The Drum Beat 174 - Communication and AIDS: Events, Perspectives, and Thinking

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1. HIV Positive: AIDS Through a New Lens Photo Exhibit - Washington, DC, USA - Dec 3 2002
In April 2002, a group of Canadian photographers traveled with CARE to Zambia to document the HIV/AIDS crisis. The resulting collection of photographs highlights both the despair of the disease and the resistance and hardiness of the Zambian people. The exhibit also focuses on the deadly interaction between Zambia’s poverty and the spread of HIV and AIDS.

2. Staying Alive 4
This MTV-sponsored AIDS awareness campaign is intended to raise awareness and promote prevention of HIV/AIDS. Consisting of on-air and on-line products created rights-free for distribution to other TV/radio partners, the campaign will premiere on World AIDS Day. MTV channels will air a special show featuring acts in the current music scene in concert from Capetown, South Africa and Seattle, USA. MTV will also premiere Staying Alive 2002, the 4th in a series of award winning documentaries on the subject of young people and HIV/AIDS, hosted by music superstar Mary J Blige.

OneWorld Radio will offer radio stations around the world the opportunity to broadcast HIV/AIDS awareness programming from the MTV Staying Alive campaign. Member radio stations will be able to download the audio from the OneWorld Radio website and broadcast the programming rights free within a 30-day period starting with World AIDS Day.
Click here for more details...
Contact Jenny Eschweiler radio@oneworld.net

3. 2nd National Multisectoral AIDS Conference - Tanzania - Dec 16-20 2002
Designed to be a forum for "collective sharing of knowledge, experiences, dilemmas, frustrations and hopes and prospects for a better future with less HIV/AIDS by Tanzanians and their international partners."

PERSPECTIVES

4. Critical Challenges in HIV Communication
The Panos Institute has produced a short perspective paper: "Critical Challenges in HIV Communication". This paper gives a brief overview of the current situation relating to HIV/AIDS funding and decision making, together with an account of some lessons from the past. It draws upon the online survey Panos conducted from June to Sept 2002, as well as on interviews with a number of donors and the experiences of the southern Panos network of offices. But the paper presents an argument which needs further evidence and corroboration. Panos is requesting assistance and participation in ensuring that what they say resonates with the wider HIV and Development Communication community.

In a recent presentation of the paper at the Rockefeller headquarters in New York, the audience - largely donors or senior development communication practitioners - agreed with the broad points of the document. However they emphasised the need for evidence to support the work more fully. They also stressed the need for practical suggestions on moving forward.

This paper is launched with the objective of stimulating discussion and response. Feedback will inform the forthcoming Panos Policy Report on HIV Communication. Discussion will also help guide the production of a number of Panos media outputs, such as the series of radio features on their partner site, InterWorldRadio.

The Communication Initiative is supporting a moderated discussion forum for the exchange of ideas on this paper. The discussion will begin Jan 6, 2003 and run through the month of January.

Click here to read "Critical Challenges in HIV Communication".

Please contact Thomas Scalway toms@panoslondon.org.uk for further information about the Panos Survey or any part of this process.

5. Seeking Input - SciDev Net is seeking individuals in Zambia and East Africa interested in or with suggestions for a forthcoming workshop for women journalists and health communicators on 'The use of information and communication technologies for reporting on HIV/AIDS.' Contact Julie P. Clayton julie.pclayton@blueyonder.co.uk

6. twinning against AIDS
For a number of years the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and the Canadian based Interagency Coalition on AIDS & Development (ICAD) have supported a strategy for capacity building amongst organisations responding to the AIDS crisis called 'twinning.' Twinning is defined as a formal, substantive collaboration between 2 or more organisations in which ASOs, NGOs, research and other institutions come together to contribute to each others work and learn from each other's experiences.

Last year, a meeting of organisations involved in twinning from The Americas & Caribbean requested a process to see how Information & Communication Technologies (ICTs) could be better used to support the twinning strategy. For the past 6 months The Communication Initiative together with CIDA, ICAD and an international steering committee (click here for a list of members) have conducted a global consultation process using a combination of on-line surveys, face to face meetings and telephone interviews to answer questions like:

• how can lessons learned in specific twinning projects be shared beyond the actual participants and archived so others can access them?
• how can twinning relations be cost-effectively continued past the end of a formal twinning project and how can more organisations become involved?
• how can less formal forms of information sharing also be supported?

Some of the findings:

• Twinning relationships can be formal or informal, international, national or local, north to south, south to south and south to north, and deal with issues as complex as the pandemic itself.
• ICTs can be critical to strengthen twinning at all these levels but should support and not replace face to face methods such as staff exchanges, training and the like.
• Access to ICTs needs to be assured through support for regional processes and access. Decision making about the use and control of ICTs needs to be representative of those involved from funders to Aids Service Organisations.

