This general issue of The Soul Beat contains summaries of project experiences, strategic thinking documents, materials, funding opportunities and events related to communication for development. This edition covers issues related to health and HIV/AIDS, children, information and communication technology and media for development in Africa.

If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in the Soul Beat newsletters please contact the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

Click here to Subscribe to The Soul Beat - or email Seipati Fountain sfountain@comminit.com

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EXPERIENCES

1. Fatherhood Project - South Africa

Led by the Child, Youth, Family and Social Development research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), the Fatherhood Project aims to stimulate discussion and action to support the involvement of men in caring for children. Based in Durban, South Africa, the project aims to recognise, encourage, and support men's care and protection of children by stimulating debate and discussion, and by portraying positive images of fatherhood through photography and other media.

Contact jwambugu@hsrc.ac.za

2. Tsehai Loves Learning - Ethiopia

This is a weekly Ethiopian educational television show for pre-school aged children featuring Amharic-speaking giraffe puppets. According to the programme producers, Whiz Kids Workshop, the programme aims to cater to the needs of children, especially orphans and vulnerable children, by discussing and raising awareness of various social issues, encouraging academic, socio-emotional, and physical development, and promoting positive personal values.

Contact tsehai@whizkidsworkshop.com OR info@whizkidsworkshop.com OR p.hector@unesco.org

3. Liberia Community Peace Building and Development (CPBD) - Liberia

Initiated by the Academy for Educational Development (AED) in partnership with Mercy Corps, the Community Peace Building and Development Project (CPBD) has been working since 2002 to help Liberian communities create peace and generate prosperity. It aims to do this by strengthening civil society, fostering community-based social and economic development, and strengthening communities' access to, use of, and involvement in community radio. Using participatory processes, the project trains communities in technical and project management skills, helping them identify, implement, monitor, and evaluate projects.

Contact Anne O’Toole Salinas asalinas@aed.org OR Tom Ewert tewert@mercycorpsfield.org

4. Infant Feeding Research Project (IFRP) - Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland

Launched in 2003 with research in primary care settings in South Africa, Namibia, and Swaziland, the Infant Feeding Research Project (IFRP) is a 3-phased research-led process designed to reduce the number of children dying through mother to child transmission (MTCT) of HIV by focusing on the positive potential of the woman and counsellor relationship to promote safe infant feeding practices. The project aims to explore how this encounter can be effectively rendered "[within] a sacred space where women and health workers are empowered by their interactions to realise autonomy, self-love and mutual respect and where the communication is a genuine collaboration to promote health and well being". By developing a model for a woman-centred interaction, the researchers hope to build the capacity of both groups of women to acknowledge and transform female internalised sexist consciousness and sexist attitudes and behaviour.

Contact Alan Jaffe jaffa@telkomsa.net OR info@ifrpafrica.org

STRATEGIC THINKING

5. Telling The True African Story: Draft Africa Regional Communication Strategy 2005

This communication strategy document aims to empower ActionAid country programmes to develop and run their own media agenda with the aim of creating a platform to ensure that the voices of the economically poor and excluded reach the decision makers at all levels. The strategy intends to address the gap between what policy decision makers - governments and donor agencies, and multilateral agencies - commit to do and what is actually achieved on the ground, in order to use these issues to raise awareness and drive advocacy for concerted pro-poor actions and policies.

6. Can Hygiene be Cool and Fun? Insights from School Children in Senegal

This 12-page document shares information from a research project conducted by the Hygiene Centre of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in collaboration with UNICEF Senegal, WSP Africa and The National Office of Sanitation in Senegal. The research, conducted in primary schools in Dakar, Senegal, looked at the motivating factors for children to adopt hygienic hand-washing and toilet practices. The research aimed to inform the design of sanitation and hygiene programmes in schools. 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.

7. Avian Influenza Survey: Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of the Egyptian Public

by Fatma El-Zanaty and Noha EL-Ghazaly

This 117-page report details the purpose and results of a community survey carried out to provide information on avian influenza (AI)-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) in Egypt. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) requested that this survey be conducted in order to guide the planning process for, and implementation of, a multi-disciplinary national, society-wide intervention that draws on communication strategies to achieve behaviour change among the Egyptian public related to avian flu. The research showed that the public has gained important, critical knowledge about bird flu due to the health communication interventions undertaken to date, but there still remain a number of areas that require continued attention in the coming phase of the programme.

8. Knowledge of Breast Cancer and its Early Detection Measures Among Rural Women in Akinyele Local Government Area, Ibadan, Nigeria

By Abimbola Oluwatosin and Oladimeji Oladepo

This 6-page research article reports on an assessment of rural women's level of knowledge of breast cancer and its early detection measures. The study assessed the knowledge of various aspects of breast cancer including etiology, early warning signs, treatment modes, and early detection measures among women in 2 health districts in Ibadan, Nigeria. The study revealed that rural women lacked appropriate information about breast cancer and its early detection measures. Due to the fact that their major source of information was "elders, neighbors and friends", the article suggests that more attention should be paid to the role of health care workers in providing health information.

