Community mapping

Planning media content

Planning media content

Workshop exercises

CDC plans to integrate community-centred media as part of a larger project to promote peacebuilding and good natural resource management in Central Equatoria state. As the week progressed, it became more and more evident how great a need there is for this project.

With the backdrop of a stalling peace process in South Sudan and the war in Ukraine filling my newsfeeds, and my own feelings of helpless anger at the tragic situation, I also heard several local stories of conflict between cattle herders and farmers, of roadside robberies and of murders committed during the time I was in Yei, just a few kilometres from where I was staying.

Yei River county is rich in natural resources.

CDC in both Uganda and South Sudan hear these tragic stories daily as implementing partners for the Hagiga Wahid misinformation management tool. When someone reports a story or rumour to Hagiga Wahid, CDC passes it through a network of trusted sources in the places where the events are said to have happened to verify whether the stories are rumours or truth. Hagiga Wahid have been so successful at verifying stories in South Sudan, that one armed group accused CDC of using satellite spy technology. Getting the truth behind distressing stories through crowdsourcing information is one step towards preventing escalation of violence.

Because violent conflict is so prevalent to everyday life, Anthony and I found ourselves giving much more time in this workshop to the sessions on conflict sensitive content. I found myself learning a lot from doing these sessions this time round. Together we learned the importance of citizen journalists mapping out who the different actors are in a conflict. Then instead of reporting on the stated positions of each party which pit them against each other as combatants, local journalists should explore the stories behind each party’s needs that have driven them to take the positions they have, Conflict sensitive reporting would highlight the areas where differing needs reflect common ground or common humanity, giving participants reasons for dialogue.

Each day I would hear reporting styles on the Ukraine war that were the opposite of this, with journalists promoting the positions of the combatants and presenting stories in a way that encouraged polarisation and escalated anger. It helped me to see how difficult it might be to take the objective road of discovering truth and listening to all parties in the conflict, especially where a powerful party might be brutally oppressing others.

I wondered if the tools were over idealistic, especially for workshop participants who are not external observers to the conflict but who have to live with violent events affecting their daily lives. So I was very encouraged when the CDC team also shared some conflict mapping work they had been doing for the wider project using very similar tools. The workshop allowed us to bring together their tools for conflict mapping with media tools for creating conflict sensitive content.

Going forward CDC are identifying listener groups in areas around Yei most affected by conflict and pressure on natural resources. A community-centred media project in those communities would follow a podcast and speakerbox model, similar to Soot Semee, as the communities are beyond the range of the Yei FM stations. However, content could also benefit people closer to Yei and we are hopeful that the participants from the radio stations in Yei will persuade their organisations to carry community-centred content for much reduced rates, recognising that the media is sourced in the community rather than being top-down messaging from relatively well-off international NGOs.

Stop Press: The project team and a few other community members have proposed the name "Studio Salam" meaning the Studio of Peace, for the community-centred media serving Yei and the surrounding area.

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Unlike the media outlets portrayed in “Don’t Look Up”, the Soot Semee project team at CDC Uganda have been working hard to create media that brings people together, fighting the isolation that refugees can feel during very difficult circumstances.

Preventing suicides

CDC’s work has been affirmed by a team working with the World University Service Canada (Uganda Country Office). During focus groups, a common theme emerged in which residents of the refugee settlements said that listening to Soot Semee had helped them not to follow through with suicide. They said that feeling isolated had led them to thinking about suicide but listening to local voices on Soot Semee podcasts talking about shared experiences, helped them feel more connected to people round about them.

Returning is still risky

Barnabas explained how this isolation comes about. Some people in the border areas have recently left South Sudan because of conflict. Others are en-route to return. There is a peace process in place in South Sudan, but many parts of South Sudan are not safe or peaceful. Leaders are struggling to implement the plan. Factions have weakened the political opposition whose job is to hold the ruling party to account. This has re-ignited conflict between other powerful groups. I asked why people are going back if that is the case.

