The Drum Beat 348 - Communication and Change News and Issues
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1.Pax Warrior - Canada
This online educational programme is designed to change the ways that students (aged 17 to 24) learn and remember through a series of interactive modules addressing topics that are part of the Canadian curriculum. It is centered around a hybrid media product for educators and trainers that extends the notion of an "Interactive Documentary" through decision-based simulation and collaborative learning tools. This model of learning is based on the notion of advanced networked content that fuses storytelling with the learning potential of a reality-based decision engine. The first of Pax Warrior's documentaries is a web-based multimedia narrative combining text, images, and sound to tell the story of the United Nations' intervention in the Rwandan genocide.
Contact Andreas Ua'Siaghail [email protected] OR Sean Hopen [email protected]
2.Taxi Tunes - Zimbabwe
Produced by Radio Dialogue, this series of radio cassettes is designed to educate the people of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe on development issues such as health, sexuality, environmental responsibility, and governance - in an entertaining way. Distributed to drivers of kombis (taxis), Taxi Tunes seek to engage listeners through music and commentary, as well as through interviews with prominent local personalities, politicians, and artists. As part of this initiative, Radio Dialogue meets with Bulawayo residents in community halls to discuss the social and political issues affecting them. The meetings are part of a live broadcast programme with a presenter, news readers, and a panel of guests (which might include government and council representatives, and members of Parliament). Radio Dialogue records these meetings, bringing tapes and CDs back to the community.
Contact Zenzele Ndebele [email protected] OR [email protected]
3.Community Health Initiative (CHI) - India
According to Impact India Foundation (IIF), there are over 90 million persons with disabilities in India; IIF launched this project based on a belief that many of these disabilities can be prevented. In an effort to halve the incidence of disabilities in 3 areas of India in a 3-year period, IIF is securing cooperation and commitment from the local people, educational institutions, community-based organisations, and local government authorities. DRP uses a variety of communication-based approaches - for instance, health education - to improve sanitation, reduce waterborne diseases, and encourage the production of appropriate food. One goal is to develop systems, methodologies, and monitoring arrangements that can be successfully replicated in India and developing countries.
Contact Zelma Lazarus [email protected] OR [email protected]
4.Media for Peace in Africa Programme - Africa
This Panos project works to strengthen the role of the media in understanding and communicating about conflict in Africa by providing fellowship grants, conducting research, developing and disseminating resources, and carrying out workshops and other education projects. For example, selected outputs from grants that enable journalists to research, report on, and publish stories highlighting conflict and peace issues in the region are included in bi-monthly "bulletins" published in French and English and disseminated to editors throughout Africa via a website.
Contact [email protected]
5.First Steps - Cambodia
This live call-in radio programme is a joint initiative of Cambodia's government broadcaster Radio National Kampuchea and the BBC World Service Trust. Broadcast one hour every week, the programme is formatted to appeal to rural women with maternal and child health messages. One of the objectives is to create a women-friendly space where women can talk to each other about their experiences; to that end, the production team, two presenters, and people answering the telephones are all female. Organisers have worked to move away from the question-and-answer format that prevails in other call-in programmes in Cambodia. They indicate that the choice of presenters was crucial - they needed to be confident, natural communicators with enquiring minds.
Contact David Wood [email protected] OR Charles Hamilton [email protected]
6.Water Music Project - Global
This initiative draws on the work of volunteers and musicians around the world to demonstrate the significance of water through music, the arts, and activism. Water Music's approach centres on highlighting and sharing the beauty of clean, healthful water in an effort to communicate its significance - and to remind citizens and policy makers about what we lose when we abandon or neglect efforts to sustain this natural resource. Specifically, Water Music offers concerts, art exhibits, and educational and information-focused events such as seminars, conferences, classroom curricula and expositions. At the centre of many of these activities is a book that features 100 colour photographs accompanied by the writings and contributions of musicians from around the world who have creatively responded to the meaning and value of water.
Contact Marjorie Ryerson [email protected]
7.Plaza Sesamo - Colombia
Set to launch in October 2006, Colombia's Plaza Sésamo is a local adaptation of Sesame Street, a television-centred initiative that uses engaging live action, animation, and colourful characters in an effort to meet the educational needs of young children. As part of an effort to showcase the cultural diversity of Latin America through the TV series, teenagers will create live action films and primary school children will be given cameras so that they can take photos of moments in their daily lives. Educational print materials will be produced to complement and extend the impact. A variety of research studies will be implemented as part of an effort to ensure that the programme effectively reflects and addresses local needs.
Contact Beatrice Chow [email protected] OR Timothy O'Leary [email protected]
8.Programme Towards Improved Reproductive Health and the Promotion of Safer Sex Among Young People - Botswana
Implemented as part of the Southern African Youth (SAY) Initiative, this project is an effort to reduce the incidence of HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and unwanted pregnancy among young people in Botswana. Project activities include: community-based partner training, situation and response analysis, skills building, national base-line studies, and youth training. "The primary strategic features...are sustained policy support, unified strategies, and active partnerships among a range of constituencies."
