T-Shirts to Web Links: Case Studies from Zimbabwe, Zambia and Uganda

- from T-Shirts to Web Links: Women Connect! Building Communications Capacity with Women's NGOs

Case Studies from Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Uganda


Zimbabwe

Women Connect! began working in Zimbabwe in 1999, a time of significant social and political change. The women's movement in Zimbabwe was gaining momentum after a series of progressive rulings on women's rights, but advances were also challenged by legal setbacks on rights to land. The country itself was experiencing economic shocks and severe political tension. The accompanying instability and violence had major impacts on women. Record numbers of women were assaulted and raped, without access to counseling or treatment for infections. Women's NGOs saw their work multiply in all sectors, but face budget and staff shortages due to donor pullout overgovernment corruption and instability. Many among the NGOs are heavily scrutinised and have reduced their public outreach for fear of being mistaken as members of the political opposition.

Emboldened by the media strategies training with Women Connect!, five organisations took on media projects funded by its small grants. These included: a grassroots newsletter that addresses community needs in reproductive health and social services; a community publishing initiative that involves villages in producing media on AIDS, domestic violence and rape; and a media campaignon women's rights launched during an annual advocacy event called "16 Days of Activism." Four other groups completed ICT projects, using e-mail and the Internet to network with affiliate organisations, to research information on health issues, and to repackage data for distribution to their target audiences. In all these examples, the groups have demonstrated that they are indeed vehicles for increased access to reproductive health information for women.

Case Study: Zimbabwe Women's Bureau

The Zimbabwe Women's Bureau (ZWB) is a well-established NGO with activities in 13 geographical regions of the country and facilities that include a training center for community-based organisations. Focus areas include poverty alleviation, home building and improvement, smallbusiness promotion and business management training. Its training team develops projects based on perceived needs at the grassroots level. With Women Connect! training and support, ZWB undertook an ICT capacity-building initiative. The result has been a marked improvement in productivity and management of organisational activities.

ZWB has gone further with ICT than initially planned, taking the initiative to download health information from the Internet, translate it and share it via ZWB's monthly local-language newsletter with target communities in both urban and rural districts. The newsletter has addressed issues of nutrition, sanitary food preparation and storage, and physical health. Using downloaded information,ZWB has raised community awareness about reproductive health and rights, impacts of HIV/AIDS on women, home-based care for AIDS patients, rape, female genital cutting and other harmful traditional health practices, informed consent, prevention of infectious diseases, and maleresponsibility in reproductive and sexual health. ZWB continues to carry out health communications work with additional funding from the Global Fund for Women.

Zambia

Women Connect! decided to work in Zambia because of a network of women's organisations that were attempting to use media and information communication technology more effectively. Despite their resolve, the ability of women's groups to use these tools remained extremely limited andsporadic. Among NGOs participating in Women Connect!, Zambian NGOs faced the most serious organisational challenges, such as limited staff technical capacity and high turnover. Nevertheless, the women's movement in Zambia is quite active, and it has worked diligently in combating a government that has not always been responsive to its activities. In fall 2000, after several years oflobbying, a National Gender Policy was, adopted by the National Legislature. The challenge since is to facilitate its implementation, and women's organisations have key roles to play. The benefits of the legislation to women's health are significant. Provisions have been outlined to study the prevalence of particular medical conditions in women, to build additional and appropriate facilitiesand to facilitate women's access to medical services. Such measures are needed in a country where five times more girls are HIV-infected than boys in the same 15-19 age group. [22] Both the NGO sector and government have worked to develop HIV/AIDS prevention messages and care programs. The efforts have begun to make a slight dent, indicated by the decrease in the national prevalence of HIV-infected adults. Research by NGOs into the HIV education needs of their communities resulted in suggestions to disseminate prevention information through traditional leaders, at bible study groups and through community plays. Women Connect! trained staff from eight NGOs and funded six of them for small grants projects, three dealing with HIV/AIDS, one promoting womenin non-traditional roles and the others promoting women in decision-making.

