The Drum Beat 374 - Communication and Change News and Issues
***
Now Available in PDF Format - The CI Network Survey Summary Report!
To download, please click here.
This survey of The CI Network, including The Communication Initiative, La Iniciativa de Comunicación, and Soul Beat Africa, was open from March 17 through April 26 2006. Within those 5 weeks there were a total of 2,334 respondents from 152 countries. This report provides a summary of how many people responded to each question and what their responses were.
To download a PDF file of this summary report, please
click here.
***
EXPERIENCES
1. What Kind of Man are You? - India
This is a multi-media campaign aiming to bring public attention to the growing incidence of HIV/AIDS among women in India. The campaign addresses men using popular, entertaining platforms like television, radio, printed materials, cinema/theatres, and the internet to promote equality within marriage that - it is hoped - will enable women to negotiate condom use and other measures to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS and other infections. What are intended to be sensitive yet tough/masculine campaign messages have been translated into 6 languages: Bengali, Hindi, English, Kannada, Tamil, Telegu and Marathi. The campaign also includes a music video featuring popular Indian actors.
Contact Crissy Spivey [email protected]
2. Videoletters - The Balkans
This project aims to foster reconciliation in post-war countries in the former Yugoslavia by attempting to re-establish friendships that have been ruptured by the conflict. Individuals in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Serbia, Monte Negro and Kosovo are invited to exchange greetings through a video message, in an attempt to open channels of communication. Videoletters began as a documentary project; the original project has since expanded to include television broadcasts, a mobile caravan, telephone helplines and an interactive website. To reach out to more individuals and communities, the Videoletters Caravan conducts tours in the countries of former Yugoslavia. The team travels with famous musicians, conducting projects for children and holding public screenings and discussions. The caravan features computers equipped with video cameras and internet connection to enable people to record their video letters, set them up on the website, and search for friends, relatives, former neighbours, etc.
Contact [email protected]
3. Communication Rights Programme (CRP) - West Africa
This programme aims to strengthen the role of media and people's access to communication as part of a democratic development process in West Africa. CRP supports initiatives aimed at overcoming barriers that prevent people from exercising their communication rights, hopefully thereby facilitating access to communication through state-owned media or mainstream commercial media. It uses both funding and advocacy in an effort to deal with problems related to the free flow of information and to marginalised people's access to communication. Although the particular approach used depends on the specific initiatives and their rationale, CRP supports and engages in activities revolving around local initiatives to facilitate access in practice.
Contact [email protected]
4. Ayrton Senna Institute - Brazil
This non-governmental organisation (NGO), with headquarters in São Paulo, works to provide adequate conditions for child and youth development. The Institute functions primarily as a funding institution, and not as an implementing organisation, but has several advocacy strategies of its own. To carry out its objectives, the Institute develops work around two strategic axes: "Doing" and "Inspiring". The first, "Doing", provides development opportunities directly to children and young people through its Social Technologies Center. The second, "Inspiring", which works through the Communication Center for Human Development, carries out actions that stimulate other social players to make a commitment of responsibility to the development of future generations.
Contact Ayrton Senna Institute website
5. Kids' Crossroads - Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia
This youth project produces television programming that aims to educate youth, their parents, neighbours and decision-makers about topics related to growing up. A magazine-style television programme covers topics ranging from conflict resolution and prevention to social inclusion and health issues. Each programme features teen-produced clips on healthy lifestyles, as well as a news segment and segment about a current issue investigated by young reporters from any or all of the 3 participating countries. The aim is to help the young audience in each country see the similarities and differences within the Caucasus, creating an opportunity for exchange of views between adolescents living in the region.
Contact [email protected] or [email protected]
6. Acting on Faith: Women's New Religious Activism in America - United States
This documentary film, with its accompanying study guide, aims to offer insight into, and encourage dialogue on, the religious activism of women in the United States. The film shares the experiences of 3 women activists of varied religious and cultural traditions who reflect on their experiences, and in their own voices express what kinds of identities they seek to build - for themselves and for their communities. The stories aim to help the viewer consider the compatibility of feminism and religion, and the tension of being a voice of critique without alienating one's community or inviting outside prejudice. The accompanying guide is designed to assist the viewer in understanding her or his own experiences in light of the experiences of the women featured in the film.
Contact [email protected]
***
Pulse Poll
It is crucial for promoters of behaviour change projects to be role models of the desired behaviour.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat #372.]
Do you agree or disagree?
***
THINKING
7. Imams in Bangladesh Mobilize Against Human Trafficking
This brief article discusses how more than 2,000 imams in Bangladesh are fighting human trafficking by working with a local programme offered by the non-governmental organisation (NGO) United Development Initiatives for Programmed Actions (UDDIPAN). With support from the Academy for Educational Development (AED), the Community Mobilization Program Involving Imams in Anti-Trafficking (COMPIAT) provides training to and supports networking among Imams in what are considered the 20 most-affected districts. According to the article, many imams have a deep-seated mistrust for NGOs. "By linking anti-trafficking to the teachings of Islam and showing tangible changes in the communities involved, the project works to build trust between the imams and the NGO community."