Realities of refuge

Barnabas told me that people living in the camps find it very difficult to make a living. They find there is not enough food, and what is there, is not varied enough for a healthy diet. People sell portions of aid packages to be able to buy more diverse food, or to buy clothes. For example, NGOs often give out branded T-shirts to raise the profile of their projects, but for many people in the settlements these T-shirts serve as the only “special” clothes they have.

Families divided

In South Sudan, combatants would offer safe passage to the border, telling people to leave and be safe because very soon they would be able return. However, the conflict has gone on for many years. Uganda is a safer environment than South Sudan so some people will take the difficult decision to leave their children in the settlement camps where they can access education and other services. The parents will return to South Sudan, knowing it is volatile, so that they can earn money to cover schooling costs. Again, this is often seen as a short-term solution, but it has been happening for decades now. Barnabas had this experience himself as a child although he is now reunited with his family. But the practice continues, splitting families for several years and creating isolation

Building bridges with Soot Semee podcasts

In partnership with Amplifying Voices, the Soot Semee team plans to extend their work by having multiple volunteer teams working in local settlements along the routes of exit and return. Each team will support new listener groups who will also contribute to Soot Semee style podcasts on speakerboxes. Groups will hear things like verified news from South Sudan and the other refugee camps, and ideas for promoting peace through fair use of local resources. They will contribute their own ideas through recording community conversations, locally produced songs, and other cultural content.

Crucially, the communities can share appropriate content with other communities. So, while the local podcasts will be specifically relevant to each community, they will also bridge between communities, bringing people closer to each other and stepping up the fight against isolation.

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Sometimes looked down on as the poor relation of television and certainly considered old-fashioned compared to social media, radio is still the one to watch.  That may sound like a bad pun, but the influence of local community-centred radio is rising like never before.  It is still the most pervasive, accessible, affordable, and flexible mass medium available. In rural areas, it is often the only mass medium available.  Combine it with modern messaging apps like WhatsApp and social media like Facebook and put it in the hands of communities themselves, its power to influence change is unquestionable.  It expands the spaces for conversation where people can talk, listen and take action.

In conversations recently with leaders of the radio stations we helped set up, they recounted numerous stories of how community-centred radio has helped kick-start micro-enterprises, stopped a terrorist attack from taking place, become a forum for trauma-healing after violent conflict, combatted rumours and misinformation, empowered girls against sexual predators, helped improve food security, and become the only school for children during the Covid pandemic.

Central to all of these stories is that community-centred radio puts communities at the heart of the communication process, where they become agents of change not objects to change.  It helps connect communities with the expert service providers who are wanting to support positive change. It helps them to determine their own path to development and well-being.  It amplifies the voices of those whose voices have been lost or drowned out by those more powerful.

As our Amplifying Voices team anticipate a post-pandemic world, where we look forward to physically engaging again with partners, we’re excited about the many opportunities that are presenting themselves across Africa and Asia for community-centred radio and allied media projects.  Besides the misinformation that we witnessed during the pandemic, we also saw a plethora of unhelpful, top-down communication, rooted in telling, not listening. For that reason I am convinced, more than ever, that  Amplifying Voices has a really important role to play today, to challenge and redress this situation.

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In the UK, 65% of the population are already fully vaccinated. Even so, people are recognising that Covid19 is not going away soon. For many of us, learning to live with Covid means thinking about vaccine boosters, finding ways to mix with others, and carefully reopening for business. In Sierra Leone, where the effects of Ebola are still being felt six years on and the fragile health system is still recovering, it is also clear that Covid will not go away quickly. However, only 0.5% of the population have been fully vaccinated against Covid and a further 1.7% have been partially vaccinated. In order to try and manage Covid, people are constantly adapting to changing rules for living, working and socialising with others. Any thoughts of booster vaccines are a long way off. Learning to live with Covid is a big challenge.

