Making Waves : VIDEO & COMMUNITY DREAMS
Stories of Participatory Communication
for Social Change
TITLE: Video and the Community Dreams Project
COUNTRY: Egypt
MAIN FOCUS: Reproductive health, women empowerment
PLACE: Beni Rani, El Tayeba, Itsa El 'Bellit and Zenhom
BENEFICIARIES: Women
PARTNERS: Communication for Change (C4C)
FUNDING: Centre For Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Coptic Evangelic Organisation for Social Services (CEOSS), USAID
MEDIA: Video
In only three years, Neama Mohamed, a mother and housewife, has become a health educator, an outspoken advocate for girls and a leader in her community. She is helping to change the attitudes of her neighbours in regard to literacy, girls' education, sanitation and female genital mutilation (FGM) a common practice in her Egyptian community. Once, Neama would have hesitated to confront such issues; however, after gaining communication skills and learning to effectively use participatory video tools, her confidence as a spokesperson has soared.
Neama lives in Tellal Zenhom, a slum area in the southeastern section of Cairo. CEOSS, an Egyptian NGO, has worked in Tellal Zenhom on a range of local development issues for over seven years. Neama became familiar with the organisation as a young mother; later, she was recruited to serve as a nutrition teacher for groups of women. Then, she agreed to lead New Horizons classes, which promote self-empowerment among adolescent girls though training in life skills, education and health.
The New Horizons classes covered a wide range of reproductive health information, everything from the basics of reproductive biology to sexually transmitted diseases, and from breastfeeding to the harmful traditional practice of female genital mutilation and the proof of virginity. As these are very sensitive issues, the community was briefed about the curriculum and the topics it would cover.
In the 18 months following Neama's video training, levels of participation in the Zenhom project have remained high. Team members have grown increasingly confident in using their technical skills, addressing sensitive topics, and presenting their work for discussion. The team members have a new visibility in their communities as spokespeople and leaders. Community members, the local council and officials are expressing support for the team's work, often suggesting ideas for video programmes. The video team's tapes are being used to spark discussion and promote the search for local solutions.
Edited from Strengthening the Voices of women, by C4C's Sara Stuart.
In the spring of 1997, Communication for Change (C4C), previously known as Martha Stuart Communications an organisation that has been providing community videotraining over the past 20 years in India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, China and Nigeria was selected to carry out a participatory video training programme in Egypt.
The project, which aims at upgrading the status of women, has been sponsored by CEDPA (Centre For Development and Population Activities, a USAID-funded project), in collaboration with the Coptic Evangelic Organisation for Social Services (CEOSS). Communication for Change conducted the training.
During March of 1998, five CEOSS staff and 17 women from three villages in Minya (upper Egypt), Itsa El' Bellit, El Tayeba, Beni Rani and from one slum area in Cairo Tellal Zenhom were trained. As in the other communities, four New Horizons women leaders from Tellal Zenhom learned to use a home video camcorder and to make simple tapes, about issues in their communities. This participatory video training was intended to strengthen the voices of women at the local level and to extend the reach of New Horizons, an informal educational programme designed to communicate essential information in the areas of basic life skills and reproductive health.
The newly trained video teams in each region evaluated the local problems and used video tools as an instrument to reveal and discuss issues. Often these issues are so embedded in culture, that they are not deeply questioned, except when women collectively reflect on them. The video-training programme addressed a wide range of issues, including financial barriers to marriage, female excision, and local environmental problems.
The programme has been implemented in six villages in Minya and two in Cairo's outlying urban areas. Tellal Zenhom has been singled out as one of the most successful examples. From the project emerged A Woman of Zenhom a video documentary focusing on the importance of women's access to education and work opportunities. "The video encouraged people to let their daughters finish their education before getting married", says Marwa Abdel-Khaleq, an 18-year-old CEOSS facilitator.
Also at Tellal Zenhom, the newly trained women video producers tackled the issue of female genital mutilation through videotaped interviews with a religious leader, a doctor and two girls one circumcised, the other not.
The problem of financial barriers to marriage was the subject of a video production at El Tayeba, where custom dictates that both bride and groom contribute stipulated amounts of money, gold jewellery and food before a couple can marry. The video team planned a production entitled "I Want to Get Married". According to tradition, the bride's family is responsible for providing all the food for the wedding celebration. There have been cases of families selling off their land and falling into debt in order to avoid dishonouring themselves at a wedding. "My daughter has been married for two years now and we have not covered the wedding expenses yet, comments Umm Maged, a villager".
In Itsa, local problems of nationwide significance were addressed. Here, it was the environment that provided the subject matter for the first video. The canal that runs through the village, which was meant to channel excess irrigation water away from the fields, is no longer limited to that purpose. Waste from the sugar factory and sewage are being thrown into the canal, which flows directly into the Nile. A copy of the video documentary has been sent to the Minister of Environment, and the villagers were expecting a governmental decree to fill in the canal.
