T-Shirts to Web Links: The Birth of the Idea

- from T-Shirts to Web Links: Women Connect! Building Communications Capacity with Women's NGOs

The Birth of the Idea


Women Connect! was born of four distinct developments: health communication work, the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development, the information technology boom, and the growing needs of grassroots women's organisations to use media more appropriately.

Health Communication: Training and Programs with Governments

Since the 1970s, international donor agencies have invested heavily in health communication effortsimplemented through ministries of health in developing countries. Millions of dollars have been dedicated to promoting family planning, nutrition and child survival and much has been learned about how to communicate effectively with specific target audiences. Thousands of hours of training has been conducted to help personnel in ministries of health worldwide develop research,implementation and evaluation skills in designing large-scale campaigns that use mass media, traditional media (such as posters, brochures, and folk drama) and person-to-person communication.[4]

Evaluations have shown the positive results in changing attitudes and behavior, lowering birth rates,and saving lives.[5] An authoritative meta-analysis survey of 48 health campaigns synthesises existing research with the significant finding that "7 to 10 percent more people in campaign communities changed their behavior than did in control communities."[6] However, during the decades when this work took place, very little was shared with non-governmental organisations.

The ICPD: Women's Empowerment to Improve Women's Reproductive Health

The 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo reached unprecedented conclusions concerning the status of women and NGOs. Government delegates from around the world agreed that women's empowerment is important in itself – and also essential for sustainable development. The ICPD formally identified NGOs, especially women's NGOs, as playing key roles in the development and implementation of population and family planning policies and programs. ICPD recognised that reproductive and sexual health challenges, such as HIV/AIDS, unintended pregnancy, and gender-based violence, require the involvement of women's NGOs and other civil society organisations with strong community ties.[7]

Demand for Information Technology in Developing Countries

These developments coincided with the rapid advances during the 1990s in information technology (IT), also referred to as information communication technology (ICT). In the international donor community there was great debate about the appropriateness of introducing these new technologies in poorer countries. Many argued that it was premature in countries where poverty was so great thatbasic needs for water, food and shelter had not been met. Others asserted that it didn't make sense to introduce these technologies when electricity was either insufficient or non-existent and phone lines were too few and unreliable. Still others asked "How can we talk about access to new media -- e-mail, Internet, websites -- when access to conventional media (radio, television, newspapers) is still so limited?"[8] The issues were especially debated in the context of Africa.

Nevertheless, women's organisations in Africa and developing countries elsewhere did not want tobe left out. They saw that ICT was being increasingly used by commercial enterprises and argued that they could also benefit tremendously from the new technologies. It was also true that many NGOs were spending substantial sums on expensive technologies -- international phone, courier andfax – for limited communication. As an NGO leader in Uganda put it, "The way the world is going, if you are not connected, you do not exist.... Access to information is an essential tool for empowering an individual. An uninformed person is an ignorant person. Organisations, like individuals, depend on information to plan, network and respond to societal needs."[9] The Economic Commission for Africa identified helping NGOs to develop ICT capacity as a top priority.[10]

The Growing Needs of Grassroots Women's Organisations to Use Media More Appropriately

In spite of their excellent understanding of problems in their communities and their desire to solve them, NGOs all over the world, in both developed and developing countries, often have limited capacity to communicate effectively about these problems. Grassroots and community-based organisations develop in response to local or regional circumstances and typically act with tremendous enthusiasm and commitment to local and regional concerns. But often they operate in relative isolation from similar groups elsewhere -- internationally but even in their own countries and communities.

Historically grassroots and community-based organisations have used various forms of media – especially posters and brochures -- to get their messages out to local and rural audiences. But our research and project experience indicated that they seldom thought strategically about how to use these media to change attitudes. Frequently they were not clear enough about who they were trying to reach. They rarely conducted research to understand more exactly what different people in their communities believed or why people behave the way they do. They seldom evaluated whether people understood the messages or felt they were appropriate. Many groups continued to spend limited, precious resources on outreach activities without knowing whether their efforts were having the desired effect. These factors have often meant that local NGOs do not think strategically about how to use media most effectively.

For example, if a donor gave money for work on HIV/AIDS, an organisation might design a poster or brochure telling people not to have unprotected sex. Often this poster or brochure was printed without finding out what people really knew and thought about AIDS or about pregnancy, andwithout studying what would convince people to accept new information or think about changing their behavior. As such, they were not relevant and did not resonate with the local community. Far too often these posters and brochures ended up stacked on shelves in clinics or used for everydayneeds such as wrapping purchases in a market.

Often organisations used these forms of media to talk to themselves rather than to their audiences or, even worse, talked down to their audiences in a condescending way -- the "you stupid people" approach. For example, a poster in Uganda told men to stop beating their wives because it is a"crime punishable by law." This poster may have made the women who printed it feel better, but it is very unlikely that it changed men's behavior.

Communications research tells us that there are appropriate ways to design media campaigns that can affect knowledge, attitudes and behavior. It is important to know what the target audience believes in order to make a persuasive argument. Effective campaigns involve appropriate audience research, pre-testing of the messages and media, and evaluation. It is also important to have target communities participate in the design and implementation. There was clearly a great need forwomen's organisations to use these methodologies to increase the impact of their outreach efforts.

5 Piotrow et al., Health Communication : Lessons from Family Planning and Reproductive Health. Westport, Conn.: Praeger , 1997, p .11; and Backer et al., Designing Health Communication Campaigns: What Works? Newbury Park, Calif: Sage Publications, 1992.

6 Snyder, Leslie B. "How Effective Are Mediated Health Campaigns?" In Public Communication Campaigns, Ronald E. Rice and Charles K. Atkin, eds. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1989, p.182.

7 United Nations. Report of the International Conference on Population and Development. Cairo, 5-13 September 1994. New York, A/CONF.171/13/Rev.1, pp. 22, 32.

8 See, for example, Lush , D.,H. Rushwayo and F. Band a, eds. Into or Out of the Digital Divide?: Perspectives on ICTs and Development in Southern Africa. Lusaka: Panos Southern Africa, 2000, p.vi.

9 Deborah Kadd u-Serwadda, Hope Without Rape, Kampala, Uganda (cited in Morna 2001, 17).

10 Economic Commission for Africa, Report of Expert Consultation on the Capacity-Building Needs of African NGOs and Civil Society Organisations. Addis Ababa, October 1999.