Voices of People - Participatory Communication

Voices of people: A report on experiences of participatory communication for social change

by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron

Click here to download a Power Point presentation of this report.

Background

• Meeting since 1997 - Bellagio
• Discussing new perspectives of communication for social change
• Selected case stories for Cape Town
• Many experiences that we don't know
• Diversity of media, topics and levels of community participation

Many voices, many worlds

• Latin America has 50 years of experience, but little is known in the North because of language barriers
• Asia has recently come out of decades of strong regimes and censorship
• Africa is experimenting many "models" of communication often prompted by donors but seeking its own.

Selection criteria

• Established experiences, not only projects
• Community driven communication process
• Community ownership of media
• Strengthening democratic values & peace
• Reinforcing cultural identity & principles
• Rooted in social development
• Innovative alliances & networking
• Not only successful, also failures

Immediate constraints

• Information is not readily available
• Most do not have web sites, e-mail, fax
• The most "visible" are not always the most effective in social change
• Often documents are in local languages
• Research often implies going wherever the experience exists
• Challenge to balance representation

Balancing the act

• Regional: Asia, Africa & Latin America
• Media tools: radio, video, theatre, Internet
• Issues: health, women, enviroment - focus is often forced by donors
• Participation: from access to ownership
• Origin: community, NGO, international cooperation, or government
• Duration: learn from old & new paradigms

VOICES & CHOICES

Radios Mineras

• Bolivia, 1949
• Organized miners
• By 1965, 26 stations
• Example of total ownership of media
• Serving not only the miners, but peasants & society at large
• Culture of solidarity and consciousness
• National influence in times of crisis
• Primary target during military coups

Radio Kwizera

• Ngara - Tanzania, JRS - 1995
• 30 kms from Rwanda & Burundi
• 250,000 refugees remain in 12 camps
• Kwizera means "hope" in Kirundi
• Against "hate radio", for peace and reconciliation
• Four refugees participate as journalists

Tambuli

• Philippines, 1991 - most remote areas
• Community radio network, 20 stations
• Against "PPPP": profit, propoganda, power and privilege (Louis Tabing)
• Provide access to information
• Strengthen cultural identity
• Do not operate as a real network

Kiritmati Radio

• Kiribati/Christmas Island - 1998
• Remotest place in the Pacific
• One month to build, install, air - No radio at all before Kiritimati
• Environment, water & sanitation
• Participation limited by government control
• Lack of raio-receivers

Radio Izcanal

• El Salvador, Nueva Granada - 1991
• Former refugees from internal war
• Human rights, education, environment
• ARPAS, network of 24 community radio stations sharing 92.1 FM frequency
• National presence and local relevance

Radio Mampita & Magneva

• Madagascar, 1998 - Swiss cooperation
• Fianarantsoa & Morondava, rural audience
• Hundreds of small peasant associations
• Peasants elected to Administrative Council
• NGO capacity building: AGECO & CODE
• Process of transfer of ownership
• No legislation for community radio

Radio Sagarmatha

• Nepal, 1997 - Everest
• Enviromental journalists
• Fight for licence to operate, 14 restrictions
• Restrictions lifted gradually "de facto"
• Health, environment, local traditions
• Microphone open to the community
• The only alternative to official radio

Radio Chaguarurco

• Ecuador, 1995 - Province of Azuay
• Organizing communities around demands for basic services: water, electricity
• Better communication among villages
• Authorities appear more open to demands
• Valorisation of local culture & language

Bush Radio

• South Africa, Cape Town, 1995
• Censorship, police, finally licence
• Freedom of expression for black majority
• Training is important component
• Highlights: Prison Radio, Taxi Talk, Community Law, Truth & Reconciliation
• Brokering peace deals in townships

Local Radio Network

• Indonesia, 1999
• UNESCO & DANIDA
• Networking of 25 local private stations
• Internet & e-mail increasingly important
• Language barriers, develop own web page
• Catalyse democracy & good governance
• Political challenges after 32 years of dictatorship and control over information

Kothmale FM Community Radio

• Sri Lanka, 1989 - UNESCO
• Mix of Internet and radio
• Web research on demand
• Radio return information in local language
• Database development on community issues and priorities
• Live broadcasts from villages
• Computers access for students & teachers
• Government backing the project

Pulsar Agencia Informartiva

• Regional, Latin America, 1996 - AMARC
• Hundreds of community radio stations
• Alternative news agency & networking
• Daily e-mail exchanges and Internet
• Programming in local language - Quechua
• Local news, local correspondents
• Information relevant to rural communities

