The Drum Beat 390 - Communication and Change News and Issues
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This issue of The Drum Beat features a small selection of project experiences, strategic thinking pieces and resources highlighting the use of communication for development.
If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on The CI websites and in The Drum Beat newsletters, please contact Deborah Heimann [email protected]
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1.Tabaka Artisan Centre - Kisumu, Nyanza, Kenya
This is a not-for-profit organisation working to mobilise young people to implement community-based projects to fight HIV/AIDS and other problems in Kisumu, Nyanza, Kenya. In addition to bringing young people together for voluntary, community-based initiatives, the organisation fosters income generation among youth and the broader community through production of handicrafts. Community participation and engagement are hallmarks of the Centre's work. Drawing on the involvement of local schools, churches, community groups, and local leaders, the organisation arranges home visits to community members and sets up local meetings. The aim of these interpersonal interactions is to discuss, and develop strategies to address, problems such as HIV/AIDS that have been increasing in the community.
Contact Samson Getubo [email protected]
2.Mannequin - Asia
Launched in 2004 by Singapore-based McCann Healthcare, this was an Asia-wide osteoporosis television and print advertising campaign. Developed and shot in Mumbai, India by McCann Healthcare India, the Mannequin TV spot and print ads urged women to take responsibility for their bone health by both taking a simple test and asking their doctor about osteoporosis. In the 30-second public service announcement, one female mannequin form, representing the one in three women over 50 who will get osteoporosis, suffers the three most common osteoporosis fractures - wrist, spine and hip. The campaign also included a print advertisement for consumers, a print advertisement for physicians, and a toolkit for physicians.
Contact Paul Sochaczewski [email protected]
3.Think.com - Global
This is an online educational environment designed for primary (ages 7 to 12) and secondary (ages 13 to 16) school students and teachers. It aims to allow students to create websites, interact with peers, ask questions, and make friends around the world. Teachers can use the portal to develop collaborative activities and promote cross-cultural learning. Only students and teachers from member schools can enter this password-protected learning community, which is designed to foster communication and collaboration around the websites that students have created. According to the project website, by gathering a wider yet protected audience, Think.com "turns students into multimedia authors for a global community and allows peers to think and learn together."
Contact [email protected]
4.National Media Observatory (Observatorio Nacional de Medios - ONADEM) - Bolivia
Following a planning process that began in 2004, the National Media Observatory in Bolivia (ONADEM) was launched in April 2006 in an effort to increase the quality of journalism in Bolivia within a context of pluralism, journalistic responsibility, intercultural dialogue, and democracy. Collaborators aim to strengthen the ability of students within journalism and communication fields to support participatory and discursive communities within a framework of the right to information in Bolivia. ONADEM's goal is to establish a standard for quality among the mass media, universities, and the general public in Bolivia. ONADEM's work focuses on 4 areas: the mass media structure and its relations; the conditions and characteristics of news making; media representations of social reality; and social perceptions about the mass media and journalists.
Contact Sandra Villegas [email protected] OR Erick Torrico [email protected] OR Vania Sandoval [email protected] OR Bernardo Poma [email protected]
5.Students Without Borders (SWB) - Nigeria
This is a youth programme supported by Teachers Without Borders, Nigeria. SWB aims to encourage Nigerian students to bring about positive changes in their communities, enable the exchange of resource information, and facilitate the education of other young people (using their peers' achievements at the local level as a showcase). The programme is focused on community projects that use communication to bring about change; they include: the Student Leaders Information Technology Conference; AIDS 2004 YOUTH - an e-platform that was designed to facilitate the effective and maximum participation of young people across the world both in the preparatory processes and at the main conference at the 15th International Conference on AIDS (Bangkok, 2004); and Save Port Harcourt Zoo Campaign - a campaign geared toward raising awareness in the community on the need to save the local zoo.
Contact Dabesaki Mac-Ikemenjima [email protected]
6.Suicide and the Media - Global
In response to a series of complaints about media coverage of suicide in the United Kingdom (UK), in 2000 The MediaWise Trust - an independent media ethics body supported by concerned journalists, media lawyers, and politicians in the UK - undertook a research and documentation project on reporting suicide. By collaborating with various media organisations and groups working in the area of suicide, MediaWise analysed journalism codes of conduct and existing training on the issue to help inform the development of its own training strategies and resource materials. MediaWise has documented the results of this research, which had a global focus, in various online (and some printed) publications and resources that are meant to help support more accurate, sensitive, and responsible journalism on the issue of suicide around the world. MediaWise Trust has undertaken a number of recent studies on media coverage of suicide in Sri Lanka, Taiwan and the UK; one finding is that "media professionals everywhere have an onerous responsibility when reporting about suicide." The MediaWise Trust website provides both access to the results of this research and concrete examples, data, guidelines, and training for media professionals.
