T-Shirts to Web Links: The Way Forward

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

The Way Forward

We have grappled with the evaluator's critique, stated above, that "Women Connect walked a perpetual tightrope between not wishing to be prescriptive and at the same time ensuring a realistic set of options.... In an effort to achieve the former, the program ran the risk of losing focus and effectiveness....The broad range of themes, and loose coordination between the various components,despite strenuous efforts by the project implementers to achieve greater synergy, limited their impact. While the desire to define women's health and well-being broadly is commendable, this may have contributed to a lack of sufficient focus." [33]

In retrospect, the design was indeed overly ambitious for its timeframe and the fact that we had no formal structures on the ground with staff and offices. We erred on the side of optimism. It is not often in the development field that one has the opportunity to design a major intervention based on one's own values. Previously both Mayer and Pillsbury had worked primarily on projects of large agencies, projects that were already quite well-formed at the time they became involved. This wasa rare opportunity and we wanted to use it to the fullest.

What might we have done differently without compromising our values and convictions? We were committed to combining strategic use of media with technology, and we were committed to a broad definition of "women's health and well-being." How could we have had greater focus, efficiency and impact? First, we could have chosen countries to work in and fewer organisations to work with.Second, we could have clustered groups more for structured collaboration around their topics of interest. Finally, if we had had more time and more money, we could have paid the local project facilitators to work more closely with the groups. This would have been more efficient withoutcompromising our values and those of the women's groups we worked with. Was the project worth doing? Definitely yes. There aren't many miracles that happen over night,especially in Africa. In countries with massive instability, problems that range from no electricityto galloping inflation, extremely high maternal mortality and HIV rates, ethnic strife and civil war, it's necessary to take a long view. Women Connect! was a small but important step. It opened the door to helping an important set of women leaders and women's organisations to think differently about how to be effective and to modify their approach. "We want to make use of information to change the lives of women," said Lilian Mashiri of the Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network. [34]

Women's NGOs are an important force for women's empowerment – for improving living conditions and possibilities for women, especially those living in poverty and under harsh inequity. Women's organisations are also an extremely important force for development. They are ethical forces in their society, committed to social change: to improving lives of citizens in their societies and the structure of the societies. The women's rights issues with which so many are involved translate directly into citizens' rights issues. The level of commitment that these groups have to improvement in their own environments -- not just for women but for families, community and their countries – constitutes a major engine for strengthening civil society. Most women's NGOs havecommunications and advocacy at their core, but need to use them more effectively. Women Connect! helped a selected group of NGOs to do so and set an example for others. In the words of Women Connect!'s external evaluator, Colleen Lowe Morna: "Since the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, gender activists around the globe have become acutely aware of the need to become more effective at communicating their concerns, using every conceivable medium, from song and dance to the information superhighway that has given a dramatic new meaning to the term 'a global village.'... To theextent that outcomes fell short of the original objectives, this is part of the continuous learningthat engaging in such a complex programme brings. This evaluation is called 'Learning to Link' because learning continues -- even in the final evaluation. Learning to link effectively is critical to achieving a world in which all women and men are free to achieve their human potential." [35]Women Connect! has set many things in motion. [36] Most of the women's organisations in Africa that were our partners are continuing to use their new learning and are sharing it with other women's groups. At the end of the project, some groups were able to translate their new skills into advocacy work, using e-mail to raise awareness on issues relating to women's health and empowerment, fornetworking, and to apply for funding with new donors

But we do not want to be proprietary with what we have achieved through Women Connect! Far from it. Rather a goal of this essay has been to share our experience and information with other organisations. We want to encourage donors, foundations and the NGO community, north and south, to incorporate the ideas of Women Connect! into their activities, present and future. By strengthening communication capacity, organisations can be more effective in getting messages out, using and sharing information with others, improving health and well-being, and having greater influence in their communities and countries.

As expressed by Sandra Okoed, Program Officer at Akina Mama wa Afrika in Uganda:

The impact of the Women Connect! training and small grant on our lives and work will be increased communication and information access to facilitate action and decision-making in the areas that are crucial to women's health, especially reproductive health, education,adult literacy and creation of a vibrant civil society."[37]

34 In the video series “Melding Digital and Traditional Media for Social Change in Africa,” Doe Mayer, Director-Producer, 2002. On line - click here.

35 Morna, 2001, p.5.

36 Women Connect! has also had a significant impact on the overall program of the Pacific Institute for Women's Health itself. The Institute has integrated elements of Women Connect! into all its work with women's organisations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and in the U.S. Its has included communications components in other reproductive health training and has established a small-grants initiative called the Action Grants Program designed to improve the effectiveness and impact of Pacific Institute training and technical assistance to women's NGOs and youthserving organisations worldwide. For further information, click here andclick here.

37 Pacific Institute for Women's Health, Women Connect! Workshop Evaluation, Harare, October 2000.