Digital Pulse - Ch 3 - Sec 2 - Reflect and ICT

Development Issues: Education, Literacy, HIV/AIDS

Programme Summary

Reflect is an original approach to participatory adult learning and social change that was developed and pioneered by the UK-based NGO ActionAid in developing countries in 1993-95. In the programme, groups develop their own learning materials by constructing graphics such as maps, or diagrams, or using forms of drama, story-telling and songs which can capture social, economic, cultural and political issues from their own environment. The goal is to assist in the development of literacy and other communication skills while engaging the participants in thought and dialogue about the issues most pressing to their socio-economic development. Reflect has had considerable success and is widely recognized in the development community, over 350 organizations in 60 countries are utilizing Reflect strategies.

Recently, the progenitors of Reflect have turned their attention to how these strategies can be combined with emergent ICTs to improve upon literacy and communication learning and partially bridge the digital divide. Reflect offers a potential basis for introducing ICTs in an equitable way, as part of a wider process of self-managed and directed change for development. The Kabarole, Uganda HIV/AIDS project is one of these pilots.

Linkages have been established between Reflect and efforts to strengthen community responses to chronic diseases, and HIV/AIDS. The project aims to explore community coping mechanisms when confronted with chronic illnesses, and to learn about the developmental impacts of terminal illnesses for different members of the community. Reflect will enable community members to strengthen the positive aspects of their coping mechanisms and reduce harmful behaviours and practices within communities. The importance of openness and transparency to demystify HIV/AIDS is also emphasized, with a particular focus on the need for reliable, confidential and trustworthy access to information.

Summary of ICT Initiatives

HIV/AIDS has been an important element of Reflect work in the area, and links have been made with Strategies for Action, a participatory approach to HIV, sexual health and gender. The organisation currently supports 20 trained facilitators working in 11 village-level circles, mostly involving women, and 6 peer circles for adolescents in local primary schools. The school circles were developed for adolescents to share information and attitudes around sexual health and HIV with their peers away from their parents.

Information is currently shared through:

• Reflect circles: where people share information and analyse issues directly, and facilitators meet regularly to share lessons and strategies;
• Drama groups: have been trained to formulate and communicate issues;
• Videos are distributed from district level with key messages on issues including HIV/AIDS and agriculture. They can be costly to distribute and are often produced in other districts or countries;
• Religious centres: can be used to disseminate information, including through sermons, counselling services, burials, visits to the sick etc. There are 47 religious centres in an area of only 25 villages;

It is envisaged that ICT project will add value in terms of:

• Documentation of work done at circle level, so as to enable sharing, access, secondary analysis and monitoring;
• Dissemination of information and analysis to decision-makers;
• Strengthening local democracy, including budget information and analysis, involving people in government programme planning and implementation;
• Strengthening micro-macro linkages, adding outreach to district level initiatives, developing local materials for dissemination, linking reality on the ground to policy making;
• Networking and sharing with other organisations and associations to avoid duplication, including Youth Concern;
• Building on existing communication work through, for example:
• Combining radio, video and telephone for phone-ins - people can ask questions, anonymously if necessary, for the benefit of all;
• Replacing or complementing existing information videos with locally produced versions

Facilitators and groups will adapt participatory tools to their own context and use them to identify and analyze the information gaps and communication needs concerning HIV/AIDS in the community. The facilitators will then act as intermediaries, introducing Reflect circles to ICTs and their potential uses. Where other ICT initiatives exist within easy distance, groups can make contact with them and find out about their experiences.

On the basis of this participatory process, groups will come to a point where they will be able to choose the equipment they would like to have access to, where it should be and how it should be managed, sustained and monitored. According to these requirements, a communication centre will be planned and set up in each pilot location. It is essential that:

• Facilitators and communities are not tied to specific targets and objectives. The Reflect circles should determine the usefulness of technologies according to their own analysis;
• Facilitators and groups are free to be creative and use and adapt participatory tools as they find appropriate and useful, as long as their activities link in with the project framework and core values;
• Facilitators find a balance between guidance and support, bringing in technical advice and expertise at appropriate moments without defining the outcome of the group's analysis. No one person or group should dominate the learning process and thereby reinforce inequitable power structures.

Observations

This project has just gotten underway in January 2003 and the organizers have laid out a schedule that is to operate in two phases: the first year will be spent developing the capacities of groups to make meaningful choices about the information and communication technologies they need, and how they can be managed and used; the second phase of two years will involve the creation of a communication centre based on those decisions and the monitoring of their use. Finally, a model will be created for future participatory communications technology projects. The organizers are busy with resource development and an early task is for local frameworks to be established, with locally appropriate objectives and strategies based on the overall project framework and values. This will provide an essential working document for each of the pilot teams.

Monthly updates of the project's progress are available on the Reflect website and provide access to ongoing observations and lessons learned.

Partners: ActionAid, DFID, local NGO Literacy and Empowerment

Source: Reflect and ICT Project website

For More Information Contact:

Hannah Beardon at hannahbeardon@hotmail.com