We are working with BBN in Freetown to re-invigorate the volunteer team who had been doing SALT^[1] visits in 9 communities that are facing severe social challenges and deprivation with limited state provision. The SALT visits were interrupted as lockdowns restricted the ability to visit homes or facilitate community meetings. Community and team members are keen to see these visits restarted. The team also plan to extend the visits to another large deprived urban community in Freetown. BBN is preparing to re-focus radio content. They continue to support community efforts to stay healthy, build up local services and to sustain livelihoods, while also encouraging improved take-up of the Covid-19 vaccine as it becomes more available.

So far, Sierra Leone has imported enough vaccine doses to vaccinate 10% of the population (over 800k doses, and more have been promised through the COVAX system). Ransford Wright, CEO of BBN, told us that some of the reasons why more people have not been vaccinated are based on fear or lack of reliable information.  In July 2021, a survey by SierraPoll found that:

• 38% of the Freetown population have said that they will never take a vaccine, 38% say they are willing and 24% are unsure.
• Because:
  • People do not have time or don’t know where to get it (33%)
  • People are afraid of the side effects and that some people will die after vaccination (23%)
  • People think there is no point taking the vaccine – they will just follow precautions (10%)
  • People believe COVID is a hoax or not a serious threat (9%).

This has been further exacerbated by a very prominent pastor dying recently after having taken the vaccine.

We are supporting BBN to create and broadcast radio dramas, radio announcements and social media videos to help challenge the rumours and fears surrounding vaccines. SALT visits both inform and increase the reach of the radio content.

[1] SALT is a community engagement process that sees change happening in neighbourhoods and service providers through listening to household stories that unlock local strengths and connect local aspirations. Read more about Amplifying Voices through SALT.

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This presents a challenge … how could we honour our commitment to listening to community members, to hearing the stories, concerns and aspirations that will guide the project? We are delighted to be working with Hope for Relief and CDN who held a community consultation with members of Kawale community, on the outskirts of Chitipa at the end of July. Thoko from CDN and Richard from Hope for Relief worked closely with us to understand the questions we had for the community.

Some things that we learned …

• Around a third of the meeting participants use WhatsApp to communicate. These were mainly younger people, professionals, leaders and business people.
• People feel that the lack of a community radio station is hindering community development as it slows down communication.
• They like the idea of using speakerboxes to share community media … several people in the community already use speakerboxes for playing music.
• Another way of communicating in Kawale is through the chief’s messengers who go about in the village spreading information. They use a drum to get people’s attention. When people hear a drum they know that there is a special message from the chief about to come.

We used WhatsApp video calls alongside some pre-recorded training videos to introduce the community-centred media approach to five community volunteers and three project workers who met in the CDN office. The workshop participants sent us photos of flipcharts with their responses to discussion exercises. The participants spoke Lambya (the local language of Chitipa) during the discussions. This made it a very strange experience as a trainer – not being able to participate fully, and only seeing some sections of the discussion, it was a good exercise in placing our trust in the local partner to facilitate the learning process.

Thoko facilitates workshop in Chitipa, Aug 2021

But why the rush, why hold a remote community workshop not just wait until next year and go and visit?

Malawi, similarly to surrounding African countries, has just passed through the peak of a third wave of Covid-19 infections, which is of particular concern because of the impact and potential for further spread in rural areas coupled with the slow progress in vaccinations.

Malawi has so far received only a small about amount of vaccine (700k doses, for an adult population of 11 million). We also learned that people are reluctant to get the vaccine because of rumours such as:

• Coivd-19 is not for Malawians but for Chinese or white people.
• If someone accesses the vaccine he or she will become infertile.
• If someone gets vaccinated, he or she will be infected by the HIV virus.
• The vaccine is there to reduce the population of the people.
• If someone gets vaccinated he or she will reduce his lifespan.

The Kawale Community Voices project will initially focus on addressing the concerns or fears that drive these Covid rumours, by encouraging community dialogue about Covid vaccines based on access to reliable information sources.

