The Drum Beat 304 - Communication and Change News and Issues
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PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES
1. GraceNet Silicon Valley - United States
This network's mission is "to promote the contributions of women in technology and to leverage the intellectual and creative capital of women." GraceNet's several thousand women members gather in-person and online to strategise about gender-related issues they face in their high-technology professions. Monthly meetings have reportedly encouraged women to help each other find work and employees, enabling the creation of partnerships and new economic opportunities. GraceNet's "Disgraceful Award in Advertising" is an advocacy initiative to eliminate sexist advertising in high-tech media. As a result, many offenders, including IBM, have withdrawn their ads.
Contact Sylvia Paull [email protected] OR [email protected]
2. Small Islands Voice - Caribbean, Indian Ocean and Pacific Regions
UNESCO is working to ensure that the voice of the general public in small islands, including youth, is heard and that it becomes a driving force for island development. Small Islands Voice initiates dialogue on environmental and development issues at the grassroots level through community meetings, workshops, questionnaire surveys, and Internet discussions, which are supported by radio, television and print media. Taking the overall theme 'Communities in Action' and continually emphasising participatory processes, islands are preserving island memories and cultures, strengthening community planning and visioning, implementing and sharing eco-friendly practices, and helping youth implement their own sustainable development projects.
Contact Fathimath Ghina [email protected] OR Khalissa Ikhlef [email protected] OR [email protected]
3. Reproductive Health Care for Somali Refugees - Yemen
Marie Stopes International (MSI) finds that reproductive health (RH) indicators in Yemen are among the worst in the Arab world: The infant mortality rate is 73.85 per 1,000 live births and the maternal mortality ratio is 850 per 100,000 live births. In response, MSI Yemen (MSIY) is providing RH and family planning services and information to Somali refugees with low incomes. The development of culturally and linguistically appropriate education and services is key because, according to MSIY, social and traditional beliefs among the Somali people make large families desirable. When Yemeni clients expressed concerns about the development of a facility serving both Yemeni and Somali clients, the team worked to overcome animosities by offering awareness-raising sessions and by ensuring equitable access to care.
Contact Fowzia H Jaffer [email protected] OR Samantha Guy [email protected] OR Jane Niewczasinski [email protected]
4. Cl@se: The Adventure of Knowing - Latin America
This multimedia programme offers televised educational entertainment 24 hours per day throughout Latin America. Exempt of commercial content, Cl@se is designed to strengthen curricula in secondary and primary schools by stimulating creativity in children with a teaching style that is entertaining and energising. Although Cl@se is a private channel, Cl@se collaborates with government authorities and foundations to facilitate transmission of the service to schools. Its objective is to offer high-quality resources on screen, as well as support materials, to bolster the education of students between 6 and 18 years of age in Latin America.
Contact [email protected]
5. Intervention Studies on Youth Reproductive Health in India: Findings about Men's Involvement - India
From 1999 to 2006, the International Center for Research on Women is working with partners on multi-site intervention studies of men's involvement in adolescent women's reproductive health (RH) in India. The activities being studied use interpersonal, face-to-face channels to stimulate dialogue between partners, motivate men and women to take active roles in their own and their partners' RH, and change RH-seeking behaviour. The various roles that gender plays in RH - and strategies for cultivating a sensitivity to that role - figure prominently in this research. Among the findings: In community-based RH education sessions, young married men preferred a more didactic method as compared to the dynamic, participatory methods (e.g., games and songs) found useful with women.
Contact Dr. Rohini Pande [email protected] OR Ms. Sunayana Walia [email protected]
[Additional contacts are provided within the detailed summary]
6. Polio NIDs Film Footage for Broadcasters - Global
To help increase the capacity of journalists to report on the Polio National Immunization Days (NIDs), UNICEF is drawing on a free online source for broadcasters called The NewsMarket. This service enables journalists to find, preview, organise, obtain, and contribute free video and other multimedia content. As part of the 2005 NIDs, UNICEF provided its own video images on polio immunisation to The NewsMarket. By disseminating news about the NIDs and sharing progress that vaccination efforts are making to meet global Polio eradication goals, UNICEF hopes to mobilise communities to participate in greater numbers.
Contact Kent Page [email protected] OR [email protected]
7. US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation - United States, Israel, Palestine
This grassroots effort works to inform, educate, and mobilise the public to challenge US policies that coalition members believe are perpetuating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Participants include civil and human rights activists, faith-based organisations, peace activists, Arab-American organisations, Jewish groups, and students. Advocacy is the key strategy. For example, the coalition is calling for an end to sales to the Israeli military of Caterpillar-built bulldozers used in armoured form "to destroy Palestinian homes and lands." The project supports the efforts of member groups to mount legal challenges; educate about home demolitions, the "Wall", and agricultural destruction; reach out to labour unions; and take direct action (by organising a demonstration or contacting Congressional representatives). The aim: freedom from occupation and equal rights for all.