Contact Mike Jempson [email protected]
7.Postage Stamp on Women Farmers Campaign - India
This campaign, launched on the occasion of International Women's Day (March 8) 2005, was meant to demand official action to help create an enabling environment to provide economically poor and marginalised women farmers with due rights and recognition for their contribution to addressing poverty and hunger in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India. The campaign was organised around the idea of asking that a commemorative stamp be created as a means of symbolically celebrating the centrality of women farmers to the economy and agriculture of the region, by: fostering understanding of the social construction of gender and gender inequalities and creating gender sensitivity; enhancing women farmers' status, rights, and recognition by influencing various sectors to further gender mainstreaming in policy, planning and programmes; and making people aware of the role that women farmers play in India's development, economic prosperity, and food security. Letters and postcards were written to the Prime Minister and Ministers of Agriculture and Communication. Members of the public were asked to mail postcards directly to the President to express their support for the idea of a commemorative stamp. In addition, the official Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) letter indicated that a delegation of 5-6 women farmers from UP along with select representatives of voluntary organisations were seeking a personal, face-to-face meeting with the recipient(s) of the advocacy letter(s).
Contact Tariq Rehman [email protected]
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Pulse Poll
Do you agree or disagree?
All health interventions should have a proven primary nutritional/food component.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat #388.]
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8.Reducing Poverty by Tackling Social Exclusion: A DFID Policy Paper
Produced by the Department for International Development (DFID) and based on research and consultation, this paper is about the challenges posed by social exclusion, and the ways governments, civil society and donors can help to tackle them.
9.Breaking Barriers: Effective Communication for Universal Access to HIV Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support by 2010
by Robin Vincent
This paper argues that effective HIV and AIDS communication is central to the achievement of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support. It reviews lessons learned from the response so far and suggests that there is an urgent need to strengthen communication approaches that look beyond narrow, short-term interventions focused on individual behaviours. Communication challenges include: the effective coordination of the response; sustained advocacy to tackle the underlying drivers of the epidemic; and the specific communication needs of prevention, treatment and care initiatives that require grassroots ownership and social mobilisation. In addressing these barriers, it is vital, Vincent suggests, that the focus turn toward developing and implementing strategies drawing on communication which engages those most affected by HIV and AIDS.
10.Horizontal Learning: Engaging Freedom's Possibilities
by Doug Reeler
This paper explores the transformative power of horizontal learning. Activities drawing on this communication approach include community exchanges, farmer-to-farmer learning groups, daily savings groups, seed-sharing festivals, and the like. To introduce the concept of horizontal learning, Reeler begins by exploring the following 4 interconnected principles: 1) Development and the will or impulse to develop is natural and innate; 2) Development is complex, unpredictable and characterised by crisis; 3) People's own capacity to learn from experience is the foundation of their knowledge and development; and 4) Development is held in relationships. Reeler uses case stories from the South Africa-based Community Development Resource Association (CDRA), and the work of colleagues, to illustrate that horizontal learning can be effective both as a method and as a strategy.
11.Cultural Competency in Health: A Guide for Policy, Partnerships and Participation
This resource provides a model designed to help policy makers and managers with culturally competent policy and planning at all levels of the health system: systemic, organisational, professional, and individual. It provides practical strategies for increasing cultural competency within culturally and linguistically diverse communities, and gives examples of evaluated programmes at the local level that aim to make a difference. The guide indicates that successful health promotion campaigns are those that are culturally sensitive and create long-term partnerships with stakeholders, businesses, and community groups.
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Communication and Sustainable Development in Intercultural Contexts
Ohio University's CommDev Graduate Student Conference commemorates its 20th anniversary with a conference on the theme of "Communication and Sustainable Development in Intercultural Contexts" on April 13th and 14th, 2007.
Ohio University will be webcasting the opening ceremonies, keynote speech, and the experts panel of the first day's events. Speakers/experts will include: Denise Gray-Felder, President and CEO, Communication for Social Change Consortium; Srinivas Melkote, Bowling Green State University; Silvio Waisbord, Academy for Educational Development; and Mandi Chikombero, Ohio University.
Please click here for more information and to link to the webcast, which will be available throughout April 2007.
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12.Communication Development and Civil Society: Essays on Social Development and Civil Society
by V.S. Gupta
This book aims to examine various aspects of massive development efforts undertaken in India. Exploring linkages between communication, development and civil society, it discusses a number of issues concerning development planning in the country, such as literacy, education, poverty alleviation, information and communication technologies (ICTs), health, population control, human rights, environmental protection, and good governance.
13.Know Your Audience: A Practical Guide to Media Research
by Dennis List
This book is written primarily for media people in developing countries, and small communications-related organisations in the developed world. Its 17 chapters explain various methods and steps in research and reporting.
14.Shout Out! A Kid's Guide to Recording Stories
by Katie Davis
This guide is an introduction to spoken history. It takes children through the steps of how to carry out an interview and write a story, describing how to choose the right person, what kinds of questions to ask, and how to get comfortable in an interview situation.
15.Virtual University: Models and Messages | Lessons from Case Studies
edited by Susan D'Antoni
Part of the Education on the Move series, this publication explores the ICT policy, planning, and management implications of several new or re-organised institutions of higher education. Three background chapters describe the context: the trends and challenges related to - and the impact of - cross-border education. Eight case studies from different regions and representing various institutional models tell the story of their development and relate lessons learned.
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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.
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