From The Communication Initiative Network - where communication and media are central to social and economic development.
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This issue of The Drum Beat features a small selection of summaries available on The Communication Initiative website from three of our knowledge sections - Experiences, Strategic Thinking, and Materials - which illustrate how communication and media are contributing to positive development action, around the world.
Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Contact Deborah Heimann at dheimann@comminit.com
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EXPERIENCES
1. Mobile School Programme - Venezuela
Launched by the Venezuela-based non-governmental organisation (NGO) Peace Villages Foundation (PVF), this programme focuses on 3 groups of children: those who have dropped out of the traditional school system, members of the local indigenous communities, and the children who live in economically poorer settlements on the outskirts of Santa Elena, Venezuela. Travelling through the streets of Santa Elena several afternoons each week, the Mobile School presents educational material with a goal not only to educate, but also to entertain the children, helping to raise their self-esteem by teaching them that they are valued members of their communities. The programme involves young volunteers from around the world working with local teachers. The "device" itself consists of 5 interconnected boxes on wheels. These boxes slide in and out of each other and provide for a constantly changing and transportable classroom. The core themes are literacy, mathematics, creative therapy, healthcare education, and human rights. Other themes may be created, such as clean water conservation and waste/pollution awareness, depending on the specific children's needs.
Contact: Matthew Legge correspondence@peacevillages.org
2. Jagriti - India
Formed in 2005 by the Bengal Network For PLWHA (BNP+), an affiliated body of the Indian Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (INP+), Jagriti is a rock music band made up of 9 HIV-positive people in Kolkata, India who seek to use their talent and passion for music as a medium for spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS. Through their songs, they also seek to bring hope to hundreds of others who share their experiences, as well as to raise funds for needs like expensive tests and medicines for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in the community who are living in extreme poverty. Jagriti's particular style is called "plain entertainment", and involves "belting out chartbusters" (familiar, popular tunes), yet interspersing those with songs that tell their own tale. As of August 2007, Jagriti was recording songs for its maiden album.
Contact: Tarit Chakraborty tarit34@yahoo.co.in
3. World Day against Child Labour Awareness Campaign - Israel
In honour of the World Day against Child Labour (June 12) 2007, the Nazareth, Israel-based organisations Sawt el-Amel: The Laborer's Voice and Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) launched a campaign within the Palestinian Arab community in the Galilee (northern Israel). The 2 organisations combined their experience in human rights, child rights, and workers' rights to raise awareness about economic exploitation of children and the most problematic forms of child labour. The vision for this action was to inform Arab citizens in Israel about the concepts of rights of children and of workers, to spark a thinking process within the Arab public on issues related to child labour, and to empower young job-seekers (aged 15-18) to claim all their rights as working minors. Campaign activities drew on a variety of strategies to raise awareness about children's rights, and included: the creation and distribution of printed materials; the provision of information via in-person sessions, such as lectures in secondary schools; community mobilisation in the form of community action days in towns and villages in the Galilee; and public screening of films dealing with child labour. Prior to these activities, facilitators participated in an intensive full-day training on the issue of child labour and the rights of students at work. These facilitators then applied the knowledge gained through this training to provide workshops to the members of existing HRA student forums.
Contact: laborers@laborers-voice.org OR laborer@netvision.net.il
4. Fields of Fish - Bangladesh
In 2004, the Aquaculture and Fish Genetics Research Programme (AFGRP) - a collaboration between the Department for International Development (DFID) and the Institute of Aquaculture at Scotland's University of Stirling - engaged in a partnership with the Eden Project to create a 3-day exhibition called "Fields of Fish". The goal of the programme was to raise awareness about the International Year of Rice, or IYR (2004), and - more broadly - natural resource management (NRM) issues. As part of this collaboration, AFGRP's efforts to celebrate IYR featured interactive exhibits, a community-theatre drama, a school package, a video, and various printed materials. The project aimed to spark public interest in learning about fish production in the rice fields of Bangladesh, and about issues relating to biodiversity from rice fields, fish as agents in integrated pest management (IPM), and the role of the entire family in ensuring sustainable food production methods.
Contact: Anton Immink aji1@stir.ac.uk
5. Foundation for Female Photojournalists (FFP) - Africa
This is a non-profit media and art advocacy and research organisation that uses information and communication technology (ICT) and other forms of media for development. The organisation's mission is to advance the skills and prominence of women photojournalists so that they might effectively advocate for the rights and development of minority groups, especially women and children. FFP carries this out by documenting and increasing society's awareness of the achievements and challenges of women and children through photography and video, by building the capacity of visual communicators and the media to respond to women and children's rights issues, and by creating and providing useable and accessible information for the development of women and children. Motivated by the belief that access to information is key to women's and children's development, FFP also produces audiovisual and artistic information, education, and communication (IEC) materials. These materials are designed to enable the organisation to overcome language barriers and illiteracy in their advocacy and research initiatives.
Contact: ffpnet@yahoo.com
6. 2006 TreasurePostcards Project - Global
Created and coordinated by Arts for Global Development, Inc. (Art4Development.Net) in partnership with the Crafts Center at CHF International, this initiative involves an art contest and educational exhibit designed to emphasise the role of arts in social change. The key strategy behind TreasurePostcards is inviting the participation of amateur and professional artists from across the globe to use their "visual voices" - through printed postcards they have created - to contribute to efforts to reduce poverty, preserve culture, and empower people who are living with HIV/AIDS. In short, TreasurePostcards is an effort to highlight the value of art as a communication approach for raising awareness, fostering economic development, and protecting social-cultural heritage. The focus for the 2006 project was the phrase "Arts, Culture, and Economic Development?". Artists who submitted postcards that were featured in the in-person exhibit focused on global issues including cultural preservation, education, creative identity, HIV/AIDS, peace, and economic empowerment. During the event, visitors viewed the artists' work and browsed through the TreasurePostcards catalogue that introduces all artists (nearly 100 images of 46 artists from 26 countries). The 2008 contest is currently running.
