The Soul Beat 213 - Communicating about Family Planning
In this issue of The Soul Beat:
- PROGRAMMES using radio, television, and peer education for family planning...
- STUDIES on the use of ICTS and faith-based organisations for reproductive health...
- VIDEOS on couple communication and the importance of access to FH products...
- Film CONTEST on the female condom...
This issue of The Soul Beat includes a selection of programme experiences, resource materials, and strategic thinking documents from the Soul Beat Africa website that look at how media and communication are being used as a tool to promote awareness and dialogue around family planning and contraceptive choices.
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PROGRAMME EXPERIENCES
1. Saliwansai Radio Drama - Sierra Leone
In February 2012, Population Media Centre (PMC) started production on a 208-episode radio drama in Sierra Leone to promote family planning. The programme, called Saliwansai, is designed to spread knowledge around population and reproductive health issues through entertainment-education. Saliwansai follows the lives of four main characters: Abu, Hingah, Gibo, and Wara, all with their own unique stories, yet over time it is revealed how each of their lives intersect. One of the characters, Abu, is a school dropout who is under pressure to marry and have lots of children.
2. Tanzania Capacity and Communication Project (TCCP) - Tanzania
Running from 2010 - 2015, the Tanzania Capacity and Communication Project (TCCP) is using social and behaviour change communication to encourage individual changes in the areas of HIV prevention, reproductive health, and maternal and child health. Centred around two key campaigns, Tuko wangapi? Tulizana and Jiamini!, TCCP uses radio, television, and print media, supported by SMS communication, to encourage awareness and dialogue. Jiamini! is a national campaign designed to empower women to initiate use of modern methods of family planning and encourage male support of family planning. The campaign focuses on women and couples who want to delay their first pregnancy, wait to have their next child or stop having children, but who are not currently using a modern method of family planning.
3. Get It Together Radio Dramas - Nigeria
In February 2012, the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) launched three 26-episode radio drama magazine programmes in Nigeria to encourage wider acceptance of family planning and to inform Nigerians of the benefits of modern family planning/child spacing. Each of the 26 radio programme episodes features a friendly host and hostess, drama, talk, music, comedy elements, vox pop, testimonials, and an expert corner where listeners' questions are answered. Listeners compete for gifts by correctly answering weekly quiz questions via SMS. The episodes depict how real Nigerians can overcome challenges to achieving their life goals, and are designed to encourage discussion in communities, in homes between spouses, at work, in daily life, and in the media.
4. Life Choices Family Planning Initiative - Ghana
A multi-media family planning programme launched in Ghana in 2009, the Life Choices Family Planning Initiative uses music, docudramas, television spots, and print materials to increase the demand and use of modern contraceptive methods, as well as addressing underlying social and behavioural barriers and issues. The campaign is led by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs (JHUCCP) in partnership with CARE and PLAN International, and led by the Ministry of Health as part of the four-year Behaviour Change Support (BCS) Project. The Life Choices campaign includes an original song and music video "Obra ne woara bo (Life is what you make it)" that tells that story of Kofi and Nana, two friends who have chosen different life paths.
5. Tupange: Kenya Urban Reproductive Health Initiative - Kenya
The Kenya Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, known locally as Tupange (Let’s Plan), is a 5-year project, running from 2010 to 2014, to empower people living in Kenya’s urban slums to take control of their lives and build a brighter future with family planning. Tupange is assisting the government and private health providers to provide a full range of high quality family planning services with a goal of increasing the contraceptive prevalence rate in selected project areas by 20%. The accompanying communication strategy includes multi-media and a radio drama designed to generate demand creation. The five-member implementing consortium is led by Jhpiego and includes Marie Stopes Kenya, Pharm Access Africa Ltd, the National Coordinating Agency on Population and Development, and the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs.
6. Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI)
Launched in 2009, the 5-year Nigeria Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI) seeks to reduce barriers to family planning/child spacing use and increase the contraceptive prevalence rate in selected urban areas of Nigeria. NURHI is using a variety of communication strategies to change the social norms surrounding family planning and envisions a Nigeria where both men and women are responsible for initiating conversations about family planning and where family planning information is gleaned from multiple, credible sources - not only health care providers.
7. Entre Nous Jeunes - Cameroon
Entre Nous Jeunes is a peer-based adolescent reproductive health programme designed to increase contraceptive use and to reduce the prevalence of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among sexually active urban and in- and out-of-school youth aged from 10 to 25 in Cameroon. It is implemented by Institut de Recherche et des Etudes des Comportements (IRESCO) in collaboration with the Community Health Directorate of the Ministry of Public Health and various other ministerial departments, with technical and financial assistance from Santé Familiale et Prevention du SIDA (SFPS)/Tulane. The project involves mobilising peer educators to lead discussions and conduct informal interviews with fellow youth on topics related to family planning and STIs/AIDS.
