The Drum Beat 321 - Communication and Change News and Issues
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EXPERIENCES
1. KuSaurara (Listen Up!) Project - Nigeria
Launched in 2000 by the Johns Hopkins University/Center for Communication Programs, KuSaurara (Listen Up!) is centred around efforts to foster linkages between Nigerian youth and those involved with providing quality youth-friendly reproductive health (RH) services. The project, whose cornerstone is a radio variety show, has involved young people and youth-serving organisations (YSOs) in its efforts to: mobilise communities through health rallies, promote positive policies to reduce RH risks through public education and advocacy, and produce various types of English- and Hausa-language materials that generate demand for youth-friendly services and empower young people to be educated service users.
Contact Lisa Folda [email protected] OR Mrs. Hadiza Babayaro [email protected]
2. Social Communication for People Empowerment (SCOPE) - India
SCOPE is a non-profit movement committed to community development and social action through social communication. It creates space - through workshops, research, a printed bulletin, and advisory services - to enable concerned individuals and organisations to come together for the building of their own process of development. Its mission is to strengthen the voices of the voiceless by creating what participants define as systems that support meaningful living, institutions, and practices that are pluralistic, sustainable, just, collaborative, and liberating.
Contact Ashish Khare [email protected]
3. Initiative to Develop Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies - Global
In 2003 the Inter-Agency Network on Education in Emergencies' (INEE) Working Group on Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies (WGMSEE) began facilitating a broad base of stakeholders to develop standards, indicators, and guidance notes that articulate the minimum level of educational access and service to be attained in emergencies. INEE states that children's lives can be saved in times of crisis through education programmes; thus, ensuring a certain level of quality and accountability among those programmes is crucial. This project is at its centre a collaborative, participatory effort; approximately 2,250 individuals from over 50 countries contributed experiences and ideas through the INEE list-serve, consultations, and a peer review process. This process led to the launch of a free handbook, which is intended to be a tool for advocacy with governments and donor institutions.
Contact Allison Anderson Pillsbury [email protected]
4. Youth AIDS Network - Latin America & the Caribbean
With an eye to preventing HIV/AIDS among young people in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has collaborated with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), UNICEF, and YouthNet to create an email network of adolescent health specialists. These practitioners use information and communication technologies (ICTs) to share strategies, exchange information, and keep up-to-date in the field. Members receive the Youth HIV Action newsletter and Breaking the Silence advocacy sheet, among other publications and notices regarding the topic.
Contact Sylvia Singleton [email protected]
5. Guysborough County Business Development Corporation (GCBDC) - Canada
In October 2000, Strategic Profits Inc. (SPI) partnered with Guysborough County in Nova Scotia to create an e-commerce initiative to foster economic development and job creation within a failing fishing industry. The 15-month project sought to use the Internet and wireless technology as a cost-effective way to communicate on the part of even the smallest villages wishing to create sustainable commerce within rural Canadian communities. The GCBDC developed e-commerce-enabled storefronts for 12 small businesses, then coordinated a training programme for the entrepreneurs and their staff. Organisers say that a number of participants sold thousands of dollars worth of products through their newly created websites.
Contact Troy Greencorn [email protected] OR Brad Robeson [email protected] OR Catherine Clarke Pagliaro [email protected]
6. Mekong RBM IEC Initiative - Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam & Yunnan-China
The Mekong RBM (Roll Back Malaria) IEC (Information, Education, and Communication) Initiative is a communication-based malaria education project focusing on ethnic minorities and hard-to-reach populations in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS). It draws on face-to-face interactions, as well as various types of media, to raise awareness about malaria and instigate action to prevent and treat it. Following a workshop, country teams began developing research tools, which were then translated into ethnic languages and pre-tested through group discussion, semi-structured interview, participatory learning, and action or participatory rural appraisal. People who can speak the ethnic language of the intended populations were trained to collect information such as how much people know about malaria transmission and prevention, what kinds of prevention behaviours (e.g., use of insecticide-treated nets) are being exhibited, which populations are most vulnerable to infection, how malaria education is being conducted, and so on. Based on this process, a variety of printed, audio, and visual materials have been created to suit local contexts.
Contact Pricha Petlueng [email protected]
7. Live TV Presidential Debates - Kyrgyz Republic
In an effort to help Kyrgyz citizens make an informed choice during the July 2005 presidential elections, Internews Kyrgyz Republic, in partnership with the National TV and Radio Corporation, produced 4 live TV debates between candidates in the presidential elections. Radio and the internet were also used to enable candidates and citizens to communicate about political, social, and economic issues central to the election - hopefully fostering an open political process.
Contact Elvira Sarieva [email protected]
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CALL FOR NON-HEALTH COMMENTARIES
To all Communication Initiative/Drum Beat network members - please contribute your opinions through our monthly critical analysis commentary series.
