illuminAid

illuminAid's communication approach uses video to reach off-grid, remote communities who might not otherwise have access to transformative knowledge in health, agriculture, education, and other disciplines. Video is a medium that all viewers can understand, engage in, and learn from. illuminAid provides training and equipment to organisations throughout the developing world so they might effectively leverage video technology in their various missions.

illuminAid partners directly with NGOs working in developing communities to build capacity and support behaviour change programmes. They engage with subject matter experts and teach locals how to produce educational videos using low-cost video cameras and cordless projectors in typically hard-to-reach locations. The videos are shot and created in the communities they'll later be shown in, and always in the local language. (This approach ensures that literacy is not a barrier to learning and that all community members will understand the video.)

Specifically, illuminAid's Video Education Workshop (VEW) is a four-day training with a combination of lecture and hands on training where illuminAid staff and Local Video Trainers (LVTs) teach participants how to plan, shoot, and edit a video. (LVTs co-facilitate lectures, serve as translators, and provide post-workshop training sessions. As of May 2024, illuminAid leverages 1,500 LVTs in 55 countries.) The purpose of these interactive sessions is to teach trainees how to use videomaking as a tool for behaviour change communication. Video production is managed by participants who film in the community, where screenings are held alongside the locals.

Using programmes and training already built into an NGO's communication strategy, though the VEW, illuminAid can help NGOs translate existing curricula into community-led videos. NGOs can show those videos in local communities with small mobile projectors. illuminAid's mobile projectors are discreet and lightweight, and they don't need electricity to operate. With solar energy, facilitated discussion and video training sessions with the community can occur in the most remote and rural locations.

illuminAid believes that it is crucial to ensure the integration and scalability of video creation into ongoing projects. To that end, illuminAid provides one year of capacity development support for VEW participants, with the goal that video becomes an innate part of the organisation's communication strategy and that staff members are confident and capable in creating and showing videos for future behaviour change needs.

Click here to read about illuminAid projects all over the world, in subject areas including health, agriculture, education, women, nutrition, climate resilience, and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

illuminAid partners have described increased audience participation when they incorporate video into their regular work. Video screenings are imperative when working in areas of high illiteracy rates. As compared to traditional methods of in-person interventions, the message is reliable with each screening, as the content does not change between each viewing. With Catholic Relief Services in Guatemala, presentations that incorporated video and illuminAid's handheld projectors had their attendance improved by 33%.

illuminAid relies on evidence-based research to guide their video-assisted behavior change communication interventions. Click here to learn more.