impact Evaluation of Projet Radio SIDA - Madagascar

Since 2003, the Andrew Lees Trust (ALT) has collaborated with the National HIV AIDS Awareness Committee of Madagascar (Commite Nationale Lutte contre le SIDA - CNLS) to deliver HIV information via radio to rural populations in southern Madagascar. ALT also distributed 2,000 radios, setting up dedicated listening groups to receive national broadcasts about HIV/AIDS as well as locally produced radio programmes on the subject. The evaluation found that the programme increased knowledge of 3 modes of transmission of HIV, and that many respondents indicated that hearing about HIV and AIDS on the radio and in public discussions has led them to believe in its existence. According to the organisers, after hearing a programme on stigma and discrimination, attitudes towards people living with HIV and AIDS (PLWHA) changed; for example, listeners expressed the desire to feed, help, and cheer up PLWHA.

5. Using Training to Build Capacity for Development: An Evaluation of the World Bank's Project-Based and WBI Training

This report assesses the effectiveness of the World Bank Institute (WBI)'s use of the strategy of training to build institutional and organisational capacity to achieve sustainable growth and poverty reduction in developing countries. "Most Bank-financed training was found to result in individual participant learning, but only about half resulted in substantial changes to workplace behavior or enhanced development capacity....Where learning did not result in changed workplace performance...this could be attributed to one of three reasons: insufficient participant understanding of how to apply learning in the workplace, inadequate incentives or resources for implementation of learning, or inadequate targeting of learning to organizational needs....Even where resources or incentives were initially lacking, training succeeded as long as there was strong client commitment to training goals and adequate support was given to addressing related workplace capacity gaps."

6. Evaluation of a National Physical Activity Intervention for Children: VERB Campaign, 2002-2004

by Marian E. Huhman, Lance D. Potter, Jennifer C. Duke, David R. Judkins, Carrie D. Heitzler, and Faye L. Wong

This report shares data from an evaluation of the VERB campaign, which was launched in the United States in an effort to positively influence children's attitudes about physical activity and their physical activity behaviours. VERB used television, radio, and print advertisements to advertise being physically active as "cool" and fun, and as providing a chance to have a good time with friends. After 2 years, it was found that the more children who reported seeing VERB messages, the more physical activity they reported - and the more positive their attitudes were about the benefits of being physically active. "Campaign planners are well aware of the irony of using a media-based approach to reducing sedentary behavior; however, changing normative behaviors requires reaching children where they are being influenced by other lifestyle messages and necessitates the breadth of intervention that only a large-scale media campaign can provide....With adequate investment, health marketing shows promise to affect the attitudes and behavior of children."

7. Case Study: Preventing HIV/AIDS on Road Projects in Yunnan

An Overview of Experiences and Lessons Learnt: Baolong Healthy & Safe Action

by Che Katz

This paper shares the processes, experiences, and lessons learned from the Baolong Healthy & Safe Action (BHSA) Project, a model highway construction HIV prevention project implemented in Yunnan Province of the Peoples Republic of China. The Asian Development Bank (ADB)'s approach integrates a package of interventions covering health sector interventions, behaviour communication change (BCC), condom social marketing, advocacy, community mobilisation, and policy and structural change. The BHSA philosophy involves responding to the vulnerability associated with interconnectedness of construction worksite and local communities and the associated socio-economic and environmental factors that contribute to HIV risk and vulnerability. ADB hoped, through their more "holistic" approach, to reduce the potential for generalisation, stereotyping, and stigma and discrimination, and to capitalise on networks between and within settings. The findings of the process indicators to date "have been encouraging..."

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Please VOTE in our ICT4D POLL!

How important are efforts to translate internet materials into local languages?

Importance:

• Crucial; incentives need to be developed to fund translation efforts.
• Important, but teaching English literacy is a more sustainable approach.
• A waste of time/resources; the internet is so English-dominated that those who cannot understand are finding enrichment through more local modes of communication such as community radio.

VOTE and COMMENT click here.

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DEVELOPMENT CLASSIFIEDS

Development Classifieds is an initiative of The Communication Initiative which includes listings of any development-related jobs, consultants, requests for proposals (RFPs), events, training opportunities, and books, journals, or videos for sale. Please click here.

The next issue of the Development Classifieds E-magazine will be published January 7th 2009.

Please submit open vacancies from within your organisation, event information, training opportunities, upcoming RFPs, details about your consultancy skills, and information about books, journals, or videos for sale as soon as possible to ensure inclusion.

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EXPERIENCES

8. Disaster Preparedness Action Plan Tajikistan - Tajikistan

This project aims to ensure long-term sustainability of disaster risk reduction (DRR) activities by securing the commitment, involvement, and resourcefulness of local communities. Village committees were formed to facilitate activities including: developing hazard, risk, and evacuation maps at the community level; undertaking small-scale mitigation projects; participating in community drills; carrying out training on risk assessment, disaster management, financial management, organisation building, leadership, project design, and monitoring and evaluation; and dissemination of information by Youth Rescue Groups (volunteer groups). Public awareness on disaster preparedness was raised through training, school competitions, evacuation drills, and information, education, and communication (IEC) material.

