1.0 INTRODUCTION
It is now common knowledge that the HIV/AIDS scourge has decimated the lives of many people in the world more especially in the Sub-Saharan African region where Malawi falls in and the youths being the most hit group. As noted by the United Nations Development Assistance Framework of Malawi, “most of the HIV infections are occurring among the youth aged 15-24 years with the infection rate among young girls being six times higher than that of boys in the same group.” The continuous rise in HIV infection rates among young people and particular among girls is due to several factors among them socio-economic factors which render them unable to negotiate for safe sex, cultural factors such as initiation ceremonies which expose them to HIV, and most importantly, unprotected sex with multiple partners among the youth in general (ibid). These problems have also been exacerbated by the fact that most youths in Malawi, in both urban and rural areas shun Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) services as revealed by the Malawi Demographic and Household Survey of 2004. In order to curtail the further spread of this HIV virus, there is need, therefore, for an effective communication strategy so as to communicate effectively the messages of HIV/AIDS in Malawi.
It is against this background that this organization has developed and designed a communication brief for an enter-educative program for HIV/AIDS and reproductive health for the youth in Malawi. Specifically, this communication brief provides a detailed view of the plan of the program, its objectives and goals, communication vehicles to be used, the core messages, the target audience, the program format and ways of how it is going to be implemented, monitored and evaluated.
1.2 WHAT IS ENTERTAINMENT EDUCATION
Entertainment Education (EE) which is also referred to as enter-educate, edutainment, or infotainment, refers to a way of informing a public about a social issue or concern. The entertainment education (E-E) strategy involves incorporating an educational message into popular entertainment content in order to raise awareness, increase knowledge, create favorable attitudes, and ultimately motivate people to take socially responsible action in their own lives.
E-E uses drama, music, or other communication formats that engage the emotions to inform audiences and change attitudes, behavior, and social norms. Worldwide, several hundred major projects have used E-E to improve health. The strength of EE is that it is audience research-based, theory-driven, and that it requires pre-testing of the message before being presented to the audience.
1.3 IDENTIFICATION OF A COMMUNICATION NEED/ISSUE
At first, it is important to determine the problems that want to be addressed. As outlined in the introduction, most problems that the youth in Malawi face as regards the issue of HIV/AIDS are initiation ceremonies that help the spread of HIV/AIDS among young girls, poor socio-economic status of most youths, the shun of VCT services and the engaging in unprotected sexual intercourse with multiple partners. However, after the identification of these problems and needs, there will be a formative research that will be done to find out the particular problems and needs of the youths in Malawi in order to see if they match with the issues identified. Formative-evaluative research is evidence-based type of research that gives you all the demographics information of your audience since E-E products require thorough knowledge of the audience.
1.4 OBJECTIVES AND GOALS OF THE PROGRAM
The objectives and goals of this enter-edutainment program are the following:
• To raise awareness, knowledge and understanding about the dangers of HIV/AIDS among young people aged 15-24. This will be done by December 2011
• Increase knowledge on the prevention of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and pregnancy among the youths aged 15-24 by December 2011.
• Improve skills on how to use a condom for STIs, HIV and pregnancy preventions and improve negotiations for safer sex skills among the youths aged 15-24 by December 2011.
• Sustain positive behavior among the youths aged 15-24
• Encourage the youths aged 15-24 in Malawi to be accessing VCT services.
• To halt all initiation ceremonies that put young girls at risk of HIV/AIDS by December 2011.
1.5 CORE MESSAGES
The following will be the core messages:
• Multiple sexual partners increases the risk of getting infected with HIV/AIDS and other STIs
• Unprotected sexual intercourse increases the risk of getting infected with HIV/AIDS and other STIs, including unwanted pregnancies.
• Abstinence
• Where abstinence has failed, Condoms should be used
• Youths should not be pressurized by their peers and low socio-economic status youths should not get into unpromiscous behavior that may lead them getting infected.
• Knowing your HIV status makes you plan your life better.
• Initiation ceremonies that put girls at risk of getting infected should be halted.
The messages outlined above will be intertwined with other messages that will address misunderstandings, myths and areas of knowledge deficit on HIV/AIDS and it will also address negative altitudes on HIV/AIDS. It will also state where to access the services that are being promoted like condoms and VCT.
1.6 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The communication program will use a synergy/combination of human behaviour and behavioural change theories. However, the main ones will be:
• Social Learning Theory—a theory which emphasizes how people learn by observing others. Thus the theory supports the use of dramas with characters who model healthy behavior.
• Diffusion of Innovation—a theory which focuses on how a critical mass of people must adopt a behavior for it to become the new social norm. This will be used for the adoption of condom use as a means of preventing the infection of HIV/AIDS
1.7 TARGET AUDIENCE AND OTHER PERTINENT GROUPS
The target audience for this communication program will be determined through audience segmentation. Audience segmentation is a detailed analysis of the target audience in terms of locality, age, gender, education level and many other attributes that contribute to or are affected by the problem or issue. It also involves the division of your audience into two groups: Primary target audience and secondary target audience. Primary target audience means those people who are most affected by the problem and are likely to benefit from the interventions. In this case the youths aged 15-24. The secondary audience are those people who influence the primary audience. They include people who can help identify ways to influence the primary audience and/or allies such as community leaders, health authorities and parents. This exercise has the following advantages:
(1) It helps the organization to identify other factors from the primary audience, which influence behavior change
(2) It provides additional information on the difference among groups. This is the key to understand which factors influence your audience behavior before adopting new practices. It is possible, for example to find out that youths who have gone for VCT services before are more educated, confident and are prepared to disclose their status than those who have never gone for VCT.