Plans for the future:
To introduce and utilise ICTs to strengthen twinning processes in a strategy that includes:

• face to face activities utilising staff exchanges and training programmes for capacity building,
• support for local and regional networks and meetings,
• access to resources through support for connectivity and the exchange reproduction and translation of materials,
• web based real time information sharing of twinning documents and materials, networking tools, a needs and resources exchange bank, and outreach using contact data bases and email.

Click here for the Report on this process

For further information, contact: Chris Morry cmorry@comminit.com or Michael O'Connor moconnor@icad-cisd.com

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New PULSE Poll!

Development focused organisations should never pay for radio or television air time.

Do you Agree? Disagree?

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Results of the last poll:

The equal participation of women in the development of their societies is a basic human right that supercedes cultural and religious differences.
Poll Results as of November 29:
97.37 % Agree
2.63 % Unsure
Total number of participants = 114

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7. Understanding HIV-Related Stigma & Resulting Discrimination in Sub-Saharan Africa: Emerging themes from early data collection in Ethiopia, Tanzania & Zambia
The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) is leading a USAID-funded research initiative in 3 African countries and in Vietnam to investigate the causes, manifestations, and consequences of HIV/AIDS-related stigma and subsequent discriminatory acts. The basis for analysis is the community and its institutions - health facilities, the workplace, schools, and religious groups. The CHANGE Project (AED/Manoff Group) will use the research findings to develop pilot interventions in Africa that minimise the influence of HIV-related stigma on the use and provision of prevention, care, and support programmes.

8. VIII International Communication for Development Roundtable Report - with a focus on HIV/AIDS communication and evaluation
This report serves as a resource showing a number of different communications models and applications in the field. It highlights an emerging convergence in approaches and increasing efforts to build bridges between different types of activities, including Behaviour Change Communication, Communication for Social Change, and Advocacy. Also includes examples of approaches to address young people’s needs and gender issues, including community mobilisation against gender-based violence and discrimination, and use of community media.

9. UNAIDS 2002 Update
"UNAIDS and its Cosponsors have established a set of yardsticks for tracking movement towards [the targets to which governments and the UN may be held accountable]. Work on the first report measuring progress against these indicators starts in 2003, and will be based on progress reports provided in March 2003 by the 189 countries that adopted the Declaration. Already, though, there is substantial evidence of progress...."

THINKING

10. Communications Framework for HIV/AIDS: A New Direction Published in 1999 by UNAIDS and Penn State University
Describes the findings and recommendations of consultations on ways to make HIV/AIDS communication more effective in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The collaboration that resulted in this document was developed through involvement of practitioners and researchers, 80% of whom were from developing countries where they worked on communications and HIV/AIDS. This document called for a new direction on how communication programmes for HIV/AIDS are designed and implemented. The new approach outlines a way to combine interpersonal communication and mass media in key areas of prention and care to reduce the impact of the pandemic.

11. Making HIV/AIDS Our Problem: Young People & the Development Challenge in South Africa by Kevin Kelly, Pumla Ntlabati, Salome Oyosi, Mary van der Riet & Warren Parker
"...an exploration, through formative field research, of approaches to engaging youth response to HIV/AIDS. This involved the development of 2 action research interventions - one in Amatole Basin, a rural community in the Eastern Cape, and the other at Sibonile School for the Blind, located at Klipriver in Gauteng. The overall aim was to examine in detail, through 2 case studies, the challenges facing the community and young people in particular, in developing a sustained and effective response to HIV prevention...."

12. Reconceptualising Behaviour Change in the HIV/AIDS Context - from In Stones C (Ed) Socio-political and psychological perspectives on South Africa by Kevin Kelly, Warren Parker & Graeme Lewis
Argues that approaches to behaviour change are for the most part based on cognitive models of action and suggests that this is a problematic foundation for developing programmes of behaviour change, and particularly HIV/AIDS intervention programmes. Posits that models of behaviour change often do not address the contingencies which bring intentions to fruition. A behavioural outcome which appears to derive from a cognitive intention because of its proximal association therewith, is often really a product of a complex interplay of intentionality, communality and sociality. The meaning of these 3 sub-systems of activity in the generation of actions is explored and their interplay is emphasised.

13. Reflections on HIV and AIDS Education: Communicating a behavioural change forum theatre as an alternative approach by Jakob Sloth Madsen
The primary purpose of this article is to present and assess the forum theatre as an alternative means of presenting a combined informational and therapeutic education, on men as an underrepresented target group, which can increase the use of male condoms. Furthermore, a 2nd objective of the article and the research done is to present a methodology and guidelines that can be used in either other provinces of Mozambique or other cities on a global scale to build up an empirically based educational theatre.

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