Contact Magdeline Madibela [email protected] OR [email protected]
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9.Keeping the Promise: The People's Response to Health For All - An Evaluation Report of the Process that Led to the People's Health Assembly 2000 and the Development of the People's Health Movement
A global People's Health Movement (PHM) began to emerge in December 2000, when nearly 1500 people from over 90 countries met for 5 days in Savar, Bangladesh for a People's Health Assembly (PHA). This evaluation of the process shows that the PHA "was a unique social mobilisation exercise". To prepare for the global gathering, people all over the world participated in village meetings, district meetings, national events, and regional workshops. These gatherings provided opportunities for voices at the grassroots level to articulate demands for better health, justice, peace and equity; to reaffirm their rights and responsibilities to be involved in the decisions that affect their lives and their health; and to confirm that the right to health is one of the basic human rights to which they are entitled. Despite a lack of coordination and coherence early on in the birth of PHM, evaluators find that the movement is beginning to have global impact...
10.Impact Data - Sexual Health Information and Services for Youth - China
This community-based, communication-centred sexual health programme for unmarried youth (ages 15-24) living in urban areas in China led the proportion of youth who reported making joint decisions (communicating) with a partner about contraception to rise significantly among sexually experienced males in the intervention site (50 to 77%); that figure dropped among males in the comparison site (67 to 63%). The proportion reporting regular use of contraception rose significantly among sexually experienced youth from the intervention site (34 to 89%); that figure remained unchanged in the comparison site.
11.Effects of a Mass Media Campaign to Increase Physical Activity Among Children: Year-1 Results of the VERB Campaign
by Marian Huhman, PhD, Lance D. Potter, MA, Faye L. Wong, MPH, Stephen W. Banspach, PhD, Jennifer C. Duke, PhD & Carrie D. Heitzler, MPH
This evaluation shares the results of the first year of VERB, a multi-ethnic national campaign that combines paid advertisements with school and community promotions and internet activities to encourage children 9 to 13 years of age living in the United States to be physically active every day. The evaluation found that the strategy of promoting physical activity with child-focused commercial advertising shows promise. For instance, a significant positive relationship was detected between the level of awareness of VERB and weekly median sessions of free-time physical activity among several sub-populations, such as girls (evaluators speculate that VERB's emphasis on the social benefits of physical activity likely appealed to girls).
12.Radio Ujjas: Greening The Ears For The Kutch People
This article shares some of the insights learned in Kutch, Gujarat, India, about using community radio to address development issues. Established in 1989 as an independent organisation of rural women, Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan's programmes have included "Kujal Paanje Kutchji", which focused on the participation of women in political processes, and the accompanying documentary module "Kutch Kuchhato", which aimed to ensure a committed space for the voices of people from Kutch. The organisers found that research, consultation and community participation have been vital to the programme, which draws on "radio's affinity with oral, non-literate cultures; it can easily reflect and generate debate on local concerns, needs, priorities and issues." One of the outcomes has been to encourage women to articulate problems or issues in a systematic and sustained manner.
13.Communication Rights and Communication Wrongs
by Nalaka Gunawardene
This article proposes that ensuring communication rights for all in the information society is not a mere slogan or campaign; it is an integral part of social justice, and a goal that is attainable with current technologies and resources. Nalaka Gunawardene discusses "communication wrongs", such as violations of privacy, that are (often inadvertently) committed by the media and development communities. The conclusion: "we won't become a true global family unless and until we engage fellow villagers in our conversation."
14.Interactive Children's Television
While there are different views as to whether or not television is harmful to children, according to this article, one certainty is that television becomes more attractive to young viewers when they have the possibility of interacting more. During "a digital trading card game" which represents characters in the "Kim Possible" cartoon series, a child uses a remote control to collect the cards exchange them with other children using the set-top-box return channel. A number of incentives to collect the cards are included. The authors indicate that progress in this form of entertainment is being held back by the lack of a "universal, standard technical platform."
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CONSULTATION
A Visiting Professor at the Catholic Divine Word University (DWU) in Papua New Guinea (PNG) has compiled an action research project which aims to discover the impact of traditional belief systems and cultural norms on present-day sexual practices in PNG. She seeks critical comments and views on the proposed project. For a summary, contact Scarlett Epstein: [email protected]
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17.International Trade Forum
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18. Action for Girls
Includes articles and news related to promoting the rights of girls in all areas and stages of their lives, advancing the rights and status of girls and assisting them to develop their full potential as women. Contact: WGG [email protected]
19.African Crops News Service
A monthly magazine aiming to foster improved exchange of information on agricultural biotechnology, crop improvement and seed systems involving African crops.
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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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