Contact: Nok van de Langenberg vandelangenberg@carenederland.org, general@carenederland.org, care@carenederland.org

9. International Poverty Centre (IPC) - Global

IPC is a global effort to build up substantive capacity for analysis and implementation of development policy in the field of poverty reduction. By encouraging South-South cooperation, the centre specifically aims to expand the knowledge base and capacities of developing countries to design and implement nationally-owned poverty reduction strategies. IPC is engaged in forming a global research community of experts, networks, and institutions. In addition, IPC is organising an online catalogue of Poverty Networks, which are web-based platforms that provide space for sharing and disseminating development-related information and initiatives. The IPC is active in providing research support in 2 major areas: 1) the measurement and monitoring of poverty and inequality; and 2) pro-poor and inequality-reducing policies. IPC also hosts fellowship and internship programmes, as well as global conferences that bring researchers and policymakers from various countries to Brazil to engage in dialogue.

Contact: povertycentre@undp-povertycentre.org

10. Let's Do It Better: Workshop Program on Journalism, Race and Ethnicity - United States

From 1999 to 2008, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism developed a positive, story-based method to teach United States' newspaper and broadcast journalists the importance of covering race and ethnicity. Each year, Let's Do It Better began by a search for exemplary coverage of race and ethnic issues in the previous two years. These pieces then formed the centrepiece of a workshop in which the award recipients deconstructed their work for a group of "gatekeepers" (editors, news directors, and journalism educators). This interactive process was meant to foster open dialogue about issues of racial inequity, ethnic stereotypes, and other rights-based themes and to promote similar work in the newsrooms of the media executives who attend.

Contact: Arlene Morgan am494@columbia.edu

11. Vila Sésamo - Brazil

This Brazilian adaptation of the children's television show Sesame Street, produced by nonprofit educational organisation Sesame Workshop and São-Paulo-based broadcaster TV Cultura, is an early childhood development initiative featuring the following: locally produced live action films and original songs; Letter and Number of the Day segments; local segments on pre-literacy, math skills, and cognitive skills; and interactive educational content. Sesame Workshop plans to work with local organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), and schools to extend the educational impact of Vila Sésamo through print materials, storybooks, activities, games, web components, and guides with tips for educators and/or caregivers.

Contact: Danny Labin danny.labin@sesameworkshop.org

12. Voluntary Formation of Community Organizations to Implement DRR - Bangladesh

This project is designed to help address community vulnerability to floods by building the capacity of community-based organisations (CBOs) to take a leading role in disaster risk reduction (DRR) projects in Bangladesh. Local participation is the hallmark of this project, which involves selected community members voluntarily forming CBOs and then being guided in disseminating early warning messages to the communities, creating mass awareness, and rescuing marooned people in times of flood disaster. The advocacy aspect of the project is reflected in the CBOs' action to liaise with district officials regarding strategies for incorporating a livelihoods approach into local and eventually national development and disaster plans. The focus is on analysing best practice in building consensus amongst stakeholders on how to link most effectively with and support communities' own disaster planning in a sustainable way.

Contact: Veena Khaleque bangladesh@practicalaction.org.bd OR Pieter van den Ende Pieter.VanDenEnde@practicalaction.org.uk / practicalaction@practicalaction.org.uk

13. Universidad de la Tierra - Mexico

Located in the southern Mexican city of Oaxaca de Juarez, this is an alternative learning initiative through which students learn from the world by doing. This process happens largely in communication with others, in the form of study/reading circles ("communities of practice") and intercultural exchange. The NewWorkSpaces online community tool enables learners to access "collaborative technology that will help [them]...convene conversations, co-create and publish documents, invite others into...learning experiences, and exchange...knowledge and resources." Other means of sharing learning experiences include libraries, documentation centres, community radio, media campaigns, and publishing. These modes also provide dialogue opportunities around Unitierra activities such as those with indigenous communities engaged in cultural regeneration, technological and socio-political innovation, and social struggle (e.g. through workshops, videos, the creation of ecological dry toilets and solar arrays, organic agriculture, and alternative media).

Contact: unitierra@prodigy.net.mx

14. Samvidha - India

This project is a response to the need to make relevant internet-based information accessible to all of India's teachers and students at a low cost. Carried out by the non-profit Media Lab Asia in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, the Samvidha project is an effort to bridge the digital divide by providing off-line access to curriculum-related internet content using a query-based system. Individual variations among the different students can be captured by their user profile, which includes each student's individual interests and capabilities. This idea of offering personalised content access and presentation is also reflected in the fact that navigation interfaces are offered in Bengali, Hindi, and English. Content which is appropriate for the user's needs is then emailed to the user in the school; information located on the internet is provided to the user in English or, where available, in a given Indian language.

Contact: Prof. Anupam Basu anupam@cse.iitkgp.ernet.in OR Prof. Sudeshna Sarkar sudeshna@cse.iitkgp.ernet.in

15. Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS) - Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Middle East

Launched in 1998 by the Danish non-governmental organisation (NGO) Cross Cultures Project Association (CCPA), the Open Fun Football Schools (OFFS) project involves connecting kids in war-torn areas through football (or, soccer). Every football school lasts for 5 days and includes a minimum of 200 boys and girls between 7 and 11 years old, 15 voluntary coaches, and 12 coach assistants. Emphasis is placed on educating children to listen to each other, take care, show tolerance, make compromises, take on responsibilities together, and realise their interdependence - no matter their qualifications, sex, or skin colour. By implementing training seminars and by leaving all the sports equipment behind, CCPA hopes to motivate and encourage the local football clubs to continue their community work. The overall purpose of the project is to stimulate the process of democracy, peace, stability, and social cohesion in South Eastern Europe by re-establishing friendships and sports co-operation between otherwise antagonistic population groups.

Contact: Anders Levinsen ccpa@ccpa.dk

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