Video SEWA

• India, 1984 - SEWA Union
• Martha Stuart Communications
• Grassroots & market women
• Video technology gradually introduced
• The process as important as the product
• Topics: credit, health, childcare, nutrition
• Innovative use for legal purposes
• Changing roles of women in traditional society

Maneno Mengi

• Zansibar, Tanzania, 1998 - Many Words
• Participatory video: fisher folks, peasants
• State-of-the-art & low-cost technology
• The process is the tool for change
• The product is a summary, an archive
• Facilitating horizontal & vertical dialogue
• Gradually introducing ownership of media

T.V. Maxambomba

• Brazil, Nova Iguaca - 1986 - Street video
• Alternative to "Globo" & other TV giants
• Health, violence, black culture, gender
• 100 documentaries in twelve years
• Public screenings in squares and schools
• Mix of entertainment and education
• Community awareness creation for elections and political participation

Television Serrana

• Cuba, 1993 - Sierra Maestra
• Community video - children
• UNESCO - ICRT - UNICEF
• Video letters to break isolation
• Wholesome expressions of people
• 300 documentaries & reportages so far
• Strengthening local culture & identity
• Independent media is emerging in Cuba

Popular Theatre

• Nigeria, 1991, UNICEF
• Reaching the most isolated villages for UCI
• Training related with Participatory Development Workshops at LGAs
• Health & child rights - Facts for Life
• By 1994 - 46 drama groups in ten states
• Low-cost & sustainable: LGAs, NGOs

Teatro Trono

• Bolivia, 1989 - El Alto
• Urban poverty & marginality
• Street children and youth are initiators
• Topics widen to cover health, gender, enviroment, violence, education
• Collective decisions on plays, issues
• COMPA - Community Art Producers

AAROHAN

• Nepal, 1988 - street theatre
• Villages out of reach of radio and TV
• Health & environmental issues
• Important training component, dialects
• Research on local traditions and cultural values to write scripts
• Natural network of 30 local drama groups

Kids on the Block

• China -Hong Kong, 1995 - puppets
• Original experience from USA
• Children with disabilities - characters
• Juvenile diabetes, mental palsy, asthma
• Promoting equal opportunity & respect
• Obstacles for local Cantonese adaptations because of copyright & marketing

Soul City

• South Africa, 1991
• Television + radio + print = edutainment
• Health, AIDS, domestic violence, rape
• Audience shift in knowledge & attitudes
• Mass media is not the silver bullet - Japhet
• Integrated strategy of multimedia
• Community-based research for topics

Carpa Lila - The Lilac Tent

• Bolivia, 1998 - Johns Hopkins/CCP
• Innovative multi-media approach
• Reproductive health, maternal mortality
• Negative experiences in the sixties over birth control - donor driven policies
• Analysis of local needs in health
• The educational process before the tent includes 50 different activities

EcoNews Africa

• Regional - East Africa, 1992
• Involving NGOs and CBOs in decision-making on sustainable development
• Promoting strategic information flows
• Multilateral Development Activities
• Mobilisation & Combat Desertification
• Information & Networking - Internet
• Enviromental Learning - schools

Kenya Community Media Network

• Kenya, 1995 - EcoNews
• Networking 12 community groups: drama, music, puppets, poetry, video
• AIDS/STD, FGM, environment, health
• Training & organising exchanges
• Organizing around Bill on Community Broadcasting

Grameen Village Phone

• Bangladesh, 1998 - Grameen Bank
• Cellular phones for rural population
• High level of women participation
• Beauty: income generating activity
• Target: 40,000 new village phone operators
• Combined income: US $24 million p/year
• Close relation to GB revolving loan system

InfoDes

• Peru, Cajamarca - 1998
• Improve quality of rural life
• Integrated information system for urban and rural development
• Recycling conventional rural libraries
• Computerized database on local needs
• Structure: CIDUR, CIDER, CIMDUR
• Internet services, video shows, radio

General Remarks

Diversity of media

• Large number of radio experiences
• Video increasingly important & cheap
• Theatre, puppets, relevant to traditions
• Internet: most at the drawing board stage
• Convergence between radio and Internet
• Internet & video to converge soon
• Wireless technologies to break inequalities

Radio

• Cost-efficient: cost is partly shared by all those who own a radio + buy batteries
• Pertinent: no language or literacy barriers, ideal for illiterate population
• Relevant: direct expression of local oral cultural and traditions
• Sustainable: community appropriation - management, running costs
• Outreach: influence thousands of people

