The Drum Beat 253 - Soul Beat Africa

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Soul Beat Africa: Communication for Change

Development issues in Africa provide specific challenges for local, national and international development communicators and their organisations. Soul Beat Africa - a joint process of Soul City and The Communication Initiative and their partners - seeks to respond to and support communication action on the priority development issues in Africa. It provides a space for communicators across Africa to share experiences, materials, strategic thinking and events, and to engage in discussion and debate. We recognise that many communicators working in other parts of the world are very interested in the work in Africa. This Drum Beat features examples of programme experiences, evaluation data and strategic thinking from the Africa context as well as information and links to the Soul Beat process.

Click here for the Soul Beat Africa website

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EXPERIENCES

1. Gallé Aynabé (Cyber Shepherd) - Senegal
An Internet-based project that uses a combination of information communication technology (ICTs) for tracking livestock migrations. The project is done to help rural communities to adopt more efficient livestock management practices and to protect pastures that are threatened, in the long term, by over exploitation. The website offers maps showing which sites are occupied and which have green vegetation, together with an estimated "carrying capacity," indicating the number of animals that can be pastured there without risk to the environment and its resources, and ways of recognising and dealing with animal diseases. The project also uses cell phone technologies to provide pastoralists with information about resources in the transhumance zones, and to track and monitor the course followed by selected shepherds and their flocks from one point to another in the forestry-pasture zone.
Contact Yalacé Kaboret ykaboret@refer.sn OR Alioune Kâ ka@cse.sn

2. Improving the Quality of Reproductive Health Services for High-Risk, War-Affected Adolescent Girls & Other Vulnerable Youth - Angola
A project that disseminates socially and culturally appropriate sexual and reproductive health information to the youth of Luanda, Benguela and Huila Provinces to effect behaviour change. The project identifies and trains peer educators and other community mobilisers who provide participatory life-skills education for youth. Other strategies include designing and implementing counseling strategies and appropriate supporting materials as well as establishing pilot youth-friendly health services in the three provinces. So far, the project has trained 226 teachers and 40 nurses to disseminate reproductive health information.
Contact Antonica Hembe ahembe@unfpa.ebonet.net OR Melanie Luick mluick@unicef.org OR unaids.angola@undp.org

EVALUATIONS

3. "My Father Didn't Think This Way": Nigerian Boys Contemplate Gender Equality
by Girard Francoise
This document is a report on a project known as "Conscientising Male Adolescents" or CMA. The project was founded to increase boys' awareness of gender-based oppression, and to foster their critical thinking skills by teaching them to analyse the world around them and arrive at a new set of values on their own.

4. Thin on the Ground: Questioning the evidence behind World Bank-funded community nutrition projects in Bangladesh, Ethiopia & Uganda
In this report, Save the Children UK claims that World Bank efforts to curb childhood malnutrition in Bangladesh, Uganda, and Ethiopia have had no impact. Resources may be being wasted on these large-scale community nutrition projects, the charity claims.

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The Soul Beat - An Africa-specific e-publication based on the information summarised on Soul Beat Africa - communication for development and change news and issues - is published every other Wednesday.

Current issue: click here!
To subscribe: click here!

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STRATEGIC THINKING

5. Misconceptions, Folk Beliefs, Denial Hinder Risk Perception among Young Zambian Men, September 2003
This study of young Zambian males revealed that their risk perception of sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and HIV/AIDS was low due to misconceptions, folk beliefs and denial, which impeded personal risk assessment and interfered with the adoption of safer sexual behaviour. Although the study's participants demonstrated a wide range of knowledge about the disease, they often mixed correct information with misconceptions, the study found. Folk explanations linking HIV infection to the strength of individuals' blood, menstruation or sorcery were common.

6. Divided City: Information Poverty in Nairobi's Slums
by Rasna Warah
This study is an attempt to look at how slum dwellers in Nairobi obtain information, and also to examine what mechanisms exist in slums to access media and information in the absence of ICTs. It also explores various options that can be adopted to promote ICT development in slums.

EDUTAINMENT

7. Communicating AIDS prevention through entertainment-education: A case study based on the film Amah Djah-foule
by Annica Widmark
The author uses the Ivorian film Amah Djah-foule as a case study to focus on examining the messages of entertainment-education projects. The film aims to educate female sex workers about STIs and HIV/AIDS.

8. Tale-Telling Tradition Techniques in Africa & Soap Opera: The Case of Tanzania
by Herbert F. Makoye (PhD)
This paper explores the use of radio soap operas in Tanzania and proposes that the acceptance and success of these programmes is largely because of the tradition of tale telling in Tanzania. "The nature of communication or the exchange of ideas in tale telling and in radio soap operas may be similar to other process of communication in which the communicator transfers a message to his/her listener. However, the additional factor of entertainment that the listeners/ audience experience is what in most makes the difference when compared with other channels of communication."

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In support of the upcoming Fourth International Entertainment Education Conference, Soul Beat Africa will be engaging with edutainment professionals across Africa, to collect information and encourage discussion and debate. The current issue of The Soul Beat highlights some of the experiences and resources about edutainment from the Soul Beat Africa network.

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EVENTS & TRAINING

9. Media & Child Participation - Aug 2-13 2004 - Lesotho
This course aims to equip participants with the ability to understand, analyse and report professionally on issues relating to child's rights and children's issues as well as with the skills of communicating with children as media consumers.

10. Arts for Social Change - Oct 27 - Nov 7 2004 - South Africa
The Pioneers of Change and Engage!Interact are hosting a "learning journey" for young people who are either actively working with artistic processes in social change work, young people who are active in social change and wanting to learn artistic processes, or young artists wanting to apply their art towards social change. The "journey" will be attended by 30-35 participants who will work with 5 organisations that use 5 different artistic techniques for social change, and each of these organisations will host the group for one day.

MATERIALS

11. Ignorance is a Disease: A Short Play on Reproductive Health Education
by Mohammed Kuta Yahaya
The story of a woman who marries, at the age of 14, a man with 2 other wives. The play looks particularly at public health issues (maternal/ child health, HIV/AIDS prevention, environmental conservation in agriculture, family size issues, poverty and community relations).

12. Education and HIV/AIDS: A Sourcebook of HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes
This sourcebook aims to support efforts by countries to strengthen the role of the education sector in the prevention of HIV/AIDS. It was developed in response to numerous requests for a simple forum to help countries share their practical experiences of designing and implementing programmes that address school-age children. Countries included are: Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

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The Soul City Institute for Health & Development Communication is a South African based social change project which aims to impact on society at the individual, community and socio-political levels using the edutainment methodology. The Insitute views health and development as integrally related: poor health impedes development and development is central to improving global health. They produce two key vehicles, Soul City and Soul Buddyz which both consist of prime time television and radio dramas with supporting print material. Independent evaluations have shown impact on the development objectives.

The Institute has recently expanded its activities beyond the borders of South Africa. The Soul City Regional Programme is working with local partners in Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Each local partner is identifying core Soul City material (radio, TV, and print) that they wish to adapt in their country. Alongside the media development programme, The Institute will provide training in the countries to build and empower local capacity.

To read more about the Soul City Experience on Soul Beat Africa, please visit the following:

Soul City - South Africa

Soul Buddyz - South Africa

Soul Buddyz Three: Target Audience Research

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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 dheimann@comminit.com

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