The Drum Beat 229 - Communication and Change News and Issues
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We wish you a warm and joyous celebration season and we look forward to sharing and supporting your work next year. Peace and prosperity to you all in the new year.
- The Communication Initiative Team
Our next issue of The Drum Beat will be January 5, 2004.
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PROGRAMMES
1.KidFamilia Project - Brazil
Designed to stimulate the development of "virtual families" by bringing poor, socially deprived children together with wise elders. Elders are asked to act as surrogate family members to children participating in the Kidlink House (KHouse) Internet centres project. Following training, elders use email and the internet to share advice about their past experiences and to inspire kids to look hopefully toward the future. The purpose of the intergenerational project is to build elders' self-esteem and openness to new technology, while fostering healthy relationships in the lives of needy children. An added goal is to promote respect for, and attention to, the ageing population in Brazil.
Contact Lucia Chibante [email protected] OR Marisa Lucena [email protected]
2.Menthor Cultural Foundation - Romania
Uses art to educate and inspire dialogue among people living in various challenged environments (such as orphanages). Menthor's central activity is local theatre for young people. Specialists in the fields of theatre, visual arts, dance, music, linguistics, pedagogy, and social care facilitate the participation of children and teenagers from orphanages in brainstorming sessions and drama workshops. A key strategy underlying these activities is encouraging children to work in teams and discuss their problems openly and efficiently. The outcome of these workshops is the participatory production of plays.
Contact [email protected]
3.Youth.now - Jamaica
Addresses Jamaicans ages 10-19 with the aim of improving reproductive health (RH) and easing the transition to adulthood. The central strategy is working to increase the availability of relevant information and quality services that can motivate and enable young people to take positive actions to improve their RH status. Programme actions include: launching a mass media campaign; designing interventions for specific groups (preteens, boys); offering multidisciplinary training of trainers; and conducting community education, outreach, and advocacy. Youth.now features different strategies for different ages and sexes.
Contact Pauline Russell-Brown [email protected]
4.Society For Integrated Developmental Activities, Research & Training (SIDART) - India
Works in the urban slums and remote rural areas of Rajasthan. SIDART's main activities focus on empowering women, sensitising society to gender issues, generating environmental awareness, organising health camps, offering non-formal education to child labourers, forming self-help groups, and mobilising the community for economic empowerment. SIDART designs its activities from the perspective that local wisdom, knowledge, and resources can be harnessed to develop appropriate trainings for capacity building, carry out action research, mobilise the community, and initiate sustainable community-based and community-owned projects.
Contact Pramila Sanjaya [email protected] OR [email protected]
5.Here Today: Heroin in Vermont Documentary Film - Vermont, USA
A 60-minute documentary film chronicling the experiences of 6 Vermont families who have struggled with heroin addiction. The filmmaker spent the fall of 2001 with 6 families of diverse economic and social backgrounds who had been impacted by heroin and who wanted to share their experience with fellow community members. Community showings of the film were followed by discussion sessions with some of the young people and parents in the film. In addition to helping the audience understand addiction from a personal perspective, these discussions focused on what community members can do to address the problem.
Contact Bess O'Brien [email protected]
6.Carambola Fruit Fly Campaign - Latin America
Initiated in Brazil, French Guyana, Guyana, and Suriname in 1996, the Carambola fruit fly campaign uses communication technologies as well as traditional information exchange to inform citizens about ways to support efforts to eradicate this pest. The strategy uses technologies ranging from written materials to multimedia and remote sensing to enable citizen participation. Radio, TV, and group video sessions were used to build local institutional capacity, including training, environmental monitoring, and research to provide information for the development of techniques for fruit fly detection, control, and eradication.
Contact Shantanu Mathur [email protected]
7.Kwacha Kum'mawa - Chipata, Zambia
A newspaper written and produced by a group of 5 teenage girls. Supported by local donations, staff contributions, and advertising, the newspaper disseminates sexual and reproductive health information, mostly for adolescents and young girls, through the sharing of real-life sexual reproductive stories. Produced 4 times a year, issues include interviews, columns on local celebrities and gossip, puzzles, question-and-answer sessions, and feature stories.
