The Drum Beat 276 - Communication and Change News and Issues

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EXPERIENCES

1. North American Center for Environmental Information and Communication (CICEANA) - Mexico City, Mexico
A non-profit, non-governmental organisation whose aim is to foster a culture that promotes sustainable development. Working in Mexico City, Mexico, CICEANA supports this mission by offering information, continuing education, community-based projects, and consulting services to the general public. CICEANA offers environmental activities and education through school field trips and student visits that are designed to promote environmental awareness. In addition, through tools including the Internet and its ecological video library, CICEANA provides information. It hosts a centre that is equipped with computers and a video library and is open to the general public.
Contact [email protected]

2. National Youth Resource Center (NYRC) - Moldova
The European Youth Exchange - Moldova Association, the Department of Youth and Sports of the Government of Moldova, and UNICEF in Moldova are working to provide young people with the resources necessary for full participation in society, including information, consultation, training, and technical assistance. Creating and sustaining youth networks - and providing the tools those networks need - is NYRC's central strategy. The Internet is a tool for bringing young people together. An online library includes more than 1,500 titles of materials on youth policies, guidelines for training and activities with children and youth, and resources on free-time animation, children's rights, communication, counselling, and vocational decision-making. NYRC also provides consultation, logistical support for providers of youth-friendly services, project management, training course preparation, database completion, and teaching material production - all oriented toward young people and toward professionals working with and for youth.
Contact Claudia Coada [email protected] OR Aurelia Guzun [email protected]

3. Vermont Men For Men (VT M4M) - Vermont, USA
An HIV prevention project, launched in 2002 by Chronic Conditions Information Network (CCIN), addressing the community of gay and bisexual men as well as those who are transgender. The project uses peer-based virtual outreach, a website, and online support groups and message boards to provide health information, promote health-seeking behaviour, and create a sense of community. At the outset of the project it was unclear how many transgender and cross dressers might live in the small rural state of Vermont - let alone how many might use the Internet. To assess the population and begin the process of reaching out, a transgender MTF (male to female) conducted online chat outreach. This process of chat outreach and support is strengthened by an interactive, informational website. The VT M4M site includes regional resources as well as national health information about such issues as sexual health, alcohol and drugs, youth, mental health, safety, and minority health. Special sections of the site are devoted to youth, men over 50, and people living with HIV and their partners.
Contact Margo Caulfield [email protected]

4. Journalists Under Fire - East & Southern Africa
A campaign to call attention to the dangers journalists face in East and Southern Africa. This campaign will take place every year on May 3. The 2003 Journalists Under Fire campaign offered an information package detailing the state of free expression in each of the 11 member countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Included in the package was also a report on the representation of women in the media in Southern Africa. As part of the 2003 campaign, journalists were encouraged to participate in efforts to promote media freedom and freedom of expression in this region by using these materials. To facilitate this process, texts, graphics, and illustrations were made available electronically. Each year, new advocacy elements will be added to the campaign.
Contact Luckson Chipare [email protected]

5. Youth Creating and Communicating on HIV/AIDS - Global
This UNESCO web-based initiative invites young people of different cultures to work creatively together to express their perspectives on HIV/AIDS as it relates to specific social and cultural issues. After a brief online quiz, "players" are guided to a web page displaying a variety of visual images and symbols related to HIV/AIDS. They are asked to create their own representative logo (like the red ribbon) to serve as a personal signature and as a symbolic support for those living with HIV. Participants then produce at least 5 digital art pieces (e.g., photographs), with tools available free for download; tutorials and technical support are provided. Interaction and collaboration between "players" is stressed from that point forward in the process in an effort to connect youth with their peers who live in and come from very different places. Designed for young people from 14 to 19 years old, the game may be developed as a part of school curricula.
Contact [email protected]

6. Strong Families - Latin America & the Caribbean
A pilot project, funded by the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), to improve the health and development of adolescents and to prevent high-risk behaviours associated with ill health (including sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS). "Strong Families: Family Orientation to Prevent Risk Behavior among Youth in Latin America and the Caribbean" works by strengthening parents' capacity to express love and set clear limits, and by improving youth capacity to better communicate with their parents and make healthy decisions. Interpersonal training sessions, enhanced by printed materials and video, are tools used to improve parent-child communication in support of good health. This programme includes seven 2-hour sessions for parents and youth, who attend separate skill-building groups for the first hour and spend the second hour together in supervised family activities. Four booster sessions are designed to be used 6 mos to 1 yr after the end of the first 7 sessions, in order to reinforce skills.
Contact Sylvia Singleton [email protected]

7. Nigerian Painting Tour (NPT) - Nigeria
A biodiversity conservation project that addresses environmental issues, through art. Created by painter and cartoonist Femi Babawande, the project is focusing on the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. The project aims to create awareness of environmental issues, hopefully redirecting the attention of policy makers and other stakeholders toward environmental problems. Contributions in the form of paintings and drawings of rain forests and mangroves of the Niger Delta were solicited from interested participants in preparation for a tour programme that was to cover Asaba, Port Harcourt, and Bonny Island. Due to lack of funding, the tour did not take place, but plans are in the works for re-package and re-launch in the future.
Contact Femi Babawande [email protected]

