University of Texas, El Paso (Durá and Singhal), and Minga Perú (Elías)

“Previously, communities earned credibility through the construction of schools and roads, but now a community also gains visibility and credibility through media consumption and production. When people can listen to their voices, they begin to realize that everyone has the right to listen and to be heard. By hearing themselves in public, their way of speaking is legitimized.” Eliana Elías, Minga Perú

This executive summary describes the work of non-governmental organisation (NGO) Minga Perú in producing and broadcasting participatory health education programming in the Peruvian Amazon region. The purpose of the chapter is to analyse how Minga’s participatory communication framework promotes the practice of interculturality through on-air and on-the-ground programmes. First, the document provides a background on Minga’s Intercultural Radio Educative Project and the study's methodology and data collection procedures. It then examines the practice of interculturality in the production of Bienvenida Salud (Welcome Health), a Minga radio programme with listener-as-producer characteristics. The document concludes with findings on the impact of the project as described by the principal actors of the Intercultural Radio Educative Project - students, teachers, and community members. This study is also a chapter in A Forum for General and Intercultural Business Communication (Michael B. Hinner (Ed.) (Freiberger Beitrage Zur Interkulturellen Und Wirtschaftskommunikation, Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Peter Lang GmbH).


As detailed here, Minga Peru was established in 1998 with the objective to improve the lives of people living in the Peruvian Amazon, guided by a culturally respectful, participatory communication framework. “Minga” in the local language means “collaborative community work". Minga's theoretical framework includes the following underlying principles:

1. Listeners as producers
2. Process of dialogue and democratic participation
3. Long-term process of sustainable change
4. Collective empowerment and decision-making
5. With community’s involvement
6. Specific in content, language, and culture
7. Consciousness raising and critical action

According to the document, Minga supports a combination of programmatic activities including: the production and broadcast of Bienvenida Salud; the training of a cadre of community promotoras (promoters) who organise group listening sessions around Bienvenida Salud and serve as local leaders for Minga’s various health and community development activities; and on-the-ground, environmentally sustainable, income-generating activities, such as the establishment of fish farms, agro-forestry enterprises, and small animal husbandry projects, as well as training in crocheting and sewing to meet local needs. Bienvenida Salud is a half-hour radio programme broadcast three times a week early and late in the day, including broadcast by loudspeaker systems in villages with lower radio ownership. "Bienvenida Salud is purposely designed to both entertain and educate to increase audience members’ knowledge about reproductive health, sexual rights, and gender equality, creating favorable attitudes, shifting social norms, and changing overt behavior." Stories include audience feedback and personal experience sent through letters brought by boats to the production centre. More than 10,000 letters had been received (2008) and its 1,100 episodes received audience ratings of 40 to 50 percent listenership among radio-owning households in the rural area of the Loreto region of Peru.

Because of the dominant perception that only "experts" may speak on such topics as those presented, the producers emphasise that that there is not just one way to write or a perfect way to speak, but rather, that it is much more valuable to share one’s knowledge and to enrich others in this multi-cultural region. "Minga has worked extensively and in-depth on the development of the social imagination to instill in the minds of people the value of their ancestral knowledge and their personal and communal experiences as sources of wisdom - a wisdom that deserves, and has the right, to be shared publicly for the generation of knowledge." Minga manages a letters database and catalogues and codes each letter on several pre-established themes, such as HIV/AIDS or domestic violence. Further, Minga can follow up on specific needs; for example, it can provide on-the-ground counseling to a specific location if the need is indicated in a letter. "In essence, Minga has instituted an information-based system of managing feedback, feed-forward, and culturally-resonant content development for Bienvenida Salud. By systematically analyzing audience letters, Minga can identify unfulfilled informational needs and gaps and accordingly provide timely information about service delivery, in particular to women and young girls and boys, who are often marginalized from such discourses." The database informs the script writing teams, called the "Listener-as-Producer Communication Circuit".

A related project that "amplifies" the radio programming is the Intercultural Radio Educativa project, begun in 2007 with funding from the United Nations (UN) Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence against Women. Minga Perú trained 174 school teachers in 24 rural schools to integrate issues of domestic violence and HIV/AIDS in the secondary school curriculum, building on the cultural understanding of health in the region. The training exercises were designed to make the teachers think about cutipa (damage) and icara (the solution to repair the damage). Teachers discussed among themselves the possible causes of cutipa, including its manifestations as HIV/AIDS and domestic violence, as well as alternatives and solutions to take care of the body, family, community, and the environment. The participating teachers developed educative projects to be integrated in 10 subject areas of the school curricula, covering students in all five secondary grades. These teachers systematically broached the topics of domestic violence and HIV/AIDS through a revamped school curriculum, reaching 283 primary school students and 4,254 secondary school students. In addition, along with their teachers and Minga’s cadre of community-based promotoras, several students in each participating school were trained as radio correspondents in charge of encouraging youth in their respective communities to listen to Bienvenida Salud and then provide feedback, including proposing new subjects for inclusion on the radio programme. Presentations were also made to parents of students on domestic violence, HIV/AIDS, and community health issues in several participating schools. Through combined efforts, the programmatic intervention reached an estimated 3,600 families. Minga also distributed relevant educational material on domestic violence and HIV/AIDS to teachers, including a CD of several episodes of Bienvenida Salud, which they could play in classes or in their communities.

The document concludes with impact statements by those involved as writers, producers, and audience members. Findings show: an increase in male participation; a reported increase in letters on the focus areas of domestic violence and HIV/AIDS, partly attributed to student trainees' involvement; increased family and student discussion of these topics; expressed teacher appreciation for the professionalising of their skills on the focus topics; and continuing interest in changing attitudes through the "Listener-as-Producer Communication Circuit".

The Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies Social Justice Dialogue and Publication Series, 2008 accessed on April 23 2009.