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8. Women’s Empowerment and Choice of Contraceptive Methods in Selected African Countries
By Mai Do and Nami Kurimoto
This report, published in March 2012, shares findings from a study to identify associations between women's empowerment and the use of contraceptives in selected African countries. The study, supported by the MEASURE Evaluation Population and Reproductive Health Project, examined whether women's empowerment was associated with the likelihood that a couple used either a female or a couple method of contraception. It was concluded that intervention programmes designed to increase contraceptive use may need to involve different approaches, including promoting couples' discussion of fertility preferences and family planning, improving women's self-efficacy in negotiating sexual activity, and increasing their economic independence.
9. Assessing Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice of Emergency Contraception: A Cross-Sectional Study among Ethiopian Undergraduate Female Students
By Fatuma A. Ahmed, Kontie M. Moussa, Karen O. Petterson, and Benedict O. Asamoah
Published in January 2012, this Ethiopian study aimed to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of using emergency contraception (EC) and to further elucidate the relationship between these factors and some socioeconomic and demographic characteristics among female undergraduate students of Addis Ababa University (AAU), as well as report on the media sources of their knowledge.
10. Making Family Planning Acceptable, Accessible, and Affordable: The Experience of Malawi
This project brief on family planning in Malawi highlights key policy and programme achievements, conveys the story behind the programme's success, and looks to the future for sustaining and building on its progress. The brief synthesises findings from a Fall 2011 review conducted by the RESPOND Project, in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and Malawian health ministry partners.
11. The Use of Information and Communication Technology in Family Planning, Reproductive Health, and Other Health Programs: A Review of Trends and Evidence
By Willow Gerber
From the Management Sciences for Health (MSH)-led AIDSTAR-Two Project, this technical paper from November 2011, focuses on the ways in which new information and communication technologies (ICTs) have the capacity to improve access to family planning and reproductive health information and services. Opening sections of the paper present context, definitions, and trends. The paper then presents examples of ICTs being used in Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Malawi, India, and Bangladesh, and looks at how digital platforms and mobile technology are being integrated into the overall health system strengthening approach.
12. Faith-Based Organizations as Partners in Family Planning: Working Together to Improve Family Well-being
Published by the Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH) in August 2011, this report on the perceptions of family planning within faith-based organisations (FBOs) follows a year-long initiative of data gathering and a subsequent technical consultation at Georgetown University (Washington, DC, United States) highlighting Christian, Muslim, and secular perceptions of the relationship between faith and family planning.
13. Using Social Analysis and Action in Madagascar to Break from Family Planning 'Business as Usual' in Madagascar
In the context of family planning issues in Madagascar, this case study published in February 2012, explores and evaluates a communication approach called Social Analysis and Action (SAA), which CARE designed to enable community members to initiate and sustain both dialogue and action on issues (including those that deal with cultural and social norms) that affect them and their communities. As a development approach, SAA assumes that honest and open exploration of sensitive social issues among community members is not possible if CARE field agents enter a community as "experts", i.e. with a pre-defined problem to be addressed and with a set of prescribed messages and specific changes to press on the community.
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RESOURCES
14. Long-Acting and Permanent Methods: Stories from the RESPOND Project - Videos
According to the RESPOND Project, evidence suggests that good couple communication supports better use of family planning, yet, few tools exist to encourage such communication in West Africa. To address this gap, the RESPOND Project developed four short documentaries profiling real couples who overcame their fears about long-acting and permanent methods of contraception (LA/PMs). The videos depict the issues and decision-making processes each couple struggled with as they considered their choices and are intended to inspire others to talk about family planning.
15. Urban Family Planning: Lives Changed - Video
The Measurement, Learning & Evaluation Project (MLE) for the Urban Reproductive Health Initiative project produced a 7-minute video about urban family planning (FP) and what works in FP programme interventions. Intended as an advocacy tool, this video highlights the importance of securing access of high-quality voluntary FP products and increasing client demand for FP services in urban settings.
16. Film Contest: Female Condoms Are...
Deadline: March 1, 2013
According to the organisers of this international film contest, female condoms may be one of the most promising health technologies available, which people do not know or hear much about. PATH, the Universal Access to Female Condoms (UAFC) Joint Programme, the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE), and the National Female Condom Coalition (NFCC) are calling on filmmakers of all levels of experience to enter an international film contest to address at least one of these questions: Why does the world need female condoms? Are male condoms enough, or do we need something more? What do female condoms mean to you and women and men in your community? How would different types of female condoms affect your lives or the lives of men and women globally?
SOUL BEAT E-NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES
See these previous e-newsletters related to Reproductive Health:
The Soul Beat 168 - Communicating for Reproductive Health
The Soul Beat 173 - Communicating for Safe Motherhood
To view ALL past editions of The Soul Beat e-newsletter, click here.
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