Based on our experience in India and Uganda, we know that creating podcasts and distributing speakerboxes is a rapidly deployable and reliable way to get people talking, listening and taking action to reduce the impact of Covid-19. Speakerboxes are available in local markets, and podcasts can be created using voice recorder and a laptop.

However, we also recognise that radio is the community’s preferred media source. In the medium term, once we are able to visit the community in person, we hope to support Kawale’s residents and service providers to develop a community-centred radio station.

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“Indigenous communities are very vulnerable,” says Shilpa, “As they live in very close proximity to each other, where sanitation and hygiene is often quite poor.”  Unfortunately Covid vaccine hesitancy is also pervasive among Adivasi communities, as many people believe the vaccine will do them harm and will even give them the infection. Other wildly misleading claims include that the vaccines contain pork products or a micro-chip that will control a person’s mind.

Shilpa’s team has greatly ramped up audio production for the speakerboxes in the Adivasi villages where they are working, to try and dispel some of these myths and provide accurate information. But providing messages for the community will have little effect unless the community is central to and involved in the communications process.  That is why Shilpa and her team spend considerable time listening to people’s concerns and fears about Covid and the vaccine and what barriers prevent them from wanting to be immunised.

Meanwhile as our partners work hard to reach out to indigenous communities in remote parts of Maharashtra, their own city Nashik is one of the worst-affected cities in the country.  With a shortage of medicines, oxygen and hospital beds, the team is reaching out to and feeding many Covid-affected families in the city’s slums each day.

If you’d like to support SEVA’s Covid Relief work, you can donate here

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Working in collaboration with Stop the Child Witchcraft Accusations (SCWA) partners, we have been analysing community feedback from trusted contacts in 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Three key themes emerged:

• Misinformation about the causes of Covid-19 leads to confusion and failure to take action.
• Covid-19 restrictions have caused severe socio-economic harm to local communities’ and households’ that were already facing disadvantage.
• Fear created by the above uncertainty and insecurity is linked to increased witchcraft accusations and abuse of vulnerable children.

These themes highlight the need for communities to be able to accurately explain why life has got tougher since Covid-19, building on local conversations around reliable information.

Misinformation and confusion

Our contacts told us that there is a lot of speculation about Coronavirus in their countries and communities. Reasons given for the spread of the pandemic include Coronavirus being: ‘a punishment from God’, ‘a ruse from the devil’, ‘an outworking of biological warfare between Chinese and American superpowers’, ‘the result of 5G technology’ or ‘a highly infectious illness’. Some believe that Coronavirus doesn’t exist at all or that African people are safe from it because it cannot survive warmer climates. Blame is most frequently attributed to either the Chinese, the West or the wealthy with their international travel. Government authorities rely on media to communicate health messages to their populations. However, our partners reported that a lot of additional information is being shared on social media and that this information is frequently unreliable. This confusion causes fear and discourages people from taking action to protect themselves and their communities.

Socio-economic harm

Consistently we heard that the impact of lockdown restrictions is far more severe than the impact of the virus itself. As people have lost their livelihoods, many are starving. Food insecurity is mentioned again and again. The pandemic has done long term damage to economies and livelihoods in Sub-Saharan countries and this is putting families under significant extra pressure. We heard from Mrs G in Kananga, DR Congo:

 “My husband, who lost his job, abandoned me and our three children. I don’t know where he is. I am trying to get by now by selling leaves to meet the needs of my children. I feed the same kind of cassava leaves that I sell on their own [i.e. that is all she feeds them] to feed my children once a day. The huge anxiety that plays on my mind is that one of my children is already suffering from malnutrition. I don’t know what to do or when coronavirus is going to end.”

 Witchcraft Accusations

A rise in witchcraft accusations is noted in Nigeria, Kenya and DR Congo, and this increase often happens at times of crisis. Families are under pressure and they want explanations for their changing circumstances. Children with behavioural or physical differences to local norms become scapegoats, accused of witchcraft or of bringing a curse on their homes. They are often abandoned to live on the streets in major cities like Kinshasa. Food insecurity is particularly severe for vulnerable groups such as children living on the streets. The COVID-19 impact is compounded by lack of access to clean water and to facemasks to protect them from the virus.