Contact [email protected]
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Call for AIDS PSA Footage
In an effort to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS among young people, MTV Networks International's Staying Alive campaign is producing a documentary that will look at past and current AIDS Public Service Announcement (PSA) campaigns. The programme will be broadcast internationally on MTV channels.
The producer seeks PSA footage - TV and radio spots - from broadcasted AIDS campaigns (worldwide) from the 1980s to the present day. The material may have been produced by any country, and in any language.
If you have footage to share, contact Simon Morris [email protected] prior to July 15 2005.
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STRATEGIC THINKING
8. Building Bridges Through Community Service Learning
by Adam Morrison, Richard Marfo, Rachel Farahbakhsh, Cheryl Rose & Donna McMillan
This Capacity.org newsletter describes a collaborative process in which students at the University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) and 10 community organisations worked to develop a process called Community Service Learning - the integration of students into the community as part of the university education. The students offered community groups the chance to voice their views on how to characterise a healthy, beneficial, long-term partnership with the university. Strategies to support the dialogue process included developing an effective informal communication channel, ensuring that all stakeholders felt empowered, and making honesty and trust central.
9. Engaging Women in Environmental Activism: Recommendations for Rachel's Network
by Amy Caiazza, Ph.D., & Allison Barrett
In this report, the Institute for Women's Policy Research outlines key research findings as a way to help the USA-based Rachel's Network better understand women's attitudes toward the environment, engage women in environmental activism, and develop potential partners among women's organisations for building a coalition around environmentalism. The report suggests 3 strategies for engaging women in environmental activism: creating an effective message; developing other political strategies for increasing women's activism; and using effective tools for targeting the media.
10. B in ABC
by David Patient and Neil Orr
"The objective of this article is to introduce an HIV prevention strategy that may actually work in married and other committed relationships: Teaching committed couples how to have better sex, this reducing the need and incidence of infidelity. And yes, this implies the absence of condoms....What if we used the structure of religion, to teach people in committed relationships how to have better sex? What if religion started taking an active role in human sexuality and relationship-building through educated intimacy? Sounds simple, but when you think through the methodology, it will become abundantly clear that this approach will also have a radical impact upon gender inequity, for the simple reason that the best sex is dependent upon a disciplined effort to communicate and learn about your sexual partner..."
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Seeking Input
A researcher from the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University, UK, is seeking responses to the questions "How should development researchers position themselves in the field?" and "What is the responsibility of the development researcher in the field?"
The outcome of this research will lead to an academic paper that will contribute to scholarship on the role of development researchers in the field. This paper will help respond to concerns raised in a previous paper on "doing social research in Africa", which suggested that reciprocity in the field on the part of the researcher is bribery and that the role of the researcher in the field is not to try to address issues they uncover, but to document them.
Contact Dr. Theophilus Gokah [email protected]
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MATERIALS
11. ELDIS Resource Guides
These subject-focused online resource guides bring together information from ELDIS databases. Offered in such areas as ageing populations, climate change, debt relief, globalisation, and participation, the guides are meant to offer quick access to key documents, organisations, research themes, discussions, and other resources.
12. Fighting Corruption: What Role for Civil Society?
The Experience of the OECD
"Civil society plays a key role in fighting corruption. Today, this statement is unchallenged: it has become a leitmotiv of anti-corruption discourses. But what does it mean in practice? To what extent is it true in all contexts?...What can be learned from past experience? These are some of the questions that this [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] report addresses."
13. The World Summit in Reflection
This series of articles represents a compendium of submissions collected as a way to understand information on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The printed issue offers a collection of 37 essays; the online version has 82 papers listed and also offers the reader a way to respond online with reactions and/or critiques. The contributors to this volume are described as representing a wide range of perspectives, regions and professions.
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JOIN HEALTH e COMMUNICATIONS'
FIRST DISCUSSION FORUM!!
Starting June 27 2005, this forum will ask: What are the responsibilities of the media in reporting on real or potential public health emergencies?
Revolving around issues discussed at 2 public forums held at the 2004 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum -
- this discussion will examine some of the issues raised regarding the responsible reporting of public health emergencies. Most participants of the public forum agreed that the public interest had to come first. We want to know what you think.
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LINKS: Consulting Organisations
14. Change Management Toolbook
An international team of practitioners offering change management services such as an online, open source series of tools, methods, and strategies.
15. Digital Wkshop
A production company making films about teens, social change issues, and community at the request of advertising agencies, health departments, associations, causes, and foundations. Digital Wkshop also provides social marketing assistance.
16. International Media, Development, Peacebuilding (IMDP) Consulting
Offers consulting services to Middle Eastern and international media, private companies, and NGOs seeking to operate in the United States and in the Middle East.
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PULSE Poll
Jane Bertrand of JHUCCP argues that "participatory evaluation may not meet the methodological rigour of the scientific community to measure effectiveness."
[For context, please see The Drum Beat 302]
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.
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