Video and the Community Dreams Project had its starting point at the Beijing International Women's Conference in 1995 where the CEDPA country director and several Egyptian NGO partners had a chance to meet a C4C staff member and to see Video SEWA In 1996CEDPA invited a group of their Egyptian partners on an exchange trip to Bangladesh and India. They visited Video SEWA during that trip. In 1997, CEOSS and Communication for Change were quite successful in convincing leaders of Egyptian Community Development Agencies and young women leaders that participatory video would be valuable in their work.
Communication for Change has established a reputation as a pioneer in participatory video programmes and has demonstrated the possibility of building local leadership through the development of grassroots communication skills.
The video project has not only affected the lives of the target community: the team members have felt the change, too. "The video project has increased our self-confidence. We couldn't be shy when we had to address the whole community", exclaims Neama Mohamed, a 31-year-old facilitator and member of the video team. She feels the team members are now perceived as role models in the community. The team members have a new visibility as spokespeople and leaders.
One taboo that inevitably came under the camera's lens was female genital mutilation. It was discussed with sensitivity, however, through conversations with a Sheikh, a doctor and two girls, one "circumcised", the other not. After the video was shown, Rania, the youngest of four daughters, the rest of whom had already been circumcised, was spared the experience. Her mother and sisters were convinced that it was harmful.
Mohamed also had to put theory into practice a few weeks ago. When her husband insisted that their 10-year-old daughter, Shaimaa, be circumcised like her cousins, she refused. "The most important person involved in this decision is the mother, she asserts. If the mother is convinced that circumcision is bad, she will be able to influence the husband".
The team feels that its greatest achievement has been promoting the debate on female excision. It is significant that the team took up this issue only after honing their production abilities and gaining general community approbation for their work. There was consensus among team members that the perspective of a religious leader was absolutely necessary, as well as that of a doctor, so that religious views would complement the "scientific" arguments against the practice.
The video productions were shown in church, in the open space in front of the mosque, or in the village's largest homes. Video seems to have played a role in crystallising the debate around extremely delicate cultural issues.
Says Sara Stuart from Communication for Change: "This experience demonstrates the power of media that is not 'mediated' by outside forces, but rather conceived and produced by individuals determined to depict their own reality and effect change. Self-representation is profoundly linked with self-determination. As individuals and communities become self-determining, they gain a greater capacity to obtain social and economic justice. They develop the strength to demand that their governments be responsive and responsible in their policies and decision-making".
In the beginning, the group was afraid to be seen carrying the camera in the streets and videotaping in their community. Although the community agreed to the video activity and the trainees were eager to learn, the support of their parents, husbands, fiancés and in-laws had to be reconfirmed on many occasions. As the women began to gain confidence in operating the camcorder, they progressed from recording inside CEOSS's office and people's homes to shooting in the streets. With each step, individually they overcame fear, and the capacity of the team grew.
Within ten days they began showing their first tapes to members of the community. These tapes were about the importance of literacy, good nutrition, and a local woman who is doing exemplary service as a teacher of disabled children. The screenings allowed the team members to facilitate and lead discussions about the issues the tapes presented.
The video team in Zenhom has shot almost ten productions.Beginning as a group of four women, who were trained for two weeks in basic video procedures, the team has grown to seven as the women teach others in the community. After the training the team members chose to produce a tape about sanitation and garbage issues which plague Tellal Zenhom.
The themes chosen are conveyed to a wider audience at maternity clinics in Zenhom. As the women wait their turn, they watch and have a chance to discuss the productions with the video team. The videotapes are also shown at the monthly classes at CEOSS's Zenhom centre.
The target communities' initial reaction to the video project was one of rejection. "Do they want to show the problems in our society and exploit our misery to obtain foreign financial support?" one community member demanded. The facilitators explained that the video productions would be exclusively shot by and for the community and would not be shown elsewhere. Certain obstacles proved unavoidable: one 12-year-old girl in the community, who had expressed her strong wish to appear in the video and speak of her experience of being circumcised, was not permitted by her mother to do so. Team members persisted. The final programme includes interviews with one young girl who recalls undergoing the procedure, and another who successfully convinced her mother not to subject her to it.
In Itsa, "at first the problem was in the term 'video' itself. The villagers were reluctant to have their women appear on tape. They would throw stones at us when we walked down the street", recalls Iman Ibrahim, a CEOSS facilitator. Because the community had previous experience of CEOSS projects, however, and because many of the facilitators are villagers themselves, the video project was accepted gradually.
For additional information, please contact:
Sara Stuart
Director, Communication for Change
Tel.: (718) 624-2727
sbs@C4C.org
OR
Lauren Goodsmith
Training Coordinator
Tel./Fax: (410) 235-2465
lauren_goodsmith@hotmail.com
The Communication 4 Change site
Most of this chapter was based on articles received from Sara Stuart from "Communication for Change" New York.
"Strengthening the Voices of Women", by Sara Stuart, in Rhodes Journalism Review 1999, South Africa.
"Life Under the Lens", by Amira El-Noshokaty, in Al-Ahram Weekly Issue No. 457, December 1999.
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