9. Dialing for Health in Africa

by Manasee Wagh

This brief article explores trends in the use of mobile phones as a strategy for tracking epidemics such as HIV/AIDS and for facilitating the provision of health care, with a focus on Rwanda. As the author explains, Rwanda is a country with approximately 9 million people - of which nearly 200,000 are infected with HIV - yet unreliable internet connections make it difficult to track the spread of epidemics like this one. Since about 60% of the population of Africa lives in areas with mobile phone coverage (a figure that Wagh predicts will climb to 85% by 2010), mobile telephony appears to be a promising direction on this continent for "supporting the development of a national health information system".

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SEND US TOPICS FOR SOUL BEAT NEWSLETTERS IN 2008!

We are planning our newsletter content for 2008. As we are now going out weekly instead of every second week, we have a lot of newsletters to plan for the coming year. Please let us know if there are any topics you would like us to cover.

You can contact the Director, Titus Moetsabi tmoetsabi@comminit.com or the Editor, Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

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MATERIALS

10. Open Space - The Media: Expression and Freedom

Published by the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, this edition of Openspace offers a range of articles on the issue of media freedom written by media professionals from Southern Africa.

11. Community Mobilisation Manual (Advocacy Expert Series)

This guide was adapted from training materials utilised by Pact Tanzania and grew out Pact's experience in implementing the Tanzania Advocacy Partnership Programme (TAPP) and Pact's work with faith-based institutions. According to the guide, community participation does not happen by itself, it must be stimulated, encouraged, and facilitated. This book is aimed at those who are seeking tools, ideas, and approaches to facilitate the mobilisation of communities around a cause.

12. Culture and Sexual Risk

by Han ten Brummelhuis and Gilbert Herdt (eds.)

This book adds to AIDS literature a collection of 16 articles and studies on sexual risk and its cultural configurations. Chapters on the Philippines, Brazil, Haiti, and Africa explore the cultural, political, and economic contexts surrounding the transmission and prevention of HIV/AIDS in these cultures.

13. Child Participation in Education Initiatives: How-to Guide

This publication is part of a “How-to” guide series produced by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to help their country programmes and their local implementing partners to highlight and share aspects of their work that have been particularly successful. The focus of the guides is on the practical steps that can be taken to adopt similar activities. According to the publication, the recommendations provided will need to be adapted for different contexts, but the topics addressed in each guide are ones that would strengthen and improve any existing programme: how to reduce the number of school drop outs; how to get disabled children into school; how to use adult literacy to improve rural development, etc.

14. Going the Last Mile: What's Stopping a Wireless Revolution?

Media Toolkit on ICTs - No 4

This is the fourth in a series of short briefing documents for journalists on different aspects of ICTs and the ‘information society’. It is offered by Panos as a service to non-specialists, and in particular to journalists wishing to cover information society issues following the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in November 2005. According to the document, wireless technologies can play an important role in social and economic development by making the exchange of information faster, cheaper and more widely accessible. However, some governments, especially in Africa, have put policies and regulations in place that limit the introduction of these technologies.

AWARDS AND FUNDING

15. WASH Media Awards - Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, Middle East, South Asia, South East and East Asia

Deadline: May 15 2008

The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC) and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) are inviting entries in the second WASH Media Awards competition. The 2007/2008 edition solicits print, electronic, and broadcast media submissions on water supply, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues from journalists in developing countries with the intention of encouraging broader media coverage of, and increased awareness about, these issues.

16. Strengthening the Engagement of Women and Girls with the Global Fund in Southern and East Africa

Deadline: December 21, 2007

The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA), the Open Society Initiative for East Africa (OSIEA) and the Open Society Institute's (OSI) Public Health Programme are requesting proposals from coalitions of women's rights and HIV/AIDS organisations in Southern Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The proposals will be submitted to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and should address the specific vulnerabilities of women and girls.

EVENTS

17. Communication, Media and Sport in Africa (Feb 22-23 2008) - Ohio University, Athens Ohio

Since its inception in 2004, the Sports and Africa Symposium has sought to foster meaningful dialogue on the interface of sports and Africa among academics, practitioners, media, non-governmental organisations and the public. The presentations have explored the relationship among sports and broader themes such as politics, culture, gender, age, cooperation, conflict, history, migration, mass media, health, and development.

18. Leadership in Strategic Health Communication Course (May 12-23 2008) - Cape Town, South Africa

Johns Hopkins University, in partnership with the Stellenbosch University HIV Programme, is hosting this course on Leadership in Strategic Health Communication, with a special focus on HIV, AIDS, and Reproductive Health. This course seeks to be an opportunity for health leaders to explore health communication on the African continent and aims to challenge individuals to critically evaluate and fundamentally change mindsets about health communication.

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The Soul Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.

Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com