Beyond confusion and fear

Many of these injustices could be avoided through local communities being equipped to develop and disseminate more accurate explanations for misfortune, and through feeling empowered to develop their own responses to the hardships.

Our partners’ feedback identifies churches and radio as highly trusted sources of information, which suggests that these are good routes to starting community conversations based on accurate information. Social dialogues are essential for identifying common local concerns, for building healthy understanding of them and for developing sustainable local responses to COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions.

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This need, lead to the development of the Rapid Response Radio Unit, where teams could be quickly mobilised in times of disaster, to set up emergency radio stations using a suitcase studio.  These stations provide the important information that communities most crave during challenging times. It is now being implemented through First Response Radio.

I learnt very early on that information, up-to-date, local information, is a basic need, particularly in times of crisis.  While different to a natural disaster, it’s become increasingly evident local information is also needed through the Covid-19 pandemic. Working in a rural community in Australia, as the pandemic spreads across the world, we are seeing increased levels of fear and insecurity because the community are not getting information from local sources at the local level in real time. Government reports occur periodically from the capital city five hours away, but in between these reports we are seeing misinformation spread through social media channels which is leading to increased fear and insecurity. People want to hear from local sources about what is happening in their community and know it’s from someone who is also experiencing what they are. It’s clear a community-centred media approach to media, from the grass roots, is needed more than ever. We need local, credible sources using the powerful tool of community media channels to support their communities through challenging times.

Talk to us if you would like to find out how we can help.

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Stigma
Apart from inappropriate health behaviours, stigma is often associated with the spread of diseases.  We saw this with the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014/15.  This week for example, in one town, there were reports of a man who was set upon by a mob, accused of bringing Covid-19 into his community.

Fear grows in a vacuum of information
In Pakistan, we’ve had reports that fake news and rumours abound. One leader assures that chanting versus from the Quran or saying  prayers five times a day will make a person immune from the virus.  The team there know that without the support and engagement of religious and community leaders, a public information campaign, no matter how good, will be ineffective.

Health infrastructure
For all the countries that we work in, in Africa and Asia, our biggest concern is that their health infrastructure will be overwhelmed, if the pandemic takes root among these communities.  Inevitably the most vulnerable in these communities will be most affected. This is why community-centred media projects with community engagement at their core, will be vital to help reduce the impact of this Covid-19 pandemic.

(Browse HCR COVID19 resources and communications advice)

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Local response in Western Australia

There are not many cases of Covid-19 in Western Australia at the time of writing this article, but the media hype has caused a lot of panic. If the virus does spread, social conditions mean that Aboriginal people living in the region may be at a high risk. Radio MAMA, our Aboriginal media partner in Western Australia, is engaging with local communities and providing information from the Australian government around ways to reduce risk. The radio station is emphasising not to panic (and especially not to panic buy) but to reduce risk primarily through handwashing. They have been sharing tips on how to correctly hand wash too.

Local response in North West Pakistan

HCR Pakistan is supporting a community-centred media project in a small village in Northwest Pakistan. Today (Friday 13th Mar) the New Dawn project will broadcast their first ever live broadcast. Meanwhile the president for Pakistan has created a Public Service Announcement for TV advising people on best handwashing and other hygiene practices to prevent spread of infection. The New Dawn team has been sharing this same advice in the local Pakhtun language. They have also been gathering information from local health authorities. During the show, community members were able to call in or send questions by WhatsApp. This will give the team opportunity to hear community concerns and address rumours.

Supporting the international response

HCR is supporting our partners, by curating and passing on information from WHO and other trusted sources.

Source: Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Centre)

(Browse Amplifying Voices COVID19 resources and communications advice)

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