8. KRITI Film Club - India
A club of individuals undertaking desk-based and action research, participatory training, and evaluation/assessment studies on range of development issues - health, education, environment, labour, violence, law and human rights, and gender concepts and practice. This group of development thinkers and actors uses film as one of the many mediums to make development holistic and make development theory more people-oriented, accountable, and interactive. The KRITI Film Club screens documentary and mainstream films and organises slide shows on a range of issues. It aims to provide a space for brainstorming and sharing experiences on various social issues highlighted in the films. Another key focus of the club is helping increase access of independent films to a larger audience beyond those who attend film festivals and special screenings.
Contact KRITI Film Club [email protected]

9. Urban Voices - New York, USA
Global Action Project (G.A.P) offers a variety of youth media training programmes operating on site and throughout New York City, including programmes for refugee youth, girls, and pre-professional training for youth aged 16-20. One offering is a pre-professional, after-school video training programme focused on digital video production and distribution for high-school students interested in careers in the arts, journalism, and digital media. These students have produced broadcast-quality public service announcements, as well as dramatic and documentary responses to social issues important to youth.
Contact [email protected]

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PARTICIPATE!

Pulse Poll

Development institutions rely on gender stereotypes rather than foster resistance to them.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat 273]

Do you agree or disagree?

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STRATEGIC THINKING

10. Kids on the Move Evaluation Report
by Rachana Naran, M.P.H.
Launched in 1999 in the United States, Kids on the Move (KOTM) is an after-school activity and healthy lifestyles programme developed and piloted by the Community Health Development and Advocacy at Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. KOTM aims to reduce cardiovascular risk factors such as obesity and decreased opportunities for physical activity in high-risk children ages 8 to 12 in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. The programme is delivered in an 8-week session, with 1-hour meetings 3 days per week. Each session includes a "warm-up", "cool-down", and 25 minutes of structured active play. Contact Rachana Naran [email protected]

11. Project Completion Report: Information and Education Communication Campaign For Advocacy in the Disability Sector of Uganda
Prepared by Kasim Sajjabi & Nick Ishmael-Perkins
In 2001, the National Union of Disabled Persons of Uganda (NUDIPU), in conjunction with Leonard Cheshire International, Radio for Development (RfD), and Action on Disability and Development (ADD), initiated a 22-month radio-based public education campaign to increase awareness of disability issues in Uganda. In this evaluation, lessons learned are detailed at the project, sector, and development practice levels.
Contact [email protected] OR [email protected]

12. Reproductive and Sexual Health Education-Care-Counseling for Married Adolescents, Rural India
As part of a collaborative project with the International Center for Research on Women (ICRW), the KEM Memorial Hospital conducted a research project designed to respond to the reproductive and sexual health concerns of married adolescents in poor rural areas of India. To address their limited access to information and services, KEM tested the feasibility of implementing an integrated package of community-based reproductive health information, clinical referrals and services, and sexuality counseling for married youth ages 14 to 25 in a rural part of Maharashtra state. This intervention was characterised by intensive training of couples from the community (rather than women alone or men alone) to serve as community health educators, as well as the provision of professional sexuality and marital counseling to young rural, married couples. The study began Sept 2000 and ended Mar 2003.
Contact Dr. Rohini Pande [email protected]

13. Capacity Building for Demand-led Research: Issues & Priorities - Policy Management Brief 14
by K.N. Nair & Vineetha Menon
"In the context of the failure of past development efforts, and the knowledge asymmetry between North and South, this brief examines the concept of demand-led research. Southern nations require support from the North to build capacity, but they face an uphill task in realising the capabilities necessary to identify and rectify what Amartya Sen calls 'patent injustices'. For example, poverty, gender, inequality and other such deprivations."
Contact K.N. Nair OR Vineetha Menon [email protected]

MATERIALS

14. Small Islands Voice: Laying the Foundation
by Gillian Cambers
Published by UNESCO in 2003, this details the project "Small Islands Voice", started in 2002, which aims to combine new information and communication technologies with print, radio, television and other media, in order to promote the effective participation of the general public in sustainable island development and in the 2004 review of the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Programme of Action and its follow-up.

15. The Evaluation Exchange: Early Childhood Programs and Evaluation
The Spring 2004 issue of Harvard Family Research Project's "The Evaluation Exchange" charts the course of early childhood programming and evaluation over nearly half a century. Contributing authors offer a range of views on how best to communicate the importance of investing in a child's early years and how to improve early childhood programmes and policies.

16. Health Education for Behaviour Change: A Work-book to Improve Skills
by Lia Van Ginneken, Maeve Moynihan, Don Cranston & Atsede Takele
Published by Network Learning, this 41-page manual aims to lead a group of health workers through a series of discussions and exercises.

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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.

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