News Agency for Children's Rights (ANDI)
as presented at the VIII International Communication for Development Roundtable, Managua, Nicaragua
Click here to download a Power Point Presentation of this document.
ANDI - News Agency for Children's Rights
is an NGO created by brazilian journalists in 1992. Its goal is to support the media in the coverage of issues related to children and adolescents.
ANDI / Rede ANDI
Mission/Actions/Products/Publications
Organize/Cooperate
Stimulate a permanent dialog, in ethical and professional terms, between Third Sector actors and the media.
Make available for journalists informations and contacts with Third Sector actors, in matters concerning the promotion of children's and adolescent's rights.
The tools
Among its strategies, in 1996 ANDI developed a methodology to monitor and analyze the coverage of 15 different issues related to children and adolescents.
Since then, the 50 main brazilian newspapers are daily monitored by ANDI.
8 weekly, bi-weekly or monthly magazines are also monitored.
Through this methodology ANDI has permanent access to relevant data related to the stories focused on children and adolescents:
- The main sources of information used by the journalists
- How frequently children and adolescents are listened in these stories
- How frequently the stories cover possible solutions to the problems concerning a certain issue (investigating solutions = denouncing omissions)
- How frequently a certain issue deserved the front page of the newspaper and also if it deserved a photograph
- How frequently stories on Aids are focused on pregnancy, on children or on adolescents
- If the stories on Children's Rights support or criticize the specific brazilian legislation (ECA)
Children on Media
8 Magazines
Stories: 817
Search for Solutions: 41%
Denounces: 8,32%
50 Newspapers
Stories: 64.396
Search for Solutions: 31,01%
Denounces: 6,96%
Evolution
Number of stories monitored by ANDI
- 1996........... 10 700
- 1997........... 16 740
- 1998............ 24 851
- 1999............ 48 639
- 2000............ 64 396
Products and actions
- Children on Media – daily bulletin
- Clipping Analysis – weekly bulletin
- Children + Niños – weekly bulletins
- Journalists Friends of Children – 200 media professionals from all over Brazil
- Ayrton Senna Prize – for stories on children and adolescents that investigate solutions
- Guides of Sources of Information
- ANDI's network – 6 cities
- “Communication projects on Childhood/ Adolescence” Contest
- Trainee program in socially responsible communication for college students.
- Social Projects Bank - successful experiences and specialized sources in all relevant issues related to children and adolescents.
- Daily support to journalists covering children and adolescents related issues.
Content analysisand media qualification
- Media analysis group.
- Quantitative and qualitative analysis
- Results are published.
- Workshops with journalists, supported by experts.
- Recommendations from the journalists are published.
Issues already covered
- Education.
- Childhood education (0-6).
- Sexual explotation.
- Violence.
- Alcohol + Tobacco / Youth Media
- HIV/Aids / Youth Media.
The Youth Media Project
- In March 1997, ANDI started its Youth Media Project to support and qualify journalists working in newspapers supplements, magazines and TV programs for adolescents.
- These publications and TV programs were recognized as strategic, in the brazilian media context, not just because they address the adolescents directly, but primarily because they give voice to them.
- Educommunication: to support the journalists to realize that, as their main target are adolescents, they need to start to see themselves not just as communicators, but also as educators.
- Increase and qualify the coverage of “socially relevant issues” - the ones that contribute to the building of life skills.
- Stimulate the journalists to develop a coverage that supports youth participation in Brazil.
The tools
- A special methodology to monitor and analyze 21 different issues covered by 25 weekly newspaper supplements and 5 monthly magazines for adolescents, from all over Brazil.
- A weekly bulletin – Free Radicals – summarizes the socially relevant news published by the Youth Media.
- Every three months the thematic bulletin Sharp Talk maps ways for the Youth Media to cover a specific relevant issue.
- Daily support to the demands of these journalists while they are covering socially relevant issues.
Youth Media Survey
Newspapers' supplements: 25
Magazines: 5
- Number of stories: 11.345
- 945,4 stories per month
- 1.550 editions analyzed
- Socially Relevant Issues (number of stories): 5.021
- Socially Revelant Issues (rate): 44,26%
Socially Relevant Issues Rate
Evolution
The HIV/Aids Youth Media Project
Violence, Drugs and Aids stand as some of the issues the Youth Media has more difficulty covering.
In June 1999, ANDI – with the support of the brazilian Ministry of Health (STD/Aids National Coordination) – started a project aimed to improve the quality of the coverage of HIV/Aids and teen pregnancy related issues among the Youth Media.
HIV Prevention Notions
HIV Prevention Notions
In June 2000, ANDI, the Ministry of Health, UNICEF, UNESCO, UNDCP and the Ayrton Senna Institute organized a seminar to discuss new ways to increase the coverage and quality of HIV/AIDs related issues in the Youth Media.