Contact: info@art4development.net
7. Emergency and Risk Communications (ERC) Project - China
This initiative involved the use of face-to-face interaction and ICTs to facilitate emergency risk communication (ERC) in China, to the end of fostering rapid training and message delivery during public health crises. In 2006, the United-States-(US)-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) joined with the Chinese Ministry of Health, Office of Health Emergency, and the Chinese Provincial Health Emergency Response Offices to adapt and test US-based ERC principles for cultural appropriateness in China. Goals included identifying additional strategies to assist in ERC planning (e.g., media partners), developing a draft of an ERC manual and test manual in 2 pilot provinces, and testing ICT systems through meetings of Health Emergency Response Officers (HEROs). The hypothesis being tested here was that internet-based, long-distance, rapid training may be practical in China due to the fact that "the overwhelming majority of county level CDCs have good internet access".
Contact: Li Richun LiRiChun@CN.CDC.GOV
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PLEASE VOTE in our current POLL:
Which of the following technologies has the most potential for accelerating progress to reduce poverty?:
- Film/Video
- Internet
- Interpersonal discussion
- Laptops
- Mobile phones (cell phones)
- Print media
- Radio
- Television
- Wireless
- Other [Vote and then Submit comments]
PLEASE VOTE AND COMMENT - Top Right Side Bar of the website.
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STRATEGIC THINKING
8. Making Poverty the Story: Time to Involve the Media in Poverty Reduction
This report is the culmination of Raising Debate, a 3-year pilot project on the media and poverty reduction in 6 countries, coordinated by Panos London with members of the international Panos network and partners in Africa and South Asia. It focuses on the role of media in poverty reduction through its ability to raise public awareness and debate and to shift public and political opinion, with the possible result of policy change. It asks for recognition and support of high-quality public interest journalism that plays a role in coverage relevant to poverty reduction. According to the report, the media has boosted the potential for poverty reduction to be seen as a more newsworthy challenge.
9. Three Challenges of Communication for Social Change
by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron
In this paper, the author approaches his analysis of 3 challenges of communication from a Latin American perspective of communication as a participatory process resulting in "sustainable and appropriate social development and social change." Based on the Latin American development experience, he defines "sustainable" as meaning experiences that can continue on the strength of social actors in grassroots projects without external inputs, and "appropriate" as meaning that development results from "a process of social appropriation." The 3 challenges to communication for development discussed here are the challenge of using naming language accurately, the challenge of its focus as an academic discipline and field of practice, and, finally, the challenge of prioritising the discipline in large development agencies.
10. Bootstraps, Slingshots and Angels
by Alan Finlay
Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa programme (CATIA) works towards strengthening the context for the adoption and use of ICTs in Africa. To document its experience in engaging the private sector, CATIA has produced this article, which looks at the successes and challenges the programme had over the years 2004 and 2005. The article is the result of interviews with CATIA participants from both civil society and private sector backgrounds.
11. Bringing HIV Prevention to Scale: An Urgent Global Priority
In this report, available in English, French, Russian, and Spanish, released in June 2007 by the Global HIV Prevention Working Group, a panel of AIDS experts call for a major scale-up of global HIV prevention programmes. According to the document, a rise in treatment and the investment needed for this treatment has not been matched by a rise in HIV prevention or investment in prevention strategies. This failure is analysed, impediments are discussed, and successful prevention scale-up is described. Programmes in Thailand, Uganda, Brazil, and Senegal are highlighted, as well as key prevention services, including HIV testing, condom promotion, mass media campaigns, and focused programmes for youth, mothers, injection drug users, sex workers, and men who have sex with men (MSM).
MATERIALS
12. Center for International Media Assistance's Database of Media Assistance Resources
The Center for International Media Assistance (CIMA), an initiative of the National Endowment for Democracy, has compiled a comprehensive online database listing the bibliographic details of over 600 articles, reports, manuals, working papers, and books on topics relevant to the field of media assistance. CIMA updates and expands the bibliography through user participation and seeks additions to the contents as well as suggestions to improve the database. The database is searchable by Title, Author, Year, or Keyword. In addition, the resources are categorised by region - Africa, Asia, Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Middle East and North Africa - and by country for easier access to specific relevant resources.
13. The Evaluation Exchange: Advocacy and Policy Change
This issue of the series The Evaluation Exchange describes new developments in evaluating advocacy and policy change efforts that attempt to inform or influence public policy at the local, state, or federal levels. The issue contains an introduction from its director, who writes: "Advocacy has long been one of these 'hard-to-measure' activities... Advocacy here represents the strategies devised, actions taken, and solutions proposed to inform or influence local, state, or federal decision making... Advocacy strategies to inform or influence policy can include activities such as one-on-one meetings, testimony at hearings, community meetings or forums, coalition building, public education campaigns, street marches, media outreach, and electronic advocacy."
14. Global Age-friendly Cities: A Guide
Informed by the World Health Organization (WHO)'s approach to active ageing, the purpose of this guide is to engage cities to become more age-friendly so as to "tap the potential that older people represent for humanity". By working with groups in 33 cities in all WHO regions, WHO has asked older people in focus groups to describe the advantages and barriers they experience in 8 areas of city living. In most cities, the reports from older people were complemented by evidence from focus groups of caregivers and service providers in the public, voluntary, and private sectors. The results from the focus groups led to the development of a set of age-friendly city checklists presented in this guide.
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The Drum 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 Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com
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