Edutainment
ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION
Entertainment Education (EE) or Edutainment combines the attraction of entertainment with educational messages to help educate, inform and encourage behaviour change to achieve development and social progress. This strategy of communication has used varied mediums - radio, television, puppetry, community theatre, etc.
In support of the upcoming Fourth International Entertainment Education Conference, Soul Beat Africa will be engaging with edutainment professionals across Africa, to collect information and encourage discussion and debate. This issue of The Soul Beat highlights some of the experiences and resources about edutainment from the Soul Beat Africa network.
EE4 - BRINGING TOGETHER EE STAKEHOLDERS
From September 26th to 30th 2004 delegates from around the world - social scientists, researchers, health communication experts, educators, marketing professionals, artists, advertising/entertainment media producers/distributors and representatives from government and international funding organisations - will come together in Cape Town, South Africa for the 4th International Entertainment Education Conference.
Discussions will focus on recent developments in entertainment-education programmes around the world, sharing experiences in EE, opportunities and challenges, and developing a consensus towards further enhancing the Entertainment-Education methodology and field practice. The conference aims to explore varied forms of communication including story telling, songs and drama, mass communication approaches, and related theories and research. For more information on the Conference, and for registration, visit the EE4 Website. The closing date for abstract submissions is June 14 2004. For more details about submission, please visit click here
The conference is led by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center for Communication Programs (JHU/CCP), along with South African partners, Soul City, the Centre for AIDS Development, Research and Evaluation (CADRE), and DramAide.
JHU/CCP is considered a leader in the development of projects based on systematic needs assessments and clear strategies for positioning and presenting the benefits of health interventions to appropriate audiences. In Africa, they have been involved in a wide range of initiatives using the EE methodology. To read about two such projects please visit
Centre 4 TV Medical Drama - Uganda
The Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication is a South African based social change project which aims to impact on society at the individual, community and socio-political levels using the edutainment methodology. Soul City views health and development as integrally related: poor health impedes development and development is central to improving global health. The Institute produces two key vehicles, Soul City and Soul Buddyz which both consist of prime time television and radio dramas with supporting print material. Independant evaluations have shown impact on the development objectives.
The Institute has expanded its activities beyond the borders of South Africa. The Soul City Regional Programme is working with local partners in Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. Each local partner is identifying core Soul City material (radio, TV, and print) that they wish to adapt in their country. Alongside the media development programme Soul City will provide training in the countries to build and empower local capacity. As well, Soul City and The Communication Initiative have collaborated to bring you Soul Beat Africa, an online space for development communication.
To read more about the Soul City Experience on Soul Beat Africa, please visit the following:
Soul Buddyz Three: Target Audience Research
CADRE is a non-profit organisation working in the area of HIV/AIDS social research, programme development and communication. Their work includes national and international advisory and evaluative work on HIV/AIDS communication interventions. CADRE was involved in the foundational development of Tsha Tsha, a drama series set in a small rural town in South Africa. The drama focuses on young people growing up in a world that is made more complex by HIV/AIDS. It explores ballroom dancing as a metaphor for collaboration and transformation. To read more about Tsha Tsha visit this summary. For more information on CADRE, the CADRE website
To read about Dramaide please visit the Dramaide website
EXPERIENCES
1. Making Entertainment Useful (Soap Summit 2003) - Kenya
In June 2003, Population Communications International (PCI) Africa hosted a soap summit titled "Making Entertainment Useful." The three day conference held in Nairobi, Kenya brought together academics, artists, writers, policy makers, producers and members of the donor community to discuss the utilisation of media in promoting health and social messages. The summit examined various forms of interventions from a number of perspectives, including culture, history, traditional and evolving values, innovations, language, visual images, and art as beauty.
Contact Dr. Kimani Njogu knogu@africaonline.co.ke OR Lillian W. Chege lillianc@population.org
2. Makgabaneng Radio Serial Drama - Botswana
The drama uses education and entertainment in soap opera format to address issues about health and HIV/AIDS. The soap portrays the dilemmas of people growing up in societies where as many as one third of people are HIV positive. The drama celebrated its 100th episode with a free show in Gaborone. Hundreds gathered to be entertained by the cast and the group of activists who reinforce the soap's messages on sexual behaviour at the interpersonal level.
Contact Gordon Adam gordon@mediasupport.org
3. Puppet Theatre to explore Voter Awareness - Tanzania
Small World Theatre (SWT) collaborated with Tanzanian performers to find out what prevents people, particularly women in poor communities, from participating in elections. The main focus was to uncover attitudes and constraints to women's participation in the democratic process. A collaboration was formed with local street theatre groups using participatory theatre and research methodology. Life size puppets of women were used in a second stage of the research. They functioned as intermediaries through which groups of people from the target communities collaboratively created a narrative and discussed the realities of women's lives.
Contact Ann Shrosbee smallworld@enterprise.net
4. ekasi - South Africa
Ekasi is an edutainment comic book that disseminates HIV-AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (HATMAL) information. The project is targeted at young people. Ekasi comic book is a serialised story of Thandi, a young HIV-positive girl, who becomes a co-host on a radio talk show after breaking the silence by telling her own tragic story on air. It consists of a monthly comic book and a weekly interactive radio talk. The book is distributed as a free supplement by the Daily Sun, a South African newspaper. Several HIV/AIDS non-governmental organisations (NGOs) distribute the book directly to 100 schools in Gauteng.