Since the beginning of 2004 and published the first Monday of each month, we have featured a great number of opinions from thinkers and practitioners within the health sector of communication for development. Click here for the archived issues. We are seeking contributions from other sectors: i.e. natural resource management, environment, gender, education, political development, economic development, children, youth, ageing, new technologies.
Please contact Deborah Heimann [email protected] for more information.
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EVALUATIONS
8. Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention: An Abstinence-centered Randomized Controlled Intervention in a Chilean Public High School
by Carlos Cabezón M.D., Ph.D., Pilar Vigil M.D., Ph.D., Iván Rojas, M. Eugenia Leiva, Rosa Riquelme, Waldo Aranda & Carlos García M.D.
This is an evaluation of TeenSTAR, an abstinence-based, teenage pregnancy prevention programme implemented in Santiago, Chile in the years 1996-2002. Evaluators found that, by providing training in fertility awareness and sexuality through group discussions, brainstorming, homework, videotapes, and skill building activities, the intervention produced the predicted impact of a significant reduction in pregnancy rates over long-term follow-up. While concluding that TeenSTAR was extremely effective in reducing teenage pregnancies, they suggest that more research is needed.
9. When the Broadcast Ends, the Programme is not Over: Maximising the Effectiveness of EE Programmes at Community Radio Level
by Adele Mostert & John van Zyl
This paper shares the experience of ABC Ulwazi in South Africa in interacting with and using an entertainment-education (EE) format to create community radio programmes. The authors stress that the actual broadcast should be woven into the "mesh" of communication activities triggered by the broadcast; creating a well-researched, well-scripted, well-produced programme that uses familiar situations and colloquial dialogue is not enough. Station "buy-in" must be ensured through short adult education courses for presenters and station managers. This helps them to "localise" scripts to address regional issues, problems, and languages. Listeners Associations can also extend the usefulness of the programmes.
10. Global Networked Readiness for Education: Preliminary Findings from a Pilot Project to Evaluate the Impact of Computers & the Internet on Learning in Eleven Developing Countries
by Colin M. Maclay, Geoffrey S. Kirkman & Robert Hawkins
This evaluation emerges from a joint effort between the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at the Harvard Law School and the Global Networked Readiness for Education (GNRE). This initiative is an effort to help educators and policymakers examine the role and effects of integrating information and communication technologies (ICTs) into formal learning settings in developing countries. "[T]he most basic finding of the first round of surveys is that ICTs are still new to education in the developing world....While computers are available in one form or another in the schools surveyed, they are still not well-integrated into most core learning processes."
TRENDS
11. As Seen on TV: Health Policy Issues in TV's Medical Dramas
by Joseph Turow, PhD & Rachel Gans
"What ideas do U.S. mass media present to Americans about health policy issues?" In an effort to respond to this question, the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation explored the extent to which, and the way in which, arguments over health policy issues appeared on United States' prime-time television over a period of several months. While scenes showing people how health policy issues might play out in "real" people's lives have stimulated discussion, "[s]eries in which doctors are depicted as dominating the arena do not suggest that the health care system invites, or even provides opportunities for, public involvement in key debates about health policy issues."
12. It's a Wireless World
by Andrew Tribute
"The cell phone created the unwired communication world." With this assertion, Andrew Tribute begins his discussion of some of the major global trends in wireless telephone and internet technology. Recent developments have led communication modes to shift dramatically in the past 10 years, with significant implications for the work of creative professionals and business personnel, he claims. Changes yet to come will also impact the printing industry...
13. TV & Radio Lose Out to Internet Among Youth Audience: EIAA Research Reveals Increasing & More Sophisticated Usage of the Internet Among 15-24 Year Olds
This article provides an overview of European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) research, which finds that an increase in internet usage has resulted in decreased involvement in a variety of other media activities among European youth aged 15 to 24.
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Please participate in our PULSE POLL
A global communication campaign will only be successful if there is already political activism and engagement on the issues being addressed.
[For context, please see The Drum Beat 319]
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MATERIALS
14. Reference Guide on Vaccines and Vaccine Safety
The National Partnership for Immunization (NPI) offers this second edition reference guide with information on vaccines, how they work, and related safety issues.
15. Who Owns the Media? Global Trends and Local Resistances
"This collection of critical writings on media ownership from different parts of the world...[explores] the political economy of contemporary media ownership. Issues addressed include convergence, global media governance, intellectual property, telecommunications regulation and deregulation, censorship, the role of the state, with a strong accent on the need for transparency, accountability and media diversity."
16. Info-Pack: Understanding and Using Mass Media For Tobacco Control
Includes a summary of some of the key principles in developing an effective tobacco control mass media campaign; case studies illustrating the successful use of mass media campaigns as part of a comprehensive tobacco control programme; and discussion of the effectiveness of a variety of tobacco control mass media messages.
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NEW - ConunDRUM
Over the Edge!
Warren Feek explores what he sees as a conflict between the organisational and accountability demands of development agencies and the reality of people's lives...
Click here to access "Over the Edge!"
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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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