Real Media : Making Sustainable Livelihoods Come to Life

Case study from ENDA-TM

Background

Organization: ENDA Tiers Monde

The Sustainable Livelihoods module was created in 1999 by several ENDA teams. The main teams worked in health, environment, popular economy, agriculture and habitat. These five teams have insisted since the start that the module be a result of a participatory approach and have a long-term focus.

The ENDA teams involved in the project have worked with grassroots groups, municipalities and decision-makers at various levels. They hope that the transmission of their work through the Internet will create links with other communities facing similar development challenges and thus share their experiences. With these goals in mind, it was evident that ENDA teams and grassroots groups needed training in communications in order to participate fully in the creation of the module. For each section, three days of workshops were held in:

• Journalism: interviewing, analysis, research, the role of a journalist, different stages for creating an article.
• Theatre: identifying the main character and the essential message of the skit, examining different types of theatre.
• Radio: analysis of a radio clip, interviewing skills, recording skills.
• Video: analysis of visual composition, impact of images, identification of message, editing.
• Internet: Web page design.

The main costs for the workshops were transportatio and food.

After the workshops, participants put their new skills to use. Clips of their work in journalism, theatre, radio and video can be seen in the module.

Goal

The overall goal of the module is to communicate how Sustainable Livelihoods are achieved in Sénégal through the voice of local actors. In addition, the various ENDA teams and grassroots groups hope to build ties with other communities facing similar development challenges and to learn from each other.

How?

The technology chosen to disseminate their work has been the creation of the Sustainable Livelihoods module. More specifically, Real Media was integrated in order to provide a dynamic description of work done through the teams and grassroots groups.

Why Real Media?

• Real Media allows actors to share their work without changing the original format. The use of educational theatre is an effective means of informing the local population. When literacy levels are low, theatre can allow the message to reach a wide audience (mothers, children, policy-makers). Projects that use theatre and radio as means of education can simply be recorded and transmitted to others via the Internet. Thus, actors themselves are able to present their work and understanding of sustainable livelihoods without a second party translating their work into text.
• Real Media provides a lasting impression of what is happening in the field to the outside world. The audience can gain a true idea of Sustainable Livelihood projects by hearing and seeing clips. The transmission of the message is clear. Ousseynau Fall, Coordinator of Commité de Development integer du Santhiaba and collaborator with UNESCO, says that with Real Media "you see through images and understand the message through a more dynamic means." Most of the Real Media clips which appear on the site are in Wolof (most used of African languages in Sénégal) and additional French text is available. However, Ousseynau Fall believes that "theatre transcends language… the viewer can still gain an understanding of what is happening in Sénégal." Therefore, grassroots groups can share with others what they do in terms of development.
• Real Media portrays the situation as it is. By providing sound and image clips, the user has access to the event as it happened. In theatre, the audience's reaction is as valuable as the lesson described by the actors. The audience's spontaneous reaction clearly illustrates how the message has been received. This aspect would be completely lost if the original format of the theatrical project was transformed into text.
• Real Media reduces costs by allowing one to put clips online, thus freeing actors from editing the entire production. In addition, the marketing of their work is also achieved. There is no need to film an entire play, edit it, package it and find a buyer. Through Real Media these tasks have been reduced. Although the cost is lower, it must be acknowledged that the start-up cost is high. It is simply not feasible for each ENDA team and grassroots group to posses a digital recorder and video camera.

Objectives achieved

There is overall consensus among grassroots groups and ENDA teams involved that the project is achieving its goal. The main gains are:

• Capacity building of grassroots groups. Local actors now have the means of communicating with the world what they see as sustainable livelihoods. Similarly, grassroots groups are able to educate their districts through a variety of media (journal, radio, theatre) that they have learned through the formal training provided with the development of the Sustainable Livelihoods module. This empowers the local population to reinforce local democracy by guiding community policies. Grassroots workers take pride in the fact that they are able to communicate their message to their district, decision-makers and the world via the Web.
• Contacts have been made with other professionals working in health, as well as visitors to the site who are interested in joining ENDA through internship placements. As of yet, one real partnership has been formed with another NGO through the module.

Challenges

The main challenge of using Real Media and the Internet site to reach objectives is the technological limitations that grassroots workers face. Transforming audio and video clips into Real Media format requires specific computer programs. The cost and know-how required limit the use of the technology.

However, increasing computer accessibility to grassroots groups involved in the project will allow them to have more input into the content of the module while increasing networking between grassroots groups.

Also, if ENDA increased dissemination of the audio clips to local radio stations, the Real Audio clips, which have been created for the module, can be shared with a local audience in Sénégal, where radio is the primary information medium.

Contact:

ENDA
73 Rue Carnot
Dakar, Sénégal
Tel: (221-8) 22.42.29 / 21.60.27
Fax: (221-8) 22.26.95
E-mail: syspro2@enda.sn