Education Television Network (ETN) - Africa, India, Asia, and Latin America

To develop the television series, a network of production teams composed of freelance staff will work with local creative groups (musicians, artists, theatre groups, puppeteers, designers, and writers) to bolster their media production skills and to assist with the process of creative expression. These projects will also form a link with inner-city production initiatives in developed countries. ETN will use advances in communications technology that support high-quality, low-cost production.

The programmes will cover a wide range of issues relevant to young people in economically poor communities, like news, HIV/AIDS, vocational skills, human and civic rights, and the environment. These themes will be explored through music, art, drama, comedy, folk media, and indigenous culture. Different programmes with a shared vision, objectives, and identity (plus shared content where appropriate), will be supplied to developing countries on a regional basis.

It is anticipated that the ETN TV service will initially be broadcast 3-4 hours per day, 3-4 days per week and be distributed via satellite for re-transmission via both national and international terrestrial broadcasters. The service would be produced by and for young people in developing countries. Some programmes would be supplied to schools in developed countries for the purpose of development education. Once partners and development funding have been secured, an executive team will produce a detailed feasibility study, business plan, and funding strategy.

Youth, Economic Development, Indigenous Culture, Local Media.

For the past 3 years, ETN has been working primarily in East Africa, looking at ways of collaborating with local creative groups in order to improve the quality of useful information supplied to poor communities. As part of the development of a malaria communications strategy, which ETN was contracted to produce for the Kenyan government, research was undertaken to evaluate attitudes about existing information and preferred styles of communication. The research, conducted among all age groups in rural and urban communities, demonstrated a need and desire for accurate, trusted, and relevant information. It also confirmed that traditional communication techniques such as dance, music, drama, storytelling, and puppetry are particularly popular. It was also clear that the youth groups, especially women's groups, had the most ideas and desire to participate.

Based in part on this research, organisers believe that information fosters self-sufficiency and improved quality of life. Poor countries differ from rich ones, they say, not only because they have less capital but also because they have less access to information. Information provided to developing countries has often proved to be of poor quality, culturally inappropriate, and politically influenced. For example, they claim that young people in poor communities watch predominantly imported television that promotes a culture that does little to support the rich indigenous heritage of many developing countries. Furthermore, they say that, while communications technology becomes available to even the most remote corners of the world, the media itself is shrinking, both in terms of its ownership and editorial agenda or worldview. The British media, to cite just one example, devotes little more than 3% of its overall output to the rest of the world.