 The Drum Beat – 645 – Health, Rights, Media |
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| This issue of The Drum Beat highlights recent selections from The CI’s Health, Rights, Media theme site, which is supported by the Health Media Initiative of the Open Society Public Health Program. This programme is committed to advancing health and human rights with a focus on social inclusion, transparency, accountability, and participatory decision-making. It works to strengthen the capacity of marginalised populations.
In that spirit, this dedicated area on The CI site gathers knowledge, insight, experience, and resources from people addressing health issues from a rights perspective using media-based strategies at local, national, and international levels. These initiatives (Open Society Foundations (OSF)-supported and non-OSF-supported) provide the basis for the sharing of experiences and critical review processes that can help advance the impact and scale of media, health, and human rights action. |
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| ACTIVISM & ADVOCACY |
| 1. Key Correspondents |
| «Do you have something to say about health issues? Are things happening in your community that the world needs to know about?» Key Correspondents is a network of citizen journalists from Africa, Asia, and Latin America who report the HIV, health, and human rights stories affecting them and their communities. The International HIV/AIDS Alliance (the Alliance) assists the network with mentoring, training, and opportunities to be more widely heard. A number of multi-country programmes being run by the Alliance incorporate the work of KCs as a way to advocate for political and social change. |
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| 2. Action Group for Health Human Rights and HIV/AIDS (AGHA) |
| AGHA is a health rights advocacy organisation operating across Uganda engaged in civic education and the promotion of dialogue between health experts, the government, and civil society. AGHA: (i) conducts research on human rights violations (involving networking and advocacy to produce relevant health rights information and establishing an online resource base/library, website, e-forums, a bi-annual newsletter, and technical support); (ii) provides trainings on advocacy and the relationship between health and human rights; (iii) takes action to raise awareness and influence policy through the media (e.g., community radio), public campaigns, and high-level meetings; and (iv) networks and collaborates with other public and private entities and organisations to advocate for rights-based health policies and programmes. |
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| 3. Community of Practitioners on Accountability and Social Action in Health (COPASAH) |
| This network seeks to nurture, strengthen, and promote collective knowledge, skills, and capacity of community-oriented organisations and health activists – primarily from Africa, Asia, and Latin America – working in the field of accountability and social action in health. The aim is to promote active citizenship to make health systems responsive, equitable, and people-centred. Using digital and face-to-face communication, COPASAH undertakes activities such as a 5-day training workshop in Delhi, India, in September 2013. The workshop’s purpose is to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSOs) on accountability and transparency, with a view to strengthening the field of community monitoring for accountability in health in South Asia. |
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| 4. KELIN: Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS |
| KELIN works with vulnerable and often marginalised groups such as people living with HIV (PLHIV) and most-at-risk populations (MARPs) in Kenya. It also engages with key stakeholders and policymakers and involves itself in the process of policy development and reform in order to influence and improve protection against health- and HIV-related human rights violations for such groups. For example, in June 2013, KELIN, in partnership with the National Empowerment Network of People living with HIV/AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), conducted a sensitisation forum for 23 health care workers from the counties of Mombasa and Kilifi. The forum sought to strengthen their capacity to appreciate legal and ethical obligations in advancing the rights of PLHIV and key populations in order to create an enabling environment in the provision of health service delivery. |
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| 5. How to Survive a Plague |
| This documentary about AIDS activism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with accompanying viewer’s guide, focuses on the actions of 2 United States (US)-based coalitions – ACT UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group). As documented in the film, ACT UP and their colleagues fought for life-saving medications by organising a mass movement, taking to the streets, and making art. [Jan 2012] |
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| 6. Women’s Inheritance Network (WIN) |
| According to WIN, the HIV/AIDS epidemic magnifies the devastation of property violations. The WIN website is one tool used to provide an interactive forum for exchange of legal and on-the-ground information on women’s rights, inheritance, and property rights and HIV/AIDS among legal practitioners and activists in eastern and southern Africa and beyond. |
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| 7. UGANET: Uganda Network on Law, Ethics & HIV/AIDS |
| Legal aid – legal counsel, representation, and mediation – is one of the core programmes of UGANET. It informs UGANET’s advocacy, community engagement, and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention programmes. UGANET has a team of 100 paralegals trained in the elementary basics and components of the law, human rights, community mobilisation, and sensitisation. The paralegals go into their communities on bicycles to assist in raising awareness about basic rights. Advocacy is also a core part of UGANET’s work. |
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| See also:
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| SPOTLIGHT ON STORYTELLING |
| 8. Storytelling to Combat HIV/AIDS Stigma amongst Transport Workers |
| This programme involved Kenyan transport workers, AIDS clinicians, and union members listening to and telling stories about HIV and its impact on their lives. The strategy involved conducting an assessment of the cultural, social, and political context of HIV infection, as well as the workshop participants, and then providing a follow-up strategy to guide the continued use of the Narartiv Listening & Storytelling Method. Video was presented as an opportunity for participants to «speak for themselves», to exercise their own voices, and to expand their capacities for personal and collective agency by describing their own experiences. HIV-positive transport workers in Kenya built upon their training in the Narativ methodology and formed USAFIRI (which means «mode of transport» in Swahili). This is a network that brings together a diverse group of union members who are committed to sharing and listen! ing to each other’s stories and spreading the awareness of HIV/AIDS in their communities. [International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) and Narativ] |
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| 9. The Power of Rights |
