From SOUL BEAT AFRICA - where communication and media are central to AFRICA's social and economic development.
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To celebrate the 100th issue of The Soul Beat, we have chosen to focus this edition on the topic of participation - looking at participation in communication processes as well as the role of communication in facilitating community participation in the different stages of development.
Participation is also at the heart of the Soul Beat Africa process - along with reading about experiences and strategies from across the continent, users regularly send information for inclusion on the website, interact with each other, review content on the site and participate in online polls and discussion forums. Soul Beat Africa also relies on its users to become involved in shaping the website in order to better respond to the needs of communicators and development practitioners working on the ground. It is fitting then, that this 100th issue focuses on the experiences, strategies and tools that aim to encourage participation in and through communication.
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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WHY PARTICIPATION?
Research and experience in the field of development and communication suggests that participation of communities that a project is being designed for is key to the success and impact of that initiative. Social exclusion means lack of opportunities to have one's voice heard and this limits the ability of communities to play a role in advocating for issues that affect them.
1. Theory and Practice of Participatory Communication: The Case of the FAO Project "Communication for Development in Southern Africa"
This dissertation shares research by Paolo Mefalopulos, who was motivated by the observation that participatory communication - characterised by a horizontal flow of communication based primarily on dialogue - is increasingly being considered a key component of development projects around the world. Among other conclusions, the report states "participatory communication approaches should be conceived and applied in a consistent manner at various levels, within the institutions and in the field. In order to be fully participatory a development intervention needs to be initiated, designed, implemented and evaluated by the primary stakeholders, or at least they would need to be involved in those activities in a significant way..."
2. Voices of Change: Strategic Radio Support for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals
by Dr. Andrew Skuse
This paper asserts that information and communication are located at the very core of poverty alleviation processes, from processes of community participation and empowerment, to raising broad awareness of public health issues, providing humanitarian information during times of conflict, promoting good governance and accountability, to complex debt relief processes or the promotion of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)." The author suggests that "technological and informational empowerment underpins the ability of poor communities to realise their own voice. Therefore, access to radio and support for the development of useful and useable content remains critical. When combined, these two capacity building thrusts can help poor people realise a voice, and realising a voice has long been identified as fundamental to effective community participation in development."
3. Our Common Interest: Report of the Commission for Africa
This report indicates that "within participatory approaches, the more powerful often have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo and the education and influence to ensure that their voices are heard. Meaningful participation is a political phenomenon and requires those who traditionally make decisions to relinquish some of their control and to hear voices they may not agree with or may not usually listen to, including those of women and youth.... Women may be Africa's primary carers and providers but they are routinely excluded from information, services and decision-making bodies. Young people - under the age of 17 - are now estimated to make up more than 50 per cent of the continent's population, but have no voice in most decisions which affect them."
PARTICIPATION HOW-TO
4. The Art of Facilitating Participation
by Shirley A. White (ed.)
This book discusses the concept of facilitating participation from the perspective of a global development discourse. It presents the experiences of facilitators from a variety of settings as they write about their field experience in attempting to enable people's participation in development. It combines conceptual thinking with practical strategies for participatory projects.
5. The Participation Guide
by Marcela Tapia, Angela Brasington & Lynn Van Lith
This resource presents a set of guidelines to design and implement participatory health and development communication programmes. It includes tips and tools to involve individuals and groups in the various stages of programming. The Guide's intended audience includes programme officers and staff, and development practitioners interested in involving those directly concerned in the health and development communication programmes support.
6. Child Participation in Education Initiatives: How-to Guide
by Carolyn W. Fanelli and Mildred Mushunje, CRS/Zimbabwe
This guide provides an overview of the concept and importance of child participation and six illustrative examples of how child participation has been facilitated in Zimbabwean educational initiatives. The six examples provided explore the issues of child participation in decision-making processes, the participation of very young children and the participation of children in non-formal education initiatives. Each example is followed by concrete steps that were taken and specific activities that can be replicated by other organisations.
7. 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.
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Universities are playing a significant role in promoting development communication in Africa.
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PARTICIPATION IN RESEARCH AND EVALUATION
The following outlines experiences and strategies around participation at the project stage where participation is often forgotten - research and evaluation.
8. Participatory Action Research on Avian Flu Communication
This report explores and evaluates the use of participatory action research (PAR) as part of a community-level behaviour and social change communication strategy to reduce the negative impact of avian influenza within the livelihood systems and cultural practices of West and Central Africa. The PAR process revealed that, in both Nigeria and Burkina Faso, radio and television were the preferred channels used in the early stages of the outbreaks to convey information to the public about controlling the spread of the disease. However, these efforts were met with limited success as doubts and skepticism mounted among the poultry raisers and the population at large. In contrast, because interpersonal measures were grounded in trust, acceptance, and dialogue, greater measures of success were seen when the Professional Poultry Farmers Association's roving theater and traditional village leaders and healers were called upon to disseminate information."
9. Children Participating in Research
This is a four-page brief looking at child participation in research. According to the brief, research with children is important to reach out to a section of society disadvantaged by age in terms of their representation in societal issues. The traditional method of conducting research with children is to use adult researchers who adapt their mode of communication to suit the children as much as possible. The innovative way is to train young people to conduct the research, involving children in the research process as collaborators, not merely using them in data collection by assigning those roles as passive subjects of research.
