The Drum Beat 290 - Communication and Change News and Issues

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We would like to welcome the following five organisations as strategic partners of The Communication Initiative (The CI). As Partners, these organisations will help decide the overall vision for The CI and review progress on key performance indicators. Their focus will be on developing the strategic thinking that is required to advance the role and contribution of communication strategies on development issues.

• Agencia de Noticias dos Direitos da Infancia (ANDI) [News Agency for Children's Rights] is an organisation in Brazil seeking to improve the quality of public information related to issues that are decisive in promoting the rights of children and adolescents, so that they are included as a priority in the agenda for human and social development. ANDI works to foster and support a systematic and ethically-based dialogue between the media and the social actors engaged in policy-making towards children and adolescents through three core strategies: mobilisation, monitoring and capacity-building.
• Calandria (Asociación de Comunicadores Sociales [Social Communicators Association]) is a civil society institution that uses communication socially, politically, and economically in an effort to impact Peru's development and to promote democracy by strengthening civil society participation.
• Fundacion Nuevo Periodismo (FNPI) [The Foundation for a New Latin American Journalism] was created in 1994 by the journalist and Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Márquez. This is an international centre for the professional development of journalists, providing a space for the exchange of experiences and ideas among colleagues in Latin America. FNPI offers an assembly of programmes for learning, debate and self-criticism on the techniques and the ethics of journalistic reporting, and supports projects to stimulate innovation in the improvement of the mass media, in consideration of the environmental, cultural, political, and social challenges that face the countries of Latin America.
• Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA) is a non-governmental organisation with members in 11 of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) countries. Officially launched in September 1992, MISA focuses primarily on the need to promote free, independent and pluralistic media, seeking ways to promote and facilitate the free flow of information and co-operation between media workers, as a principal means of nurturing democracy and human rights in Africa.
• SAfAIDS (Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service) is a regional non-profit organisation, based in Harare, Zimbabwe. Established in 1994 to provide and disseminate HIV/AIDS information, SAfAIDS' mission is to promote ethical and effective developmental responses to the HIV and AIDS epidemic by enhancing knowledge management, communication, capacity building, advocacy, policy analysis and research.

We look forward to our partnership, and our partners look forward to supporting The CI networks and process.

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EXPERIENCES

1. Dialogue with the Grassroots - Nepal
In 2004, the Nepal-based Mountain Forum Secretariat (MFS) began building a communication bridge between its Mountain Forum (MF) network members and the rural mountain communities of the Nepal Himalaya through a mix of radio and Internet technologies. Carried out in association with the Asia-Pacific Mountain Network and Radio Sagarmatha, this is an endeavour to link the "grassroots" - the audience (and participants) of the radio programmes - with the global and regional communities of the MF, as well as to bring their voices to the world at large. The project uses the Internet and radio to link a well-defined online community and communities on the ground.
Contact Prashant Sharma [email protected] OR [email protected]

2. Ethics Consultation with Javier Darío Restrepo: Journalism for Peace - Latin America
This is a personalised consulting service (in Spanish) focused on themes of journalistic ethics and a "culture of peace", conducted by the Colombian expert Javier Darío Restrepo. It is implemented by the Fundación Nuevo Periodismo (FNPI) and supported by UNESCO. The project is based on an online question/answer format between Restrepo and the users. A website is provided where users can read the questions sent through email by journalists as well as Restrepo's replies to these questions, which often include references and links to bibliographical sources.
Contact [email protected]

3. Woman's World - India
India's Centre for Environment Education (CEE) organised a photography-based project in which women members of the water committee ("Pani Samiti") and Self Help Groups from 8 villages were taught how to use a digital camera so that they could document positive and negative water-sanitation practices in their communities. The basic idea was to give women the tools to document good and bad sanitation practices as seen in their villages. Woman's World used personal contact to orient women as to how to use photography to "describe" their everyday lives, where water and sanitation practices are concerned. Organisers state that "Some women got a chance to see their entire village for the first time. For women from Alang village, this activity carried out secretly allowed them to come out of their homes for the first time in 25 years!"
Contact Sanjay Joshi [email protected]

4. Citizens' Media Watch (Veeduría Ciudadana de la Comunicación Social) - Peru
Founded in 2001, Citizens' Media Watch is a non-profit institutional platform that brings together civil society organisations in an effort to monitor the quality of mass media in Peru through regulation, consultation and participation of youth, research and advocacy. It also relies on a group of voluntary people from seven cities and the participation of citizens all around the country. The executive secretary is Calandria Social Communicators Association. The portrayal and representation of children and youth within the media is a particular focus of Citizen's Media Watch.
Contact [email protected]

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Press Conference:
Youth: Choices and Change - Washington, DC, USA - March 17 2005
Organised by the Pan American Health Organization and the World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO), this press conference is meant to provide an opportunity to hear what international experts working in the field of adolescence are saying about the power of early intervention to create positive lifelong behaviour change.

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STRATEGIC THINKING

5. The Power Of Storytelling and Reading in Healing Children Orphaned or Traumatised by War in Northern Uganda
by Beatrice Lamwaka
Thousands of children of northern Uganda abducted by the Lord Resistance Army (LRA) have been forced to carry out and be subjected to acts of extreme violence. These children often suffer post-traumatic disorders, including nightmares, sleeplessness, hallucinations, fainting, visual disorder, withdrawal, and feelings of hostility and despair. Those who are no longer in armies struggle to reintegrate, worrying about how their family, peers and community will accept them and fearing the stigma of their past acts. This report describes the processes by which these children find healing, through listening, reading and storytelling, despite low literacy. According to the author, "[t]hese modes expressed their anger with greater poise and poignancy than any other form of communication could muster. Those who were exposed to story telling and listening therapy showed remarked improvement from their nightmares and conquered their fears as they began to live a normal life in their villages."

