T-Shirts to Web Links: Pilot Project: Women Linking

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

Pilot Project: Women Linking

Following the ICPD's recognition of the important role of women's NGOs, it was a logical step to propose that the health communications work that had been undertaken with government ministries also be extended to women's NGOs. This idea was proposed by Professor Doe Mayer, director ofthe Program in Development Communication at the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California. [11] Professor Mayer, who had been working with government ministries in media campaigns for many years, felt that there were skills that could – and should – be adapted to the NGO community.

To achieve this, Mayer proposed a partnership and pilot project with the Pacific Institute for Women's Health, which had substantial experience with developing country women's NGOs. [12] The Pacific Institute was just completing worldwide evaluation research testing the premises of ICPD.

This involved in-depth field studies with 56 women's NGOs in Africa, Asia and Latin America that had received funding from the Global Fund for Women. [13] Mayer asked Dr. Barbara Pillsbury, afounder of the Pacific Institute and co-director of the Global Fund evaluation, to collaborate and identify a women's NGO appropriate for conducting a communications pilot project. Mayer asked Carole Roberts, a specialist in educational technology, to serve as technology coordinator. [14]

The goal of the pilot project, called Women Linking, was to test an approach for helping women'sNGOs to be more strategic and effective in their use of communication and thereby to increase their overall effectiveness. The two-pronged approach combined information communication technology (ICT) and strategic use of media. Unlike many other development and technology programmes that provide computers to organisations, Women Linking would to go beyond merely "wiring" theorganisations. Our aim was to strengthen their ability to use all communication tools strategically. In both components, women's health would be the dominant content, emphasised in case studies and materials shared with the participants.

Information Communication Technology

The information communication technology (ICT) component introduced new information technologies, such as e-mail and the Internet, to help women's organisations link with the world outside. Many people suggest that Internet technology is too sophisticated and not appropriate forwomen in poor developing countries. We rejected this idea. Our funding proposal argued: "This is a crucial moment in history. New technology is revolutionising how we communicate, how we receive information, and how we mold the future. This can either be profoundly empowering, orleave the poor worse off, more isolated and increasingly marginalised."

Women Linking! was not unique in bringing ICT to a southern (developing) country women's organisation; many donors and northern technical assistance organisations have become involved in providing computers and software. Our approach was unique, however, in that we believed it isnot enough to provide the technical connectivity alone. A major premise was that effective use of ICT requires much more than hardware, software, electricity and a phone line. Because technology is a dramatic innovation for many women's NGOs, we believed it was critical to address howorganisations incorporate this technology into their structures. We wanted groups to understand the ways in which technology can change power relationships and affect organisational hierarchy. The project also took into account barriers to adoption or appropriate use. For example, some NGO directors are intimidated by the technology and stand in the way of adoption of these innovations, excluding younger staff members with interests and skills in these areas.

To succeed at ICT, organisations must allocate time, resources and support, and even change how people work. Some women's groups had one or two persons responsible for carrying out the technology-related activities of the organisation. We helped to identify appropriate staff and worked to develop their skills.

Our goal was not to provide computers, which many organisations already had but were not usingefficiently. In the pilot project we did provide a computer, but the follow-on expansion, WomenConnect!, did not. We worked only with organisations that already had phone lines, electricity andsome computer knowledge. We did provide elements that were often lacking but essential for taking advantage of the computers: basic software, virus protection, surge protection against lightening (a major cause of modem failure in Africa), and subscriptions to e-mail and the Internet along with training in e-mail and Internet use.

Communication Campaigns and Strategic Use of Media

The second project component -- Communication Campaigns and Strategic Use of Media – introduced an important approach with which most smaller NGOs are not familiar.

Many grassroots and community-based groups have commonly used traditional or "small media" (posters, brochures, folk drama, etc.) to reach their audiences. While women's NGOs rely on these small media and face-to-face communication much more than on mass media, the principles of communication campaigns are directly applicable and appropriate to their work and will increase the success of their outreach efforts. Women Linking thus included a second component aimed at strengthening media campaign skills of women's NGOs and helping them to develop a morestrategic approach to communications in general.

Why Africa?

Mayer and the Pacific Institute chose to implement the pilot project in Africa. Africa was the continent of greatest need with the least ability to acquire ICT without external collaboration and support. [15] A second factor was Africa's extremely active and enthusiastic women's rightsmovement, with many women's NGOs playing important roles in building civil society. A third consideration was the fact that many of the African women's NGOs were neophytes in thinking strategically about communications. Finally, Africa is facing the highest HIV/AIDS and maternalmortality rates in the world, a crisis that calls for imaginative approaches to communication.

