The Drum Beat 581 - Communication and Change News and Issues
This issue includes:
- EVALUATIONS: anti-bullying effort, assessing e-Health, AIDS education...
- Help us sustain your work! Become a CI ASSOCIATE.
- STRATEGIC THINKING: health data, sex & TV, communication, aid & research...
- Updates from C-CHANGE.
- EXPERIENCES: AIDS computer game, women farmers' radio, young reporters...
1. Learn Without Fear: Campaign Progress Report
by Emily Laurie
From July 2010, this report details some of the results achieved since the launch of Plan International's Learn Without Fear campaign, an effort to end violence against children in schools in 44 countries worldwide. According to Plan, children have been involved in all the aspects of the campaign - from planning workshops to raising awareness activities - and progress is being made: from legislative changes to approaches such as positive discipline training for teachers and use of social media to reach out to communities.
2. Why Do Evaluations of eHealth Programs Fail? An Alternative Set of Guiding Principles
by Trisha Greenhalgh and Jill Russell
Published in November 2010, this article suggests that the assumptions, methods, and study designs of experimental science may be ill-suited to the particular challenges of evaluating eHealth programmes, especially in politicised situations. The authors offer an alternative set of guiding principles for eHealth evaluation based on traditions that view evaluation as social practice rather than as scientific testing.
3. EDUCAIDS Evaluation 2009: Key Findings, Recommendations and UNESCO's Actions
This June 2010 report summarises an independent evaluation of the implementation of EDUCAIDS, the Global Initiative on Education and HIV & AIDS. One point to emerge: "The education sector has a critical role to play both in preventing HIV and in building capacity to respond - by promoting human rights, gender equality, knowledge and skills, the participation of young people and people living with HIV, and by reducing stigma and discrimination."
Help Sustain The CI
Become a Communication Initiative Associate
The CI Associates are organisations and individuals who recognise the added value of The Communication Initiative toward their work priorities - which may be focused on a development issue, geographic location, and/or population group - and have chosen to provide financial support to this initiative. There are a range of possible payment levels from USD 100 to USD 5,000. The package includes a number of free classifieds listings. For a list of present Associates click here - if you are not there now, please join them!
Contact Warren Feek [email protected]
by Teresa Harrison and Tara Nutley
This January 2010 publication synthesises findings of assessments conducted by MEASURE Evaluation which found that health data are often not used by key stakeholders to effectively inform policy and programmatic decisionmaking.
by Silvio Waisbord and James Deane
This January 2010 review from the BBC World Service Trust examines why and how the role of communication can be mainstreamed into programme-based approaches (PBAs), one of the methods used by bilateral donors to disburse funding to developing countries. The report contends that a stronger focus on communication underpinning the delivery of PBAs can lead to greater government legitimacy and accountability, broader public engagement, and better public buy-in of development strategies and funding.
6. 'Dumbing down' the Audience
by Enrique Mendizabal
This July 2010 entry to the Overseas Development Institute (ODI)'s blog looks at the Research and Policy in Development (RAPID) Programme's work to understand the relationship between research, policy, and practice and to figure out how think tanks and other similar organisations can ensure strong links between them. An excerpt: "If they can always expect a two-page briefing with simple steps to follow, then why should they ever bother reading a full study and getting to the bottom of the arguments?...[W]e might be de-skilling ourselves - losing the competencies required for long term research, academic writing and long term policy engagement."
7. Modelling or Muddling: Perceptions of Sexual Relationships in Popular Television
by Warren Parker
The March 2009 presentation from the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE) describes research which looked at the influence of popular media and soap operas in South Africa on multiple concurrent partners (MCP). The research found that soap operas actually contribute to the behaviour of having more than one partner amongst youth, individuals, and communities, and that these soaps are not tackling the issue of HIV and AIDS in the context of multiple relationships.
UPDATES FROM C-CHANGE
Albania Family Planning - Improving access and use of modern contraceptive methods
This report presents findings of a survey of C-Change social and behaviour change interventions in Albania to promote modern contraceptive methods (MCM). The survey assessed the impact of a peer education programme for university students at 4 urban campuses and a concurrent mass media campaign. Exposure to the peer education and the TV messages increased awareness of MCM fourfold compared to those not exposed to either intervention. Click here for the report.
HIV Capacity Building Partners Summit in Kenya
C-Change presented "Tailoring Capacity Strengthening Activities to Increase Skills in Social and Behavior Change Communication (SBCC)" at the HIV Capacity Building Partners Summit. Held in Nairobi on March 16-18 for regional networks in Eastern and Southern Africa, C-Change facilitated a skills-building session with Southern African AIDS Trust on "Creative Briefs as a Tool for SBCC Materials Development". Find more information on the HIV Capacity Building Partners Summit website and on the C-Change website.
8. Communication Materials for Children's Early Development - Lesotho
In 2010, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Lesotho's Ministry of Education and Training came together to produce early childhood development (ECD) multimedia products with a special focus on HIV and AIDS and disability. The products include illustrated and photo books, posters, animations, and television and radio spots, which focus on promoting positive customs and demystifying the conventional image of children and caregivers with special needs.
9. Majalisar Mata Manoma - Nigeria
Initiated in 2009, this African Radio Drama Association (ARDA) radio project involved creating spaces for women farmers in the rural community of Gwagwada, Nigeria, to meet and engage with radio. Women in the listening clubs were also trained to use a cell phone to interact with the radio programme. In addition, the project used theatre for development to identify needs, create awareness, and mobilise community members.
10. Fast Car: Travelling Safely around the World - Global
Developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this initiative revolves around a computer game designed to help youth aged 16-24 years of age learn about HIV and AIDS prevention. The game, which features various customisable cars, aims to provide young people with accurate, reliable, culturally appropriate, and gender-specific information about HIV prevention.
11. Translatina - Latin America
This independently produced documentary provides a realistic look at the challenges faced by transgender women in accessing education, work, justice, health care, and other basic services. It also shows how non-governmental organisations in Latin America are starting a dialogue with governments to demand opportunities for inclusion of transgender people, and how such initiatives may result in significant changes to ensure the rights of the population.
This multi-phase behaviour change communication project uses television, radio, drama, and interpersonal communication in an effort to increase good governance practices in Guinea, with a focus on the areas of health, education, and natural resource management (NRM).
13. Young Reporters Against Poverty - Eastern Europe/Central Asia, Western Europe
This contest called on students in journalism, communication, development, and political science to submit an article or radio broadcast on the European Union and external development aid. Finalists attended and covered the European Development Days in Brussels, Belgium, December 6-7 2010. An interactive, multimedia web platform served as a space for sharing the finalists' work and building the capacity of aspiring journalists.
14. Samajhdari Radio Programme - Nepal
This 30-minute weekly Nepalese radio programme aims to cover the correlation between violence against women (VAW) and HIV/AIDS from the listener's point of view. Samajhdari is designed to: instigate productive dialogues about sex; teach women how to speak unhesitatingly and to think critically about their rights and choices; expose the causes, consequences, and interconnectedness of HIV, AIDS, and VAW; and organise collective actions to minimise them.
The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries.
Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Send to [email protected]
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.
To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, click here for our policy.
To subscribe, click here.