6. Voices from the Southern Civil Societies: Interplay of National and Global Contexts in the Performance of Civil Society Organisations in the South
by Outi Hakkarainen, Hisayo Katsui, Charles B. Kessey, Tiina Kontinen, Timo Kyllönen, Sirpa Rovaniemi & Richard Wamai
According to the authors, "many Southern societies are living in a paradoxical situation in the current era of globalisation and post-Cold War world. While democratisation is widening, at least concerning basic political institutions, social polarisation and inequalities are deepening in these societies. Thus, they are struggling with contradictory forces and are under continuous transformation." This research project examines these issues and provides information on how development aid is "increasingly channelled" through civil society organisations. The report seeks to find out how civil societies in the South experience and describe their work in relation to global processes and development cooperation.

7. What Works: ITC's e-Choupal and Profitable Rural Transformation - Web-based Information and Procurement Tools for Indian Farmers
by Kuttayan Annamalai & Sachin Rao
"The e-Choupal system gives farmers more control over their choices, a higher profit margin on their crops, and access to information that improves their productivity. By providing a more transparent process and empowering local people as key nodes in the system, ITC increases trust and fairness. The increased efficiencies and potential for improving crop quality contribute to making Indian agriculture more competitive. Despite difficulties from undependable phone and electric power infrastructure...the system also links farmers and their families to the world."

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For anyone unsure of what we mean by "trends" or "the South" or ??

We are expanding our Glossary of Terms to include definitions of The CI sections, all of our Custom Search terms, as well as commonly used Acronyms and Development Terms.

Any terms you have come across which you think we should include? Contact Kier Olsen DeVries [email protected]

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TRENDS

8. Children and Media - A Global Concern
by Mike Jempson
In June 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand, "Child Rights and the Media: Asia Regional Workshop" was held as part of the Campaign against Sexual Exploitation of Children in Tourism (SECT), supported by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the European Commission. This paper was presented by Mike Jempson, Director of the PressWise Trust and IFJ media and child rights consultant. Jempson describes several initiatives that signify to him that the media is working to incorporate children in programme planning. Examples include: a) the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) who produced a pack with 30 ideas for attracting new young readers, based on experiments conducted throughout the world; b) MTV Networks Asia who teamed up with UNICEF and a leading jeans manufacturer to run the Speak Your Mind Campaign, which was designed to encourage children from South, East and South East Asia to talk about what was on their mind in honour of Youth Day; and c) ANDI's Children's News Agency which according to Jempson initially concentrated on establishing school facilities, then began to monitor the media and noticed that the vast majority of coverage about children was negative. They published 'league tables' to show which publishers were the worst offenders, and encouraged a more positive approach. Gradually the pattern of coverage changed.

9. Free / Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS): Understanding the Global Debate
This brief article traces global trends concerning Free / Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) - "a new and growing phenomenon, which is much discussed these days as it implies a radically new method of production, cooperation and exchange." According to this article, these trends are of particular relevance to the field of communication for development. "...FLOSS provides tools that are in line with the goals and intentions of development cooperation projects."

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The second issue of Mazi is now available on the Communication for Social Change Consortium's website.
Click here to access the issue.

Mazi, which means "together", is the Consortium's online report on trends and issues in communication for social change. This issue includes a conversation with communication scholar Everett Rogers before his death at the end of 2004, case stories on La Primerisma community radio station and a report on a recent meeting on Communication and Accelerating the Millennium Development Goals.

To subscribe to Mazi and receive the magazine by email, please click here.

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MATERIALS

10. Sexual Health Exchange Newsletter
Published by The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in collaboration with SAfAIDS (Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination Service), this is a 16-page quarterly newsletter on HIV/AIDS prevention programming which aims to promote the worldwide exchange of information and experiences in the field of sexual health and HIV/AIDS.

11. Movement Features: A Documentation of People's Struggles for Human Rights
Volume 1: 2000-2004
Published by India's KRITI (a development research, praxis and communication team) in 2005, this book includes texts from 4 editions (2000 to 2004) of KRITI's Our Diary. The latter, described as "a people's movement information resource", is one of the information and communication resources offered by the KRITI Information Place in Alaknanda, New Delhi. This compilation of texts covers 21 people's movements from India, Brazil, and Mexico, many of which centre around debates about globalisation and land rights.

AWARDS / SCHOLARSHIPS & GRANTS

12. Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Scholarships
Coordinated by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), this scholarship exchange programme aims to assist individual media practitioners from Southern Africa in all areas of the media (managerial, editorial, advertising, and technical) to work on attachment in another media institution to learn new skills and develop existing ones. This includes both full-time employees and freelancers. Individuals who are involved in human rights organisations in a media capacity may also be considered. Deadline: Rolling Deadline.

13. New Voices Grants
The Institute for Interactive Journalism invites United States nonprofit groups and education organisations to apply for funding to launch new community news ventures and to cooperate with J-Lab in spotlighting best practices and lessons learned. J-Lab will select 10 projects a year for two years. Each project may receive as much as USD $17,000. Deadline: March 17 2005.

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Participate in our Pulse Poll

At the centre of the international development community's response to the Tsunami should have been the direct provision of USD 500 equivalent in local currency straight to each affected person.

[For context, please see
ConunDRUM - "Tides of Hope?" - Jan 20 2005]

Do you agree or disagree?

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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.

Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann [email protected]

To reproduce any portion of The Drum Beat, see our policy.

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