The public:
- 50 journalists from supplements, magazines and TV programs (mainly editors)
- 17 adolescents from projects related to HIV/Aids prevention and / or communication
- 20 experts: HIV/Aids, Drugs, Communication.
The Handbook
In Dec. 2000, ANDI and the brazilian Ministry of Health published a handbook called Youth Media: the Challenge of Aids, with the conclusions of the two day seminar.
The handbook was distributed to journalists, educators and youth participation groups. It was also used as a capacity building tool by the Secretary of Education of the Minas Gerais state, in the project that trains teachers in Sexual Health Education.
The Handbook / The Workshops
ANDI, in partnership with UNICEF's Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean is currently adapting and reshaping the handbook, as a tool for workshops focused on mobilization and training of journalists for more effective coverage of HIV/Aids related issues.
There will be one handbook for the participant and one for the facilitator. The final format will be flexible enough to invite the use of the handbook in any country.
The Workshops
The workshops also aim to help journalists in building a ¨pact¨, so that they will commit themselves to covering certain relevant issues related to the international, national or local HIV/Aids agenda.
Social actors will have important roles in ¨feeding¨ the journalists with qualified information for this coverage.
Lessons learned
Universities usually don't teach journalists anything about adolescence. Nor about HIV/Aids.
When we ask journalists to cover HIV/Aids related issues, they usually react by doing a story full of figures and frightening messages. Nothing that an adolescent can feel attracted to.
Usually there are not many new facts to report related to the HIV/Aids epidemic. So journalists find difficult to keep these issues on the agenda.
Journalists don't understand that issues as HIV/ Aids deserve a process oriented coverage.
A good strategy is to invite journalists to discuss prevention and life skills while covering other themes. The handbooks that ANDI is developing are structured in a way that helps the journalist to see how 8 different themes can support the coverage of HIV/Aids related issues.
- Socio-economics
- Gender
- Sexuality
- School
- Family
- Drugs
- Pregnancy
- Youth Participation
Journalist participation
Journalists don't like to be told what they should be doing. Usually, they are also bad listeners.
ANDI's experience shows that the best results are reached when the workshops are structured in a way that the journalists themselves are invited to do the work, finding how to build more efficient coverage of HIV/Aids and adolescence related issues.
In this process, it's important that they have the support of adolescents and experts.
Building bridges
A good story needs a good journalist. But it also needs one – or more – good sources of information.
If we want to support the strengthening of a socially responsible journalism, we need to have social actors capable of understanding and facilitating the work of the press.
One of the goals of the workshops is to help journalists, institutions and experts on HIV/Aids related issues to form a network that will support the most relevant information to reach its target.
HIV/Aids Scenario in Brazil
Federal government program
- 100% of HIV positives receive full attention of the Public Healthcare system.
- Advocacy in favor of initiatives to lower the price of anti-HIV medication, such as breaking patents.
- Nationwide campaigns, especially during Carnival and on December 1st.
- Nationwide prevention campaigns are also being developed to specific targets, such as married men.
HIV/Aids Scenario in Brazil
Social mobilization
- Social movement has been strengthened by the epidemic.
- Women and Gay movements are very active.
- NGOs and government partnership is very usual.
Cultural environment
- There is no problem to talk openly about sex, sexuality and condoms in most regions of Brazil.
- TV programs, magazines and newspapers are the second main source of information for adolescents on sexuality related issues.
Disadvantages
- Separation of sex from affection
- Early erotization of children and adolescents (the media plays an important part in this process).
- Few initiatives on municipal level even though it is responsible for actions on Healthcare and Education.
- Stronger focus on treatment than on prevention.
- Side-effects of the success of anti retro-viral drugs: Aids is being seen as something easy to handle.
- Adolescents express the frustration for not being able to talk freely about sexuality and HIV prevention with their parents.
The double moral syndrome
- Adolescents receive loads of information, but have to face lots of obstacles to access condoms.
- Prices are high. Condoms are not found in bars, night clubs or shopping malls, where adolescents meet.
- Nevertheless, it's very easy for the adolescents to access alcoholic beverages and illicit drugs, which usually lead to risk behaviour.
- When surveys show that adolescents have the information, but are not using condoms, indirectly the society and the media end up blaming them.
- The government is not willing to face the church, so condoms are not available at public schools, which would be a natural setting for access.
- The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Education do not articulate actions to face the challenge of Aids among students.
- The Ministry of Education does not have clear figures about Sexual Health Education initiatives in brazilian schools.
- No campaigns to stimulate HIV testing.
New challenges to the society and the media
- Experiences on harm reduction – IDUs.
- Adolescents in conflict with the law (institutions)
- Street children
Partners
- Unicef
- Unesco
- W.K. Kellogg Foundation
- Ayrton Senna Foundation
- Avina Foundation
- Ministry of Health
- Ministry of Education
- Ministry of Justice
- Save the Children Sweden
- European Union
Thank you!
ANDI
Tel: (61) 322 6508
www.andi.org.br
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