Criteria for Selecting a Partner Organisation

The first challenge was to agree on criteria for selecting a developing country women's organisation with whom to partner in creating and testing a model. The project sought a women's organisation with a strong organisational history, a focus on communication and access to technology (phone, electricity, computers). The group should have a good record of implementing projects effectively and be at a point in its own development when this intervention would be especially appropriate. Finally, the key people in the group needed to be excited about being a leader in developing communications models and should be strong enough to assume financial responsibility for following through with the model after a one-year intervention.The developing-country partner chosen was ACFODE (Action for Development), a dynamic women's NGO in Uganda. ACFODE's primary commitment has been to improve the status and lives of women in Uganda by disseminating messages and providing outreach and advocacy concerning issues such as inheritance rights, legal reform, and equitable representation in local and national government.

Implementing the Pilot Project

In 1997, a two-person project team made two technical collaboration visits to Uganda to work with ACFODE. [16] During the first visit, the team connected ACFODE to e-mail and the Internet, providedtraining in its use and led discussions about the potential and implications of the new technology. It set up a support committee within ACFODE to spearhead the innovation and identified local Ugandan consultants to work with ACFODE to provide additional technical and upgrade information as would be needed. The project team also provided extensive training in communication campaigndesign and implementation to ACFODE members and other interested women's groups. During the second technical collaboration visit, the team evaluated ACFODE's progress with the new technical innovations, conducted training in basic web design and management, and set up ACFODE's web page online. The team also conducted a workshop on advocacy techniques as a follow-up to the initial communication campaign design workshop

Pilot Project Results

Results of this pilot project were encouraging and very instructive for designing the expanded follow-on project.

A major lesson was that it took a compelling event, totally external to the project and ACFODE'swork, for ACFODE to get truly hooked on Internet use. In 1998, England's Princess Diana died in a car accident in Paris. Ugandans, who are part of the British Commonwealth, have great interest in the royal family. ACFODE staff, frustrated by the lack of information in Uganda's newspapers, turned to the Internet to get additional updates on the Diana story. In the process, they realised how the Internet could provide new information and connections to a broader world and made the link into how they could use it to benefit their own organisation. The important lesson here is that the mere introduction of technology does not automatically result in its use. It is only when people are personally motivated to get certain information that they realise the broader implications of what they can achieve through the technology.

A positive impact for ACFODE subsequently was its expanded capacity to attract and communicate with interested donors. Through e-mail, ACFODE was able to dialogue with funders planning visits to Uganda. A fortuitous outcome of the ACFODE web site was an unsolicited major grant. Acouple in the U.K. whose son had died in a plane crash after having lived in and loved Uganda wanted to commemorate him. The parents were impressed that ACFODE had a web site, liked what ACFODE presented about itself, and contributed 100 British pounds to help ACFODE build a new training and resource center, named after the deceased son. Although websites should not be created simply in the hope of raising funds, many other Ugandan organisations became interested in developing websites as a result of ACFODE's success.

In addition, ACFODE, as anticipated, saved money by using e-mail in place of long-distance faxing and phone calls. ACFODE also used its linking capacity for income-generation. ACFODE members were invited to use the Internet for a small fee per connection or per e-mail message. Nonmembers were invited to use it too, but paying more. For the many Ugandans with family members abroad, having such access nearby in their semi-urban community was a much-appreciated resource.

Unfortunately, shortly after the project's final technical assistance visit, a large percentage of the staff trained by Women Linking left ACFODE in a massive re-organisation and ACFODE was not able to follow through on all that had been learned. A lesson for the follow-on project was not to put all eggs into one basket but to work with several organisations, given that staff turnover is frequent in many NGOs that depend on grants and volunteer labor. However, even with staff turnover in one organisation, training and skills are not necessarily lost to the community. For example, the primary technology person at ACFODE, who was terminated in the re-organisation, subsequently moved to a women's umbrella organisation, UWONET, where she shared her new technology skills with staff there.

12 The Pacific Institute for Women's Health, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organisation founded in 1993, is dedicated to improving the health and well-being of women and girls locally and globally. The Institute takes a comprehensive approach to the complex realities of women's lives and works through applied research and evaluation, advocacy, community involvement, and training.

13 The Global Fund for Women, based in San Francisco, makes grants to seed, support and strengthen women's rights groups in developing countries. (See Andina and Pillsbury, 1998.)

14 As technology coordinator, Roberts developed the plan for the project's technology component and provided ICT training, technical collaboration and guidance for both the pilot project and the expanded Women Connect!

15 Several other efforts to provide ICT to Africa were ongoing during the same period, although focused on governments and larger NGOs. These include the Leland Project of USAID and the devCominitiative of the World Bank.

16 The team consisted of Doe Mayer, project director and media campaign trainer, and Carole Roberts, technology coordinator.