Contact Joe Manciya joe@ekasi.org.za
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Survey - Radio for Peacebuilding, Africa (SFCG)
Search for Common Ground (SFCG) - http://www.sfcg.org - is an NGO working in the field of conflict transformation. SFCG is launching a large scale study in sub-Saharan Africa to find out more about the attitude of radio professionals (journalists, producers, presenters) towards peace building and conflict mitigation in radio. It is the first step of a project that will promote tolerance and understanding between ethnic, religious and language groups through the media. Selected radio
professionals who have participated in the survey will be invited to take part in workshops and will have the possibility to win substantial prizes. The survey will be conducted in Burundi, Cameroon, CAR, Chad, Congo, DRC, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe. If you are willing to participate, please send an email containing your full name, postal address and telephone number to yannick.de-mol@sfcg.be
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EVALUATIONS
5. Impact Data - Capital Doctor - Uganda
"Capital Doctor was a top programme for high school students in three districts of Uganda, 26% in Kasese, 75.6% in Luwero and 18.4% in Masindi. 70% of respondents at an STD clinic had listened to Capital Doctor, 57% correctly stated day and time of broadcast, 22% listened every week, 15% listened 2-3 times a month. Practices: 91% of reported condom users were listeners to the programme, 71% of those who reported to always use condoms were listeners."
6. Impact Data - Sida Dans La Cité (AIDS in the City) - Côte d'Ivoire
"About 70 percent of urban people know about the programme and have seen at least one episode. Although rural populations have less access to television more than half of respondents have seen the show. Of the target groups, the show is more successful at reaching high-risk individuals than the poor. A large majority of viewers could be considered to be at risk. While a significant fraction of poor people watch the show, a large proportion of viewers are better-off. Over three-quarters of young people who are not yet sexually active have seen SDLC. So possible future high-risk groups are already being exposed to the programme."
EDUTAINMENT
7. Neria Grassroots Distribution Project: Final project report
by Christine Hausmann-Fata
The Neria Grassroots Distribution Project aimed to dub the feature film Neria into Shona and Ndebele, to develop support materials (a video and a manual) and distribute the film via grassroots channels. Was this a successful initiative? Was awareness related to womens inheritance issues amongst audiences raised? Which project phases were implemented resulting in which achievements? What project impact can be foreseen? These are some of the questions this final project report about the Neria Grassroots Distribution Project seeks to answer.
8. Entertainment-Education & HIV/AIDS Prevention: A Field Experiment in Tanzania
by Peter W. Vaughan, Everett M. Rogers, Arvind Singhal, & Ramadhan M. Swalehe
"Entertainment-education is the process of designing and implementing an entertainment programme to increase audience members knowledge about a social issue, create more favourable attitudes, and change their overt behaviors regarding the social issue. The results of a field experiment in Tanzania to measure the effects of a long-running entertainment-education radio soap opera, Twende na Wakati (Lets Go with the Times), on knowledge, attitudes, and adoption of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/ acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) prevention behaviors are presented."
9. Jozi Summit Film Festival: Final Report
This report looks at the overview of the exhibition and educational film screening activities held during the 2002 World Summit for Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg. The Jozi Summit Film Festival (JSFF) was organised as an audio-visual education campaign as part of the cultural component of the WSSD. 51 (32 township and 19 tertiary based) workshops were conduced over a 7 week period, each using film as a medium to communicate development issues. The author reports a total audience reach of close to 15 000 persons at township level and 760 students at university level.
10. Use of theatre for Development in communicating Health Messages in Zimbabwe: Concept Paper from Patsimeredu Edutainment Trust
by Tawanda Chisango
This paper maps out the background of Patsimeredu Edutainment Trust, how it uses edutainment, and lessons learned from their experience. The paper explains the Patsimeredu concept and aims to provide a guide for other organisations to develop their own programmes as well as creating a better understanding for organisations wanting to work with the Trust. The paper first provides a background to how edutainment has been used to address HIV/AIDS. It argues that that despite the potential uses of theatre for HIV/AIDS education, this potential has not been fully utilised.
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Please send your experiences to Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com for inclusion on Soul Beat Africa.
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MATERIALS
11. Indigenous Music for Entertainment - Education: Lessons from AIDS Batan na ewu eza na (Deadly Killer Disease) in Bida Emirate, Nigeria
By Mohammed Kuta Yahaya
This publication is a part of a multi-media communication campaign that was designed as community based intervention strategy to address the need to combat the rate of HIV/AIDS epidemic in Bida Emirate council of Niger state. The multi - media campaign was designed to educate and raise the level of awareness among the populace with the view to changing reproductive or sexual attitudes and practices. The major highlights of the book include: AIDS Batan na ewu eza ena (AIDS is a Deadly Killer Disease), Egi Gan Ewo (Child is Greater than Money) and Yawo Ma (Marriage is Sweat).
12. Steps for the Future Facilitator's Guide
This Guide supports Steps for the Future film series. The guide aims to challenge the conventional usage of film by HIV/AIDS educators and introduces a methodology that encourages participatory discussion. The facilitation process is intended to equip audiences with information and skills that will empower them to make important decisions and take responsibility for their lives. Tips include: selecting films; technical requirements; facilitating the screening as to generate optimum discussion; facilitation techniques.
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The Soul 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.
Please send material for The Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com
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