Healthlink Worldwide

Communication for development: pathways to effective development

Communication is a key component to effective development. All to often, however, communication for development is reduced to methods for getting one-way messages across, rather than as an approach that encourages dialogue.

We believe that communication for development is the means by which societies and communities decide and discuss how and in which direction they wish to develop. An important element of this is 'voice and dialogue' - ensuring that those most affected by poverty understand the issues, can talk about them both publicly and privately, and can work with others to bring about change.

The benefits
Effective health communication can save lives, prevent the spread of disease, encourage improvements in treatment and services, and increase social involvement and empowerment - ultimately contributing to reducing the impact of poverty. Examples not only from the health sector but from others such education, agriculture, governance, or the environment, all have the following elements in common:

• Careful attention paid to the information needs of beneficiaries
• Use of multiple approaches and channels for communication
• Stimulating dialogue and discussion within the communities they are working with
• Use of appropriate language and communication style to fit in with the cultural context
• Responsive, timely and relevant
• Reflecting on what is being done, learning from the experience and feeding back into the communication process as quickly as possible.

It is not a case of choosing “the best” single communication method. The skill lies in recognising the opportunities that exist in a particular context. What knowledge and resources are available? What communication is already happening through special events, existing channels or day-to-day activities? How can you build on this? Whose voices are being heard? Who else needs to be involved?

Dialogue that matters
Communication approaches that encourage dialogue have much greater long-term effect, but it takes time because often power inequalities are exposed. There is no quick fix. For communication to make a difference it has to build on effective development practice, which recognises that societies change in different ways at different times. Communication won't have much impact on the lives of vulnerable people if it ignores the reality on the ground. Focusing on learning and participation encourages conversations to start and reveals opportunities for people to work together. It engenders a sense of ownership of the change and of the methods and approaches used.

Our approach - Quest
Our approach to communication encourages learning, networking and information exchange, and this supports good practice on advocacy. Working with more than 360 community-based organisations across Asia, we have developed, tested and applied a process, called Quest, that helps local advocates for social change to design communication strategies that are appropriate to each context and helps their voices to be heard.

Our community-level communication training package – Quest – has been developed to provide practical guidelines to support communication activities. In practice Quest encourages interaction, networking, participation and dialogue – and has proved helpful for developing effective organisational communication strategies.

More about Quest

The following stories give a taste of what Healthlink Worldwide has learned about effective communication from our partners through joint communication activities, learning forums and evaluation exercises.

The Citizens’ Caravan creates dialogue (Calandria, Peru)
Streets, squares and markets in Peru have been transformed into spaces for public dialogue with La Caravana Ciudadana (The Citizens´ Caravan) – a communication road show developed by Calandria (The Association of Social Communicators).

As well as witnessing an entertaining show with video, music and lots of audience participation, people write their ideas on the grafichangas – graffiti walls with questions like: “If you were HIV positive, how would you like to be treated?” Some people choose to record their thoughts in private in specially created audio booths.

This information is carefully analysed by Calandria – it forms the basis of their submissions to decision makers in government. For example, the information collected through dialogue about social monitoring of the media resulted in a book presented to MPs and broadcasters. Videos and reports are also used to document the thoughts and feelings expressed by people seizing the Caravan’s communication opportunities.

Careful preparation goes into each expedition of the Caravan, including finding out how people already use the public spaces. In the University Park in Lima, travelling comedians who use the park in the afternoons got involved the show.

The Caravan creates space for personal reflection as well as collective discussion and enjoyment – individuals start to imagine what they can do and how they can engage with other people to respond to the health and development issues that they’re facing. So Calandria’s communicators can ensure that decision makers hear about real priorities and opportunities for action.

More on our work with Calandria

Young people’s theatre encourages communication about HIV and AIDS (Mothers’ Welfare Group, Nigeria)
Children and young people in Kaduna, Nigeria have created space to support each other by getting involved in drama activities at local youth clubs. They have also broken down barriers to communicating about HIV and AIDS and sexual health with their parents and guardians.

The young people build their confidence through entertaining parents, teachers, siblings and friends with their performances. Peer facilitators and youth workers use participatory drama techniques with the children and young people, and work slowly towards incorporating content about sex and sexuality into their storylines. Engaging with parents and guardians through community meetings is key to getting the young people involved in drama activities.

HIV testing at the local hospital increased after one group – the Adolescent Health Project youth club – gave their performances.

The effects of the performances have extended into other areas – one unexpected result was parents cleaning a river after seeing their children’s performance about dirty water.

More on our work with the Mothers' Welfare Group

Radio supports communication about sexual health (CHEMS, Cambodia)
Radio programmes have helped to increase young people’s awareness about sexual and reproductive health in Cambodia.

The radio soap opera Lotus on a Muddy Lake has offered young people opportunities to act and write scripts, which makes the stories more realistic and powerful. Especially for You, Young People is a talk show that accompanies the
soap opera. Counsellors respond to listeners’ calls and letters, advising on the sexual and reproductive health issues that are raised in the soap opera. A regular column in one of Cambodia’s most popular youth magazines also supports the radio programmes.

Project staff at CHEMS are convinced that community advocacy with young people is best achieved if a participatory approach is used – it’s no use trying to deliver messages without offering opportunities to engage with the content of the radio programmes.

Voices of vulnerable people are being heard in Guatemala (Prodesca Atz’anem k’oj - Guatemala)

Learning with audiences about what communication approaches work has strengthened the health communication work of a troupe of clown-educators in Guatemala.
Street theatre, workshops and youth peer educators enable large numbers of people to be exposed in a lasting, lively and cost effective way to essential HIV and AIDS information.
A cultural approach has helped the troupe reach people in rural communities, schools and prisons. Using local languages, finding and starting discussions with local leaders and consciously employing a joint learning process have all contributed to effective communication about HIV and AIDS.
The Ministry of Health of Guatemala now listens to staff from Prodesca Atz’anem k’oj – they are able to represent the experiences of their audiences because of the dialogue they have built through their performances.

More on our work with Atz'anem k'oj