Soul Beat Africa

• RESEARCH REPORTS - Community dialogues for child health and HIV prevention...
• PROJECTS - Community dialogues as part of a multi-pronged approach...
• TOOLS AND GUIDES FOR COMMUNITY DIALOGUES - guides for facilitators...

• 1. Community Dialogues for Child Health: Results from a Process Evaluation in Three Countries [April, 2014]By Sandrine MartinThis learning brief discusses the experience of the Malaria Consortium in using a community dialogue approach as part of integrated community case management (iCCM) to prevent and respond to pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria infections in children in Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia. The iCCM approach includes training, equipping, and supervising community health workers (CHWs), and the dialogues were used to raise awareness, support, and use of these new iCCM services. A process evaluation found that the dialogues successfully contributed to increased awareness and understanding of the three childhood diseases, as well as built confidence in the CHWs.See also Related Summary: Community Dialogues for Healthy Children: Encouraging Communities to Talk [December, 2012]
  
• 2. The Role of Community Conversations in Facilitating Local HIV Competence: Case Study from Rural Zimbabwe [April, 2013]By Catherine Campbell, Mercy Nhamo, Kerry Scott, Claudius Madanhire, Constance Nyamukapa, Morten Skovdal, and Simon GregsonThis journal article examines the potential of using community conversations to strengthen positive responses to HIV in resource-poor environments. The study found that community conversations hold great potential to help communities recognise their potential strengths and capacities for responding more effectively to HIV, but contextual factors such availability of treatment, poverty, poor harvests, and political instability can help or hinder communities' response plans.
  
• 3. Intimacy Without Risk: Community Dialogues to Reduce Concurrency in Lesotho [September, 2012]By Sarah Meyanathan and Susan RogersPublished by C-Change, this case study looks at the Intimacy Without Risk project in Lesotho, which used community dialogues and mass media to engage adult community members and couples in dialogue to raise awareness of multiple concurrent partnerships, and address key factors that perpetuate these relationships, such as alcohol, migration, intergenerational and gender inequality, and pervasive social norms; and to encourage positive and responsible sexual behaviour. The case study looks at the strategies used and highlights some of the results of an evaluation, drawing out lessons learned and offering several recommendations for others exploring the use of this community-based intervention.
  
• 4. Community Dialogues as a Method to Discuss and Reduce Multiple Concurrent Partnerships in Lesotho [2012]By Nancy Phaswana-Mafuya, Ebrahim Hoosain, Adlai Davids, Witness Chirinda, Zamakayise Swana, Gladys Mlambo, and Luntu GuqukaRelated to the above publication and also published by the C-Change programme, this report shares the results of a qualitative evaluation carried out to study the impact of the Relationship: Intimacy Without Risk programme. The programme included a facilitator's guide and training manual and materials to train local Sesotho facilitators to carry out discussion sessions that aim to stimulate deeper dialogue and discussion around relationship issues and HIV prevention.
  
• 5. Community Conversation Among the Maasai: Mainstreaming HIV/AIDS into Natural Resource Management in Tanzania [February, 2013]This case-study shares experiences of LOOCIP, a community-based organisation founded in 2003 by a group of local Maasai, of using Community Conversation (CC) to facilitate community-wide discussion of difficult issues around HIV prevention. As part of this methodology, community leaders and their people identify factors, particularly cultural practices and beliefs, that influence the spread of HIV, while also participating in HIV prevention activities. According to the case study, the approach has been very effective in breaking the silence around HIV and in engaging local leaders and the Maasai in general in a participatory manner.
  
• 6. Community Capacity Enhancement-Community Conversation (CCE-CC): Lessons Learned about Facilitating Positive Change in Communities Through a Local Discussion, Planning, and Action Process [June, 2010]By Kelley Bunkers This report details the experiences of FHI 360 and its partners in Ethiopