Communication in Post-Conflict Situations
This issue focuses on information from the Soul Beat Africa network related to development communication work carried out in post-conflict situations. If you would like to contribute your own communication experiences, please contact Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com
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1. FilmAid Bringing Film to Refugees - Kenya
A project by FilmAid International that works with volunteers and local employees to ease the daily lives of East African refugees through films. The project encourages refugees, from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, to make films recording their own life stories. The films, mostly with a social message focus, are shown outdoors in the evening, for audiences of up to 14,000 refugees.
Contact Emily MacDonald info@filmaidinternational.org
2. Camatondo - Angola
A serial radio drama produced in Angola that aims to support post-war reconciliation and provide information about living healthily. The series explores the stories of refugees and displaced persons, while addressing other developmental challenges, such as those faced by the resettling rural population. It includes storylines about reconciliation, psychological trauma, agricultural modernisation, HIV/AIDS, gender issues, micro-credit schemes, governance and electoral education.
Contact Daniel Walter daniel@irinnews.org
3. Small Arms Reduction Programme (SARP) - African Great Lakes Region
This magazine project aims to generate articles about small arms for the Great Lakes Region. SARP coordinates regional sensitisation and capacity development about small arms and armed violence reduction in the region, aimed at both governments and the communities. It aims to raise national and international awareness of the humanitarian impact and wider socio-economic and development costs of small arms problems in the region.
Contact Helen Verspeelt helen.verspeelt@undp.org
4. Improving the Quality of Reproductive Health Services for High-Risk, War-Affected Adolescent Girls - Angola
This project disseminates socially and culturally appropriate information messages to Angolan youth, including those in former conflict areas, to bring about behaviour change. It facilitates peer education, behaviour change communication, empowerment of young girls, counselling, youth-friendly reproductive health services and lifeskills education for in- and out-of-school youth.
Contact unaids.angola@undp.org
See also:
Sisi Watoto (We, the Children) - Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)
Child Protection Communication - Liberia
Radios for the Consolidation of Peace - Niger
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Announcing the Nansen Refugee Award winner
The Nansen Refugee Award is made annually to a person or group for outstanding services in supporting refugee causes. Congratulations are due to the 2005 winner, Marguerite Barankitse, a Burundian humanitarian worker and founder of Maison Shalom, who has helped more than 10,000 children affected by Burundi's civil war and other regional conflicts. The annual deadline for submissions is January 31.
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5. Assessment of HIV/AIDS Behaviour Change Communication Strategies Employed by NGOs in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya: A Field Experience
by Prof Elizabeth Ngugi
This 37-page report summarises the work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) with non-governmental organisations in Kakuma, Kenya, to provide HIV/AIDS services to refugees, of which there were approximately 82,000 in the Kakuma area at the time of the study. The International Rescue Committee helps provide health services and NGOs have adopted behaviour change communication strategies for different groups, including adolescents, young women, and commercial sex workers. The evaluation recommends a series of actions to increase the effectiveness of these strategies.
6. Post Intervention Survey Report: HIV/AIDS/STI Knowledge, Attitude & Practice (KAP) Survey Among Commercial Sex Workers, Military & Youth in Port Loko, Sierra Leone
This 40-page report discusses the results of a programme implemented by the American Refugee Committee (ARC) among returning refugees in Port Loko, Sierra Leone. In 2001, ARC began work with members of the military, sex workers, youth and ex-combatants. Prior to launching the project, the ARC conducted a baseline survey on knowledge, attitudes, and behaviour related to HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections. Two years later, a follow-up survey took place. The findings indicate increased knowledge of issues like HIV transmission and prevention, sourcing condoms and using them.
7. Tuning into Different Wavelengths: Listener Club Research for Effective Rwandan Reconciliation Radio Programmes
by Suzanne Fisher
This presentation shares the experience of La Benevolencija, a non-governmental organisation based in Holland, that has launched a communications project in Rwanda based upon the theories of psychologists Prof Ervin Staub and Dr Laurie Pearlman. The project aims to develop an understanding about the roots of group violence in the service of prevention, trauma healing and reconciliation. It further aims to contribute to knowledge and attitude change through radio broadcasting in the local language, Kinyarwanda, and various participatory communications activities.
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8. Refugees: Communication as a tool for advocating the rights of refugees
by Jean-Marie Vianney Kavumbagu
This 12-page paper focuses on the role communication plays in serving the needs of refugees in Africa. It comments on the pressure that communication and news can exert on those responsible for violating the rights of refugees. Media can also allow refugees and displaced people to stay informed about current events in their immediate or distant environments or about how the human rights situation in their country may be changing. It also comments on the dangers of spreading false information that may affect decision-makers, aid workers and the international community.
9. Phone Service for Refugees to Be Expanded
This article summarises a press release made in May 2004 by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), announcing the start of a new phone service linking Western Saharan refugees in southern Algeria with their relatives in the Western Sahara Territory. This is an expansion of the service started in mid-January 2004 when a call centre was opened in a refugee camp that over 2,700 refugees from neighbouring camps used subsequently to communicate with relatives in the Territory.
10. Resilience in the Darkness: An Update on Child & Adolescent Night Commuters in Northern Uganda
This 21-page report provides information on the conditions and security of night commuters in Gulu and Kitgum Districts, Northern Uganda, an estimated 44,000 people, mostly children, adolescents and women, who flee their villages or camps nightly for town centres seeking safety from attacks from the Lords Resistance Army. Interviews were conducted as a follow-up to those conducted in December 2003. The report provides an overview on sleeping accommodation, basic health and sanitation, and safety and security. It also discusses the impact of gangs on the night commuters, and on gender-based violence. The report concludes with a section on responses to the night commuter crisis and recommendations.
11. Attitudinal Baseline Survey of Radio Professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa
by Research Solutions, Nairobi
This eight-page baseline survey of radio professionals in sub-Saharan Africa was intended to determine their knowledge of, attitude towards and use of different peacebuilding techniques in radio. The key objectives of the study were to determine attitudes towards peacebuilding techniques in radio programming and to establish how these techniques are used in the production of radio programmes. The survey, commissioned by Search for Common Ground, was conducted in English and French in 19 African countries, via email and face-to-face interviews with 423 radio professionals in total.
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Commemorating World Refugee Day 2005
The theme of World Refugee Day 2005, taking place on June 20 2005, is courage. To find out about activities taking place around the world, click here and choose a country on the right, under 'World Refugee Day Events in 2005'.
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12. Conflict Management - Sept 13-15 2005 - Pretoria, South Africa
This course, organised by the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), covers conflict resolution theory, methodology and practice. It is based on the belief that conflicts have become more complex, whether inter-personal, organisational, inter-group or inter-state. The course targets trainers in diverse sectors, striving to bring them the creativity and insight needed to resolve multi-faceted conflicts.
13. Photographing World Relief Efforts in Uganda - Oct 23 - Nov 5 2005 - Kampala, Uganda
This two-week workshop enables students to photograph the work of world relief organisations non-governmental organisations, orphanages, doctors, and AIDS projects in refugee camps, rural villages, and urban areas. It will consist of classes and gatherings at which participants can share work, research and discuss discoveries. Technical support in terms of camera systems, lenses, lighting, and image workflow is provided.
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14. How To Guide: Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations, Kakuma & Dadaab, Kenya
This 68-page guidebook is aimed at supervisors and coordinators of reproductive health (RH) services in refugee settings. Its recommendations, based on refugee camps in Kakuma and Dadaab, Kenya, can be adapted to suit different refugee settings. The guide covers the main components of reproductive health services (safe motherhood, family planning, sexually transmitted infections, including HIV/AIDS, and sexual and gender-based violence) and describes how to undertake an assessment of these services.
15. The Power of Storytelling and Reading in Healing Children Orphaned or Traumatised by War in Northern Uganda
by Beatrice Lamwaka
This ten-page paper focuses on the role of storytelling for former child soldiers and children traumatised by the war in Northern Uganda. Children of the region abducted by the Lord Resistance Army often suffer post-traumatic disorders. The report describes processes via which these children find healing, through listening, reading and storytelling, despite low literacy levels. The report explains how different forms of expression allow a child to become more self aware, gain meaning and control of the emotional dynamics that are linked to traumatic events.
16. Walala Wasala
by Angifi Proctor Dladla
Walala Wasala is a multi-lingual poetry anthology from the East Rand of Gauteng, South Africa, an area previously afflicted by violence and near civil war. The collection showcases writing in English and various African languages of youth writers, prisoners, and members of the Afrika Reads Forum. The poems were developed in workshops held with youth, teachers, parents, prisoners and other community members. The publishers aim to empower the community with writing skills and heal them from conflict.
17. Track Two: Refugees, Conflict and Conflict Resolution
Track Two is a quarterly journal published by the Centre for Conflict Resolution and the Media Peace Centre, in South Africa. The publication aims to promote innovative and constructive approaches to community and political conflict, as an alternative to traditional adversarial tactics. This issue, Vol. 9 No. 3, focuses on the problems and conflicts associated with refugee communities. It contains nine articles that discuss the challenges that the protection of refugees present to states and other actors across Africa and focus on certain problems and conflicts associated with refugee communities.
18. Partnering with Local Organizations to Support the Reproductive Health of Adolescent Refugees: A Three-year Analysis
This 19-page report examines three years of work sponsored by the Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury Fund for Reproductive Health Care and Rights for Adolescent Refugees, of which 68% is channelled to projects in Africa. From 2000 to 2003, the fund enabled over 61,000 adolescents to attend events offering reproductive health training and education on issues such as condom use, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, family planning techniques, and protection against gender-based violence. Some of the funding was allocated to peer-to-peer adolescent reproductive health education strategies, providing adolescents with opportunities to participate.
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LINKS
Small Arms Net
An information portal for groups and individuals working to contain the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in Africa.
War Child
A network of independent organisations that implement and fund programmes providing support and relief to children affected by war.
African Youth Ministries Uganda (AYMU)
A faith-based non-governmental organisation that provides Ugandan youth with support services, including school support and relief for children displaced by war.
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This issue was written by Estelle Jobson.
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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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