Contact Godfrey Chitalu [email protected]
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Pulse Poll
For more effective development communication interventions we need more artistic creativity and less performance based results planning.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat #226]
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EVALUATIONS
8.Impact Data - Prevention and Management of Abortion Complications (PMAC) Programme - The Philippines
Postabortion clients interviewed during the case study all reported that staff had discussed family planning with them, either at bedside, in a separate counseling room, or in an outpatient department. When site staff were asked what had improved since PMAC began, all responded that they had become less judgmental toward clients, and all spoke of the counseling trainings as powerful experiences that were instrumental in engendering those changes. One woman who had been a postabortion client at the same hospital twice in 2 years remarked to an evaluator that "last year they were so rough on me, and this year they treated me like a human being."
9.Crime Prevention and Indigenous Communities: Current International Strategies and Programmes
by Laura Capobianco & Margaret Shaw
This paper provides a brief review of current policies, strategies and projects relating to crime prevention among Indigenous communities in Australia, Canada, the United States and New Zealand. The purpose of the report is to assist in the exchange of information on effective crime prevention strategies, and the identification of good practice, as well as problem areas...
10.Nijera Shikhi and Adult Literacy
This report examines the outcome of Nijera Shikhi’s (a people's literacy movement in Bangladesh) activities in adult literacy. It is based on the continuation of research conducted by the author on the impact of Nijera Shikhi in 1997.
TRENDS
11.Big Media, Little Kids: Media Consolidation and Children's Television Programming
The child research and action organisation Children Now studied the impact of media consolidation among major television stations in Los Angeles, California, USA both before (1998) and after (2003) the purchase of independent stations by media giants. The study counted the number of children's series each of 7 stations broadcast, the number of hours devoted to children's programming, and how often the same shows were repeated across different stations. The findings reveal a dramatic decrease in children's TV programming following media consolidation.
12.The Impact of Cybercafés on Information Services in Uganda
by Samuel Gitta & J.R. Ikoja-Odongo
This study focuses on trends in the use of cybercafés in Uganda. These cafés are a significant means for many to access the Internet, especially in urban areas (57.1% of respondents called the cafés "very important" in providing information services to Ugandans; 34.9% characterised them as "important", and none deemed them "not important").
13.National Media Survey 2002
Provides the results of an interview-based survey of 10,850 males and females of 15-45 yrs from urban and rural areas in Bangladesh. This was the 3rd national media survey of its kind undertaken in Bangladesh. The 1st was conducted in 1995 and the 2nd in 1998. It covers radio exposure, television viewership, print media (newspapers, magasines) reach and readership, cinema and video exposure, exposure to specific logos, and role of electronic media in healthcare.
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MATERIALS
14.Understanding the Indigenous Knowledge and Information Systems of Pastoralists in Eritrea
by Alessandro Dinucci & Zeremariam Fre
According to the authors, "Despite the fact that nomadic herders are amongst the most food insecure groups, pastoral systems have received little attention from research and extension services. Within this framework, almost no attention has been focused on pastoralists' indigenous knowledge and information systems, limiting the chances of achieving success in pastoral development programmes. For centuries, indigenous knowledge has been the only source of information for pastoral societies..."
15.Communities Facing the HIV/AIDS Challenge: From Crisis to Opportunity - From Community Vulnerability to Community Resilience
by Lee-Nah Hsu, Jacques du Guerny & Marissa Marco
From a South East Asian perspective, this paper reviews the challenges of HIV/AIDS issues in rural communities. The paper outlines a variety of constraints faced by farm-households and issues such as time and energy limitations created by HIV/AIDS provoked shortages. The authors claim that Labor Saving Techniques "...are a partial solution to HIV/AIDS problems, but also represent a challenge to the way agriculture is practiced and to common policies in both agriculture and HIV/AIDS..."
16.Intervention Strategies that Work for Youth: Summary of FOCUS on Young Adults, End of Program Report
by Tijuana James-Traore, Robert Magnani, Nancy Murray, Judith Senderowitz, Ilene Speizer & Lindsay Stewart
Reports on programmes that have helped young people in developing countries practice healthier behaviors, including delaying sexual debut, reducing the number of sexual partners, and increasing the use of methods for preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV/AIDS.
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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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