The primary audience, who are the youths, aged 15-24, will be divided into the following:
(1) Youths in high risk-situations—including youths using injecting drugs, sex workers, and youths who are clients of sex workers.
(2) Vulnerable youths—because of their education and employment
(3)Mainstream youth such as youth living with parents who may currently be at low risk, but whose status can be protected and strengthened
1.8 COMMUNICATION CHANNELS TO BE USED
Due to the seriousness of the problem of HIV/AIDS among the youth in the country, the program will explore various channels of communications in order to pass the message to the target group (the youth). Below are the communication channels to be used:
Radio
Television
Facebook
Theatre
1.8 FORMAT OF THE PROGRAMS
Radio Drama soaps: This will be a long-running 30 minute radio drama series that will talk about issues of love and relationships, having multiple sexual partners, and VCT. It will be aired once a week. The radio drama soap will be called Tisanthulilane which will be aired on MBC Radio One and 2 and Zodiac Broadcasting Station (ZBS) and Power 101 FM. ZBS and MBC Radio 1 radio stations have been chosen because they have the widest coverage and they reach the remotest areas of Malawi and therefore they can help in assisting the messages to reach the rural youths. Radio 2 and Power 101 have been selected because they enjoy massive listenership among the urban youths. Radio has been chosen because a majority of many Malawians have an easy access to radio. However, the programs will be aired in Chichewa on all radio stations. The use of Chichewa is important so that the messages reach effectively to the youth.
TV Talk show: A long running 30 minute TV talk show which will be called Straight Youth Talk will also be aired on MBC TV. This talk show will explore the lives of today’s Malawian youths in different settings. The talk show will discuss a variety of social and emotional issues affecting the youths including love, relationships, drug use, sexuality, families, VCT, stigma and discrimination, gender and HIV/AIDS. The talk show has been chosen mainly to cater for the needs of urban youths who like to be glued on television.
Facebook: The rise of new media has led to the advance of several social networking sites such as Facebook, MXIT, Twitter and Hi5. These social networks are largely accessed by urban youths. The most popular social networking site is Facebook which has got millions and millions of users worldwide mainly the youths. Urban Malawian youths have, with both hands, embraced this latest state of the art technological advancement. Cognizant of this, a Facebook page will be established which will highlight the dangers of contracting the deadly virus, the dangers of having multiple partners and the benefits of VCT. Facebook is also advantageous due to its instant connectivity with the person and that this where one gets how the language is used among the youth to get the message through
A web site: A website provides youth with a confidential source of information on HIV/AIDS. A creative, entertaining and interactive site includes a moderated forum, blog, question and answer sections, competitions and real–time chat. Youth can view and download video clips of the TV drama, TV and radio spots and other Project outputs
Theatre: For the rural based youths, they will access the HIV/AIDS messages through theatre. Theatre has been chosen because it a mobile type of communication that can reach many youths even in rural settings. It reaches people without access to radio and television. This form of interaction is likely to provoke discussions on HIV/AIDS and sexual reproductive health issues where issues of HIV/AIDS are likely to be discussed in a more interactive manner unlike the other channels of communication.
1.9 PRE-TESTING OF THE PROGRAMS
The term pre-testing is used to describe the process of systematically gathering target audiences reactions, comprehension, personal relevance, believability and acceptability of the communication program. Pre-testing is one type of formative evaluation research that is conducted in the early formative stages of programme development. It is also one way of involving the target audience in programme development and ensures ownership of the product. Pre-testing on its own does not guarantee success, but it can help reduce some of uncertainties and the risk of producing materials that may be misunderstood or misinterpreted. It is precisely from this background that the communication programs will all be pre-tested before the actual rolling out of the project.
2.0 MONITORING AND EVALUATION
Monitoring and evaluation will be required to establish effectiveness and impact of actions of the strategy. Use of standardized core indicators for monitoring will be closely followed in order to achieve the goal and objectives of the strategy. Ultimately, there shall be participatory communication appraisal and a baseline survey to see what impact the strategy may have made in response to HIV/AIDS.
2.1.1 METHODS OF MONITORING AND EVALUATION
There will be qualitative and quantitative methods:
(a) Qualitative methods will include case studies, stories, opinions and feelings.
(b) quantitative methods will include statistics, baseline surveys and numbers
2.1.2 HOW WILL THEY BE USED?
• Keeping records or stories and conversations with the target audience
• Tracking when the youth or other people are using our arguments or wording in their conversations
• Keeping significant records of the activities that have been implemented
• Documenting and filing the messages that the programs have produced
• Monitoring the media for coverage of our work
• Carrying out surveys and interviews to determine the impact that our actions have made.
• Through other forms of feedback like letters and telephone calls