| Noting that «[o]pen society and human rights are intimately bound together: one cannot today imagine either without the other», in this video, OSF shares the voices of people around the world who are working to defend and promote human rights. As people interviewed in this video explain, that commitment to the rights of all has required special commitment to minority rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, and the rights of physically and intellectually disabled people. |
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| 10. Criminalizing Condoms: How Policing Practices Put Sex Workers and HIV Services at Risk in Kenya, Namibia, Russia, South Africa, the United States, and Zimbabwe |
| OSF’s Sexual Health and Rights Project, publisher of this report, observes that treatment of condoms as contraband forces sex workers to make a choice between safeguarding their health and staying safe from police harassment or arrest. Criminalizing Condoms documents these practices in 6 countries and identifies their consequences on sex workers’ lives, including their vulnerability to HIV. Associated with this report is a short animated film, Condoms as Evidence, featuring sex worker voices from Kenya, Russia, South Africa, United States, and Zimbabwe. In this multilingual film, sex workers talk about what it means when police confiscate or destroy their condoms. They call on police worldwide to «stop taking our condoms». |
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| 11. Seeing Is Believing: A Guide to Visual Storytelling Best Practices |
| This guide to visual storytelling is based on the observation that, «while there have been great advances over the years in word craft, far less attention has been paid to the science of visual communications.» It begins with 3 principles of visual communication and continues with 7 «Rules of the Road» for those seeking to maximise the impact visuals can have on the people they are trying to reach. Examples of different photo strategies, with analysis, are provided. [Resource Media, Apr 2013] |
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| 12. Storytelling & Social Change: A Strategy Guide for Grantmakers |
| This practical guide is designed to serve grantmakers who use or want to use narrative strategies – strategies that use storytelling to advance social change – in their funding and communications programmes. The guide looks at the recent history of storytelling and social change; reviews the theories of change behind this work; provides case studies of 10 projects and funders; offers resources and recommendations to build the field; and includes sidebar interviews and other features. [Jun 2013] |
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| 13. campaignstrategy.org |
| This online resource spotlights ideas for structure and strategy applicable to most social change campaigns. One guideline: communicate in pictures. «Why pictures? Because pictures are far more powerful than words. Good ones tell the story and the best need no caption. And pictures cannot be interrogated or argued with.» |
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| RESOURCES: ACT & ASSESS |
14. Right-Things, Right-Now: Nonprofit Marketing Plan Template
by Nancy E. Schwartz |
| This baseline marketing plan for non-profit organisations provides strategies to connect with supporters and partners and to motivate them to take action. One example given is that of an organisation whose purpose is to improve regional health by significantly reducing exposure to toxic chemicals. One of the marketing goals in this scenario is to motivate 15 area residents to attend a 2-part community meeting to build their understanding of the relationship between health and the environment and train them as effective advocates. In order to accomplish this goal, the template offers a chart with situation analysis outlining ways to analyse conditions inside and outside one’s organisation. Next, call for action, being specific about what steps you would like the intended audience to take in order to achieve marketing goals – e.g., ask that they «like» a Facebook page and share a question about env! ironmental dangers there. |
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15. Human Rights in Patient Care: Practitioner Guides
by Leo Beletsky, Tamar Ezer, Judith Overall, Iain Byrne, and Jonathan Cohen |
| Through a collaborative networked process, OSF is creating practitioner guides to inform and facilitate the utilisation of legal tools to advance human rights in patient care. The manuals examine patient and provider rights and responsibilities, as well as procedures for protection through both the formal court system and alternative mechanisms in 10 countries. Each practitioner guide is country-specific, supplementing coverage of the international and regional framework with national standards and procedures in these countries: Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova (forthcoming), Romania (forthcoming), Russia (forthcoming), Serbia (forthcoming), and Ukraine. The guides are designed to be useful for medical professionals, public health mangers, Ministries of Health and Justice personnel, patient advocacy groups, and patients themselves.[May 2013] |
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| 16. Discovering the Activation Point: Smart Strategies to Make People Act |
| This resource aims to help nonprofit organisations harness the power of persuasion to make more progress toward their social change goals – from the environment to health care to foreign aid. An activation point occurs when the right people at the right time are persuaded to take action that leads to measurable social change. But before people will act, they must view the issue as relevant to their daily lives and believe that change is possible and something good will happen as a result. [Spitfire Strategies, Dec 2006]
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| 17. See the following resources on EVALUATING COMMUNICATION APPROACHES: |
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| This issue of The Drum Beat was written by Kier Olsen DeVries. |
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| The Drum Beat is the email and web network of The Communication Initiative Partnership – Partners: ANDI, BBC Media Action, Bernard van Leer Foundation, Breakthrough, Calandria, Citurna TV, DFID, Eldis, FAO, Fundación Imaginario, Fundación Nuevo Periodismo, Heartlines, Iberoamericano (FNPI), IFPRI, Inter-American Development Bank, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs, MISA, Open Society Foundations, Oxfam Novib, PAHO, The Panos Institute, Puntos de Encuentro, The Rockefeller Foundation, SAfAIDS, Sesame Workshop, Soul City, STEPS International, UNAIDS, UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, USAID, The Wellcome Trust, World Health Organization (WHO), W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
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.
Chair of the Partners Group: Garth Japhet, Founder, Soul City garth@heartlines.org.za
Executive Director: Warren Feek wfeek@comminit.com |
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| The Editor of The Drum Beat is Kier Olsen DeVries. |
| Please send additional project, evaluation, strategic thinking, and materials information on communication for development at any time. Send to drumbeat@comminit.com
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.
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Blog de Octavio Islas 