Video

• Accessible: new portable technologies, less dependent on electricty, lower costs
• Interactive: enhanced participatory process - production and distribution
• Believable: image has a convincing power derived from reality
• Enabling dialogue: with authorities, with technical staff, through television
• Converging with Internet

Theatre, puppets

• Entertaining: mix of messages and fun
• Cost-efficient: the street, the square, the village, fwew props
• Face to face: peer influence, equals
• Cultural relevance: builds on local traditions, oral narrative, creativity
• Enabling discussions: community gets involved, local issues motivate

Internet

• Limited access: electricity, phone lines not available
• Culturally irrelevant: little practical use, English dominated - need local content
• Convergence: empowering mix with local radio and soon video delivery
• Shaping future: no dominant model yet- comemrcial, development, cultural
• Wireless technology: new possibilities

To keep in mind

When a new technology is introduced to a different setting, what is transferred is not only the technology itself, but also a set of assumptions and practices regarding the particular technology and its use.If community media is the answer, what is the question? - Alfred E Opubor(at a UNESCO seminar on Promoting Community Media in Africa, in Kampala, June 1999)

Moving in unsafe waters

• Water borne diseases are common in the Third World
• Top-down communication stratagies for health will often advice: "Boil the water"
• This is one of the best examples of a communication message that is useless
• It shows ignorance of the reality of rural areas in teh Third World

To boil or not to boil

• "I tell the ladies over the microphone to boil the water, but I know they're not going to do it, because they have no fuel, they have no wood" (radio producer)
• 80% of rural population in the Third World depend on wood for cooking and walk 2 to 3 Kms every day to fetch dry sticks

The hen and the egg

• A poor rural family has a hen. The hen has put an egg. Should the family eat the egg for its nutritional value or sell it in the market?
• Economists and nutritionists agree that if the family sells the egg the chances are better to improve their income and nutritional status.

Participatory Communication Profile

A question of power

• Participatory communication contributes to put the decision-making about development in the hands of the people
• It consolidates the capability of communities to confront their own ideas about development with planners
• Within the community itself it favours the strengthening of democratic process

A question of identity

• Participatory communication contributes to install cultural pride and self-esteem
• It reinforces the social tissue through the strengthening of indigenous & local forms of organisation
• It protects traditions and cultural values, while being able to incorporate new elements

Horizontal vs. Vertical

• People as dynamic actors participating in the process of change in control of communication tools
• People percieved as mere passive receivers of information and instructions, decisions made by others

Process vs. Campaign

• People taking in hand their own future through a process of democratic participation in communication planning
• Campaigns are expensive and not sustainable, they mobilise but they do not build capacity at the community level
• 'Annual report' driven projects do not acknowledge the cultural realities and often oversize results & outputs

Collective vs. Individual

• Communities act colletively n the interest of the majority, avoiding the risk of loosing power to a few
• People targeted individually are detached from their community and from their communal forms of decision-making

With & By vs. From & For

• Research, designing, disseminating messages with the community & by the people, to establish dialogue and debate
• Designing, pretesting, delivering, evaluating messages from, to or for...remains external to communities

Specific vs. Massive

• Communication process & messages should specifically adapt to each social group in terms of content, language & media
• A tendency to use the same mass media, messages & strategies in diverse cultural contexts, and for different social sectors of society

People needs vs. Donor musts

• Community based research to identify, define & discriminate - with the people - the felt needs and the real needs
• Communication projects on donor-driven needs: privatisations, birth control (family planning), extensive farming

Ownership vs. Access

• Ownership of media and communication tools provides voice and opportunity with no restriction
• Access to information channels is a step forward, though often controlled and regulated by others

Conciousness vs. Persuasion

• A process of bring up conciousness and deep understanding about social reality, problems, and solutions
• Persuasion to change behavior and perform acts on specific issues is only sustainable with permanent stimulus & funds

Capacitation & Concientizacion

Capacitacion goes far beyond training.

• The concept is not limited to acquiring technical skills or improving knoweldge through information
• It relates to Paulo Freire's concientization, or people becoming critically concious about their reality, the social, economic and political causes and the potential solutions to their problems.

Every time we support a community based communication process, we are not only helping a concrete community to have a better and more dignified life; we are also supporting the development of a communication ideal that may be the only means to ensure cultural identity and the survival of a world of diversity.