Case study: Zambia National Association of Disabled Women

The mission of the Zambia National Association of Disabled Women (ZNADWO) is to promote the welfare of women with disabilities and to be a voice through which to channel their concerns. It offers seminars and workshops and promotes education, training and employment possibilities for women with disabilities. With Women Connect! funding and technical support, ZNADWO established an Internet connection and is offering training to four staff members on e-mail and Internet skills, as well as strategies for conducting health research. Its e-mail connection is a major help for disabled women, allowing them, among other things, to connect and learn from womendisabled groups in other countries such as Zimbabwe and Australia.

As part of its Women Connect! project, ZNADWO is repackaging health information from existing print sources into a simple hard-copy format appropriate for the low literacy levels characteristic among the disabled. In January 2001, ZNADWO convened a workshop on HIV/AIDS specifically for disabled women -- including deaf and blind women. The need of disabled women for contraception and protection from sexually-transmitted infection and unwanted pregnancy is great."Disabled women end up depending on men in exchange for money, and men abandon them after sex," says Francisca Muyenga, ZNADWO's director. The group is considering a variety of media channels to reach disabled women with prevention messages. ZNADWO is considering providingradios in each branch office where weekly radio listening clubs can be scheduled with disabled women. The director Muyenga goes to health clinics to negotiate free services for disabled women who present a ZNADWO membership card and takes male and female condoms to disabled womenwhen she makes visits throughout the country. ZNADWO has been diligent in carrying out its project objectives despite having a volunteer staff and limited resources. The only NGO without a computer at the time of Women Connect! training, ZNADWO wrote a proposal and secured funding for a computer from a donor Women Connect! identified.

Uganda

In Uganda NGOs have taken the initiative to integrate traditional media and information communication technology in innovative ways. Six of the eleven participating organisations downloaded information from the Internet and repackaged it into other forms of traditional media for their target audiences. Since each NGO works with different target groups, in different regions and with different secondary media, projects vary. Ugandan NGOs have a long history and co-exist with a government that is at the forefront of including women in parliamentary and other decisionmaking roles. However, their presence has not eliminated the socio-economic barriers to women'sadvancement. Significant challenges include: failure to lobby successfully for a Domestic Relations Bill to protect women in regards to marriage, property rights, and child custody rights; the 12-year civil war in northern Uganda, where many women continue to face sexual violations and lack of access to education; and indifference to the plight of women who suffer domestic abuse. Effective 19 communications strategies – including networking through information communication technology– are essential for women's groups working in such a challenging environment.

Case study: Uganda Media Women's Association

The Uganda Media Women's Association (UMWA) has launched a strategy to reach teenage girls with reproductive and sexual health information. Reasons are compelling, with prostitution, teenage pregnancy and HIV infection affecting poor youth at alarming rates (about 40 percent of all Ugandan teenage girls become pregnant). With its grant from Women Connect!, UMWA carried out a mediacampaign involving and targeting teens age 14 to 19. The target community is in a slum area in the capital of Kampala, next to the world-renowned Makerere University. The project needs assessment was followed by a workshop; over 100 young people attended and spoke candidly about their socioeconomic situations. Their stories were documented in the UMWA newsletter where girls wrote thatthey "... resort to prostitution as a way of earning a living. In the process we end up getting unwanted pregnancies and STDs, including HIV/AIDS." Others said that, since they can't afford to pay school fees, they don't have enough to keep them busy and consequently become sexually active.

The teens helped design messages on sexual responsibility and safety for T-shirts, caps and posters that were produced and disseminated in the community as part of the media campaign. It was a learning process for UMWA as the youth indicated which messages would resonate with them andwhich were ineffective. But they stressed that UMWA's outreach has to go farther to sensitise health service providers to not reprimand or judge youth when they seek reproductive or sexual health services. Otherwise, youth don't seek help. The young people said there need to be more health centers in the community. They explained that often they don't have money to buy condoms and birth control pills. Purchase of contraceptives also competes with alcohol and drugs, they said, which some people prefer in order to forget their problems. One result of UMWA's media campaign is that news about its activities has spread by word of mouth and young people in otherneighborhoods now want to participate.

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