Media and Children

This issue of The Soul Beat looks at media and children - more specifically, it looks at media for children, media by children, and media about children. The experiences, research papers, and materials included in this issue highlight how radio, television, and print are being used to increase awareness of human rights and health issues related to children.

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MEDIA FOR CHILDREN

1. Tsehai Loves Learning - Ethiopia
Launched in March 2007, this weekly Ethiopian educational television show for pre-school children features Amharic-speaking giraffe puppets. According to the programme producers, Whiz Kids Workshop, the programme aims to cater to the needs of children, especially orphans and vulnerable children, by discussing and raising awareness of various social issues, encouraging academic, socio-emotional, and physical development, and promoting positive personal values.
Contact Whiz Kids Workshop tsehai@whizkidsworkshop.com OR info@whizkidsworkshop.com OR P. Hector p.hector@unesco.org

2. Super Buddies Clubs and Super Buddies Magazine - Swaziland
This project, run by a non-profit organisation working with children and youth in Swaziland, seeks to work towards a society free of HIV and AIDS, abuse, violence, and exploitation. The Super Buddies magazine, launched in 2003, led to the formation of the Super Buddies Clubs in 2007. Both the magazine and the clubs aim to provide platforms where children and youth can share views on issues affecting them, model positive behaviour, and empower each other with life skills. Through the clubs and the magazine the project also hopes to provide information on and create awareness about children's rights.
Contact Siphiwe Nkambule miles@swazi.net OR s.nkambule@yahoo.com

3. Impact Assessment of 'Takalani Sesame' Season II Programme
This report was prepared by Khulisa Management Services for the Takalani Sesame Project, a multimedia and multi-lingual educational programme that includes a television series, a series of radio programmes, and an outreach programme that features a print component. This evaluation examines the impact of Takalani Sesame Season II programme materials on 3- to 6-year-old children who were not in structured preschool.

4. Vulnerable Children's Fund - South Africa
This radio project by the Freeplay Foundation collaborated with organisations that work with children and young people in South Africa, to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS - particularly among orphans and child-headed households - and to give appropriate support and information to those who are affected by HIV/AIDS. The fund aims to help provide education and information on HIV/AIDS, health, and hygiene as well as access to basic educational radio broadcasts for orphans and other vulnerable children who may not have access to formal education or be living with an adult.
Contact Kristine Pearson kpearson@freeplayfoundation.org

5. Treatment of AIDS in Soul Buddyz: A Multimedia Campaign for Children's Health in South Africa
by Susan Goldstein, Shereen Usdin, Esca Scheepers, Aadielah Anderson, and Garth Japhet
This paper assesses the methodology used for the Soul Buddyz project which consists of a 26-part television drama, a 26-part radio magazine programme in three local languages, and a lifeskills book distributed to reach policy makers and to enrich non-governmental organisations’ability to be child rights activists. The evaluation of the series shows that 67 percent of South African children accessed “Soul Buddyz”. It also showed that those children had increased knowledge, showed improved attitudes, and discussed the issues more than those who did not use the materials.

6. Youth Media: A Guide to Literacy & Social Change
This manual aims to expose young people, parents, and educators to the many issues associated with media literacy. It offers an introductory approach to the key elements and benefits of media education for children and youth as well as tips on "How to Choose Good TV", "Television's Impact on Kids", "Teaching Kids to be Safe and Responsible Online", "Stereotyping in the Media", the "Negative Effects of Music" and "Commercialization in Education".

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VOTE IN THE EDUTAINMENT POLL:

Edutainment programmes and projects in Africa are being produced mainly for adolescent and adult audiences and not so much for young children.

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To vote and send comments go to the Edutainment Themesite and see the Top Right side of the page.

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MEDIA BY CHILDREN

7. Kids Waves - Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo
7. Kids Waves - Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo
This is a weekly radio programme which is produced and broadcast by children in eight West African countries. The programme, implemented by Plan, an international development organisation working with children, is designed to raise awareness among children and adults about children's rights and their responsibilities around those rights. Each radio show revolves around a theme linked to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and is broadcast on 55 radio stations across the region each week.
Contact Plan – Youth Media childrenmedia@plan-international.org
Country-specific contacts are available

8. Radio Yangeni - Zambia
This radio station broadcasts programmes related to nutrition, food security, and agriculture, and includes programmes for school-going children in primary schools in the Mansa district of Zambia, based on the nutrition education materials for grade four. Under the guidance of a trained schoolteacher, the children themselves produce the programmes. The organisers believe that involving the children in the creation of the programmes and working with the nutrition education materials in a non-traditional way can help the children internalise the material more quickly and can have a positive effect on the adults in the community who, in hearing their children on the radio, may be more likely to listen to what is being said.
Contact Fr.Chansa Lambo Oswald domcom@zamtel.zm OR mansadiocese@zamtel.zm