10. Sensitisation and Education through Kunda Arts (SEKA) – Zambia
This is a Zambian non-governmental organisation (NGO), based in the South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. It uses a strategy combining action research and participatory theatre to sensitise and educate communities on various social and environmental issues. One part of the strategy is that actor-researchers spend time living in the areas for which the performances are designed. This aims to help them understand the issues at stake before creating plays to address those issues. The actor-researchers, who are trained in action research methodologies, live in the villages for a specified amount of time, interacting, observing and learning about the issues, people's views, concerns and hopes.
Contact Miranda Guhrs seka.theatre@gmail.com
11. To Change the Dance You Must Change the Music
by Ailish Byrne and Jim Hunt
This article describes communication for social change (CFSC) in youth programmes in Ethiopia. These youth dialogue programmes provide young people with forums to discuss HIV/AIDS and encourage them to take an active role in preventing the spread of the virus. The article also explains why participatory monitoring and evaluation of such programmes is essential. According to the article's discussion of participatory methods, when young people have the opportunity to discuss HIV/AIDS, they consider issues within their own socio-cultural contexts, identify and prioritise their problems, define their capacity and strengths, and mobilise resources for collective gain. Through these community discussions, there is an attempt at a comprehensive effort to bring CFSC to a national scale, and to monitor and evaluate it in a way that is consistent with a participatory approach.
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We have reached 100 issues of The Soul Beat! We'd love to hear what you have to say. How have you used the information obtained through the Soul Beat Africa website and newsletters? Have you connected with other communicators through us? What can we do differently to assist your work?
Please send us your Comments
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PARTICIPATION IN PRACTICE
12. Magnet Theatre: Involving Audiences and Encouraging Change - Kenya
Magnet Theatre is designed to not only entertain and educate, but to involve audience members in the action and encourage the kind of participation and reflection that is key to sustained behaviour change. Magnet Theatre is a form of community theatre that typically takes place in outdoor, public spaces. The hour-long performances explore issues affecting a community and encourage discussion and problem solving with audience members. The actors perform a drama that presents a dilemma based on community issues. The audience participates by offering suggestions to the characters or by taking the place of an actor and acting out solutions to the dilemma.
Contact Oluoch Madiang omadiang@path.org
13. Don't Be Negative About Being Positive – Zimbabwe
This campaign was designed to fight discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe. Since May 2005, the campaign has used personalised messages from people living positively with HIV, disseminated through television, radio and print media, to raise awareness and discourage stigma. Developed and produced by Population Services International (PSI) - Zimbabwe and sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department for International Development (DFID), the campaign is based on the belief that reducing stigma plays a large role in HIV and AIDS prevention and care. The campaign was created in Zimbabwe over a three month period and according to the organisers, was developed in close collaboration with people living with HIV/AIDS who face stigma on a daily basis.
Contact PSI/Zimbabwe info@psi-zim.co.zw
14. Citizen Journalism - Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
Launched in July 2007 by Hivos and the South African NGO Network (SANGONeT), the Citizen Journalism in Africa project aims to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) and ordinary citizens to become “shapers of news.” The three-year initiative includes the creation of an information knowledge sharing portal and training activities. This includes: improving capacity of selected African CSOs including community media organisation to use media tools effectively and in a journalistically sound manner; increasing collaborative networking, learning and knowledge sharing between participants and training partners on the regional and the country level facilitating improved access to and higher quality of media contributions; and increasing presence of and access to diverse and journalistically sound content on the situation of women and other marginalised groups in the media of the countries involved.
Contact Noma Rangana noma@hivos.co.za
15. Why Democracy? - South Africa
This documentary project uses film with the aim of starting a global conversation about democracy. It is based around an interactive website that has been designed, and is being moderated, by a group of young people from all over the world (associated with the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Steps International). Launched on October 8 2007, this initiative involves the creation and broadcast of 10 documentaries by independent filmmakers from around the world. This participatory and intercultural initiative involves youth from various countries working together to use the media of documentary film/video and computing/the internet to share ideas about the issue of democracy/governance.
Contact Don Edkins don@steps.co.za
16. Video and Community Dreams Project – Egypt
As part of the Partnership Projects for Girls and Young Women, the Centre for Development and Training Activities (CEDPA) subcontracted Communication for Change (C4C) to provide participatory communication training for development field workers and young women in several "New Horizons" communities. New Horizons is a non-formal educational programme designed to provide disadvantaged girls and young women with life skills and reproductive health information. The objectives of the Video and Community Dreams Project were to: develop the capacity of local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to use participatory communication strategies to strengthen their community-level work; train young women to produce video programmes that reflect their experience and address community concerns; and use participatory video as an advocacy tool in support of girls' and women's empowerment.
Contact Sara Stuart sbs@c4c.org OR Lauren Goodsmith lauren_goodsmith@hotmail.com
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To view other issues of The Soul Beat newsletter related to participation, see:
The Soul Beat 77 - CI Network Survey: African responses
The Soul Beat 63 - Youth Participation
The Soul Beat 28 - Children & Youth: Participation in Media
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