Representatives from Botswana, Zambia and Kenya were at the Hearts and Minds workshop held at Rhodes
University this week to speak about the three different approaches to reporting on HIV/ Aids and related issues The Hearts and Minds campaign tries to change the way journalists report on HIV/Aids and related issues to make them more accessible to audiences.
Representatives from Botswana, Zambia and Kenya were at the Hearts and Minds workshop held at Rhodes
University this week to speak about the three different approaches to reporting on HIV/ Aids and related issues The Hearts and Minds campaign tries to change the way journalists report on HIV/Aids and related issues to make them more accessible to audiences.
The campaign encourages journalists to engage with the community to steer their reporting away from statistics and towards human stories.
The main focus of Hearts and Minds is to create sustainability by teaching the youth and providing communities with the skills to continue addressing the issues after journalists have left.
It is through the process of communities telling their stories that journalists can access more humanised HIV/Aids related stories, which are more appealing to audiences.
Country Director for the Twinning Centre, John Capati, said journalists need to marry the technical aspects and creativity in their reporting. He said the aim is for journalists to engage in the community both with community members and with other journalists.
But to manage the breach between being a journalist and a social worker, journalists are encouraged to work with community organisations so that the journalist can interact with the stories, but not get personally involved in them.
National Director of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) in Botswana, Thapelo Ndlovu, explained how a project called Mafoko Matlhong, which means “Interacting Face-To-Face”, is shrinking the distance between journalists and the community.
“In Botswana there is no community radio and so Mafoko Matlhong provides the medium for communication as representatives discuss the issues with communities, record and then disseminate the information,” he said.
Ndlovu stressed the need to educate the youth. Misa provides the technical support and training assistance for students in secondary schools to write newsletters on how HIV/Aids is affecting them.
Misa began journalist training in 2007 with the Heart and Minds approach of discussing HIV/Aids issues
with a humanised perspective.
In Kenya, a project called Abstinence and Behavioural Change informs children about the high risk of HIV/ Aids and related issues.
The programme is aimed at children between 11 and 14 and is broadcast in English and Swahili, Kenya’s official languages, on the radio. The programmes are also recorded onto CD and distributed to schools.
The Zambia Institute of Mass Communication Educational Trust (Zamcom) has a project of community engagement with media and HIV/Aids.
Director of Zamcom, Daniel Nkalamo, said the rapidly growing media sector offers a local platform to influence behaviour. Zamcom trains media students to link media with community mobilisation.
The idea is to teach students to inform the community via radio, newspapers and national workshops and then allow the communities to inform each other.
Hearts and Minds is sponsored by the partnership of the American International Health Alliance’s HIV/Aids Twinning centre, the University of Kentucky, Misa in Botswana, Zamcom, and the Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC).