9. The Okhayeni Strong Recorders - South Africa
Okhayeni Strong Recorders (or "Abaqophi basOkhayeni Abaqinile" in the Zulu language) is a participatory children’s radio project designed to foster public awareness about, and encourage appropriate responses to, HIV and how it affects children and their communities. Organisers stress the centrality of child participation in the development and implementation of this project, explaining that, "in the context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, participation entails the act of encouraging and enabling children to make their views known on the issues that affect them. Providing children with opportunities to produce their own media is one of the most powerful ways in which we can give effect to this right."
Contact Helen Meintjes helen.meintjes@uct.ac.za OR Bridget Walters bridgetw@iafrica.com

10. Media by and for Youth and Children
by Deborah Walter (ed.)
This section of the fourth edition of the Gender and Media Diversity Journal, published by the Gender and Media Diversity Centre, explores youth, children, and the media. It contains articles on the participation of youth and children in creating programmes, learning media literacy, and bringing children's issues into the public eye for dialogue. It also includes insights from Plan - West Africa who work with children to create radio programmes, and experiences from CMFD Productions working with children and youth to create radio and music programmes in Southern Africa.

11. Bua Fela - Just Talk
by Adele Mostert and Tammy Baldwin
This is a tool designed for broadcasters who create radio for children, with children. It offers procedures based on the experiences gained by ABC Ulwazi during the Bernard van Leer Foundation funded “Speak Free” project. The Speak Free project was designed to create a broadcasting environment that allowed children to express themselves through community radio, share their experiences, tell the community what they are thinking, and learn from each other.

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MEDIA ABOUT CHILDREN

12. Through Children's Eyes: The Children's Media Mentoring Project
by Natalie Ridgard
This report was produced by the Children’s Media Mentoring Project (CMMP), a project of the Media Monitoring Project (MMP) in South Africa, on behalf of Save the Children Sweden (SCS), and in partnership with the Institute for the Advancement of Journalism (IAJ). This report shares the results of the 2006 Children in the Media Monitoring Project, and offers insight into how children would like to see the news, based on newspapers the children produced during a workshop in 2006. The report also reflects the results of a children’s monitoring exercise and the impact of the CCMP on reporting on children in the media. It concludes with some recommendations for child-friendly reporting.

13. Qualitative Target Audience Formative Research for Health and Development Communication: Soul City Fieldworker Training Manual 3 - Doing Qualitative Research with Children
Qualitative Target Audience Formative Research for Health and Development Communication: Soul City Fieldworker Training Manual 3 - Doing Qualitative Research with Children
This manual was developed to support skills training on how to do qualitative research with children. It is the third in a series of manuals aimed at teaching organisations and individuals how to conduct qualitative formative audience research for health and development communication. The goal of this manual is to teach research fieldworkers how to prepare themselves for doing research with children, how to collect information from children, analyse the information, and how to report it to broader health and development communication teams. The manual uses many examples drawn from the development of the Soul Buddyz series produced by Soul City.

14. Poto-Poto - West Africa
Launched by Plan and Artists United for African Rap (AURA), this campaign is designed to raise awareness around children’s rights and young people’s problems in Africa, specifically West Africa. Plan and AURA brought together hip-hop musicians to develop an album entitled, “Les histoires extraordinaires des enfants du Poto-Poto” (The extraordinary stories of the Poto-Poto children). Through the songs on the album, listeners meet the children who live or spend their days at the fictional Poto-Poto market, telling their stories as they cross paths with each other and adults. Along with live staged performances of the music, this project included the production of an album, video clips, a film of the musical, children’s books, and a website.
Contact PLAN childrenmedia@plan-international.org OR AURA info@aurahiphop.com

15. Gobe da Haske (Tomorrow Will be a Brighter Day) - Niger
This is a radio serial drama which was launched in February 2006 by Population Media Center (PMC) in Niger. Gobe da Haske, which in Hausa means Tomorrow Will be a Brighter Day, was designed to raise awareness and discussion around child trafficking, exploitation of children, and related issues such as family planning and HIV/AIDS. The radio drama was designed to address these issues by informing parents and community members about the practice of child trafficking and about preventive measures they can take to ensure the health and safety of their children. The drama raises not only issues of child trafficking and exploitation, but also deals with child education, child health, and children's rights in general.
Contact Kriss Barker krissbarker@populationmedia.org

16. A Resource Kit for Journalists: Children's Media Mentoring Project
This resource was developed as part of the South African-based Media Monitoring Project (MMP)'s Empowering Children & Media Project, which analysed and assessed the representation of children in the South African news media. It found that children rarely feature in the media, and if they do, they are often shown as voiceless victims. This resource kit is designed to provide journalists with the necessary information to enable children’s voices to become a part of daily media coverage, without violating children's rights, South African laws, or international norms and standards. The resource kit intends to allow journalists and editors easy access to guidelines and laws during the production of news.

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For related previous issues of The Soul Beat see:

The Soul Beat 28 - Children & Youth: Participation in Media

The Soul Beat 89 - Protecting Africa's Children

Click here to view archived editions of The Soul Beat Newsletter.