8. Life Lessons
by Hanna Rosin
Published in the June 5th, 2006 edition of The New Yorker Magazine, this piece examines the use of entertainment-education (E-E) soap operas based on the author’s attendance at a conference organised by Population Communications International (PCI) in Mexico. It describes how various organisations work with grassroots community groups and social workers to incorporate E-E methodologies into scripts that reflect the cultures and traditions of their audiences in economically poor countries while transmitting messages of empowerment. In many of these cases, the broadcasts are written, produced and performed by the creative talent in the countries in which the stories take place. Several key elements are noted, based on interviews with PCI staff and consultants, as well as workshop members.
9. Social Marketers in the Driver's Seat: Motorsport Sponsorship as a Vehicle for Tobacco Prevention
by Nedra Kline Weinreich and Janet Abbott
This paper discusses sponsorship as a vehicle for social marketing, and, specifically, an initiative by the California Department of Health Services (CDHS) in the United States which has sponsored race cars and educated about tobacco at racetracks, schools and events in Northern California. In the programme detailed within this article, the Tobacco Free Challenge Racing (TFCR) aims to change social norms relating to tobacco among racetrack audiences, countering messages from the tobacco industry at racing events. TFCR sponsors a winning race car team to ensure that being tobacco-free is associated with being a winner. By providing role models, promoting consistent communications regarding non-use of tobacco, and creating an environment that reduces exposure to environmental tobacco smoke, TFCR "markets" its message from many different angles. Several lessons learned are noted.
10. Whatever the Weather: Media Attitudes to Reporting Climate Change
by Rod Harbinson
This report shares findings from a Panos survey to explore existing perceptions and capacity for journalists to report on global climate change, and to share these findings with policy-makers. Interviews were conducted with journalists and media professionals in Honduras, Jamaica, Sri Lanka and Zambia to give insights into the attitudes of journalists and the status of the media in these countries. The study found that there is little knowledge among journalists about important environmental issues. The dramatic impacts of extreme weather events, for example, rarely feature in relation to climate change and the topic remains low on editors' story sheets.
***
Seeking Caribbean and South Pacific Communication Information
The Communication Initiative is seeking information on initiatives using communication to address issues specific to, or originating within, the Caribbean and South Pacific regions. This information will be added to The CI's database of projects, strategies, and resources.
Please send any information you may have to Deborah Heimann [email protected]
***
MATERIALS
11. Communication for Social Change Anthology: Historical and Contemporary Readings
by Alfonso Gumucio-Dagron and Thomas Tufte (eds.)
Published by the Communication for Social Change (CFSC) Consortium, this anthology brings together innovative thinking by more than 150 communication for social change experts to review the evolution of communication for social change thinking from the early 1960's to the present. This collection of approximately 200 texts looks at where the field has been and where it is headed, as well as the principles that have characterised communication for social change from the beginning.
12. The Interdependence Handbook: Looking Back, Living the Present, Choosing the Future
by Sondra Myers and Benjamin R. Barber (eds.)
Developed as a guide for the annual celebration of Interdependence Day on September 12th around the world, the Interdependence Handbook is a collection of essays, speeches, historical documents and discussion questions on interdependence, considered by the authors to be a guiding principle for civic life in the 21st century. It explores the civic implications of interdependence, and calls for citizens to expand their sense of responsibility beyond community and nation to all the world's people.
13. Socio-Economic Methodologies for Natural Resources Research: Best Practices Guidelines: Improved Communication Strategies for Renewable Natural Resource Research Outputs
by Pat Norrish, Kate Lloyd Morgan and Mary Myers
The aim of these guidelines is to help programme managers ensure that a communication strategy, designed for intermediate and end users, is incorporated into project design by giving them an overview of the kinds of processes and activities that need to take place and the issues that need to be addressed. It also seeks to assist project managers in making decisions about whom to collaborate with in relation to communication activities and products, as well as in understanding the following: the processes that go into a communication strategy, the issues to be addressed, the kinds of skills needed and where they might come from, the nature of the collaborative links that need to be made if communication is to succeed, and the ways in which different media and methods can be used when communicating natural resources (NR) research outputs to intermediate and end users.
14. From Microfinance to Macro Change: Integrating Health Education and Microfinance to Empower Women and Reduce Poverty
by April Allen Watson and Christopher Dunford
This advocacy booklet calls for integration of reproductive health education with microfinance services in developing countries. It presents individual stories, case studies and findings to show the impact this combination can have on reducing poverty and improving individual lives. The booklet also offers eight concrete recommendations for action.
***
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 [email protected]
To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.
To subscribe, click here.