The Drum Beat 92: Making Waves - The Action

In the course of the past 6 weeks there has been considerable interest in the publication Making Waves - Stories of Participatory Communication for Social Change, written by Alfonso Gumucio Dagron and produced by The Rockefeller Foundation [a Partner in The Communication Initiative]. 1,800 copies have been requested in the weeks since it was launched. The Communication Initiative has been given permission to include the entire publication on the web site. Given the interest in the approach to communication presented in this publication, we are also issuing 2 Drum Beats that link to its content.

In this issue the focus is on some of the stories and experiences that are told in Making Waves. Next week in The Drum Beat, there will be an emphasis on the strategic lessons and principles drawn from these experiences. 

 

1. RADIO SUTATENZA - Colombia - An amateur radio operator, José Joaquin Salcedo Guarin realised radio was the most effective way to bring educational instruction to the far-flung rural adults of Colombia. His dream was realised when Radio Sutatenza began educational broadcasts using a 90-watt transmitter. On October 16 1947, the first cultural programme was broadcast: music performed by farmers of Sutatenza...

2. VIDEO SEWA [Self Employed Women's Association] - India - following a 3-week video production workshop, the 20 women who attended, most of them illiterate, began to make videos. The group included women of all ages, some Muslims and some Hindus, vendors from the market, as well as senior organisers from SEWA. For 3 years they had no editing equipment or expertise, so they shot their video productions in sequence...Videos on issues of the self-employed are shot, edited and replayed by workers themselves...

3. RADIO HUAYACOCOTLA - Mexico - started in October 1965, was the first radio-school of México, and aimed to provide basic education to zones of difficult access. From the beginning Radio Huayacocotla transmitted in short-wave, which ensured its coverage of the rural population of Veracruz and other states such as Querétaro, Hidalgo and Puebla, where other radio-schools were eventually set up...

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NEW Drum Role! "Radio Forum Marks the Start of a New Network" - Sarah McNeill gives an overview of presentations made during the inaugural Radio Forum at the World Summit on Media for Children. She joins other participants in calling for a network to have radio recognised globally as an important and distinct communication tool for raising the status of children. Contact Sarah radioforum2004@yahoo.com

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4. GASALEKA & MAMELODI TELECENTRES - South Africa - Gasaleka, Botlokwa, Tembisa, Mankweng, Mohodi, Apel, Siyabonga and Mamelodi...these are some of the villages or suburban areas in the Gauteng Province and the Northern Province where telecentres have been established by the Universal Service Agency, a South African government institution....The Mamelodi Community Information Services and the Gasaleka Telecentre are 2 good examples of the advantages and problems of countries such as South Africa aspiring to universal access in Information Technologies. Gasaleka is a remote rural area integrating 34 villages with a population of approximately 30,000 people, while Mamelodi is an urban setting...

4. TEATRO LA FRAGUA - Honduras - "The Forge Theatre", is based in El Progreso, Honduras' third largest city. Its goal is "to forge a national identity by means of the people's own expression", and "awaken the creativity of the people with the help of theatre, to find solutions to current problems."...[Created in 1979], the company consists of 14 Hondurans who not only perform, but also do the maintenance and public relations... 

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The next Vacancies Special Drum Beat will be May 23 2001. Please contact [or ask the person in your organisation responsible for recruitment, personnel or human resources to contact] Jennifer Savidge for information on this service jsavidge@comminit.com

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5. GRAMEEN VILLAGE PHONE - Bangladesh - In rural areas where isolation and poor infrastructural services are often the norm, telecommunications can play an extremely important role in enhancing rural social and economic development. The Village Phone is a unique undertaking that provides modern digital wireless telecommunication services to some of the poorest people in the world. A Grameen Bank member (most often female) purchases a phone under the lease-financing programme of the Bank and provides telephone service to people in her village...

6. THE LILAC TENT - Bolivia - People of all ages are lining up outside of a huge lilac tent recently installed at the main square of the village. This is not a visiting circus although it's fun, it is not a school although it's educational, this is something new and different. Everyone is curious about living the experience of learning about sexuality and reproductive health through interactive games, images, audio-visual shows and live music. Groups of 10 at a time are allowed inside the tent. Each visit will last less than one hour but there will be plenty to do while it lasts...

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"Making Waves: Participatory Communication for Social Change" sera bientôt publié en Français par la Fondation Rockefeller. La Fondation voudrait évaluer la demande existante dans les pays francophones. La distribution de ce livre est gratuite. Si votre organisation est intéressée, et/ou vous étés intéressés a titre personnel, veuillez envoyer un message a webinfo@rockfound.org et écrivez sur le titre " Making Waves - French print ". Dans le message, signalez le nombre d'exemplaires dont vous aurez besoin.

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7. ACTION HEALTH - Nigeria - In Nigeria, as in many other countries, television, home video and films have become a popular mode of communication, with enormous influence among adolescents who reside in urban areas. As a tool of information, education and communication, video is perhaps the most user-friendly and cost-effective medium for information dissemination to an audience. Action Health video productions have been used to educate people both young and old on the reality of the problems encountered by adolescents on reproductive health issues...

8. CESPA - Mali - has trained a new generation of rural development communicators. The core group of 16 staff members is conversant in all stages of the process: research, concept development, scriptwriting, production, post-production and utilisation of the pedagogic packages at the community level. Another group of 248 (by the end of 1998), from various institutions working in rural development, is now skilled in the use of the methodology for training peasants...example of social change induced by CESPA includes addressing the relationship between peasants and the rural banks that lent them funds which was tense and characterised by a lack of mutual understanding and knowledge from both perspectives. A pedagogic package on credit is said to have diminished the gap by explaining the mechanism of banking procedures...

9. WAN SMOLBAG - Vanuatu - In 1989, 15 voluntary part-time actors organised an NGO to work with communities on social and environmental issues in Vanuatu. The group called itself Wan Smolbag (in Bislama, the language of Vanuatu), because they wanted to show people that a theatre group could go anywhere. With only one small bag to carry a few costumes, the troupe was ready to produce plays on health and environmental issues and travel to the most remote villages within the Pacific Islands...

10. TELEVISION SERRANA - Cuba - a community video and television project that operates in the heart of Sierra Maestra. In January 1993 several institutions got together to sponsor the project. A small team of videomakers with low cost equipment runs the project, which aims to rescue the culture of peasant communities in the region, and to facilitate alternative communication for communities to reject their daily lives and participate in the search for solutions to the problems that affect them...

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For the full listing and links to the 55 communication initiatives recorded in Making Waves - click here.

Please note: The English version of "Making Waves" is out of print and will not be reprinted. It is available in full here as an HTML paginated presentation, and from both the Rockefeller Foundation and the Communication for Social Change Consortium as PDF downloads. For more details as well as access to PDF downloads and the French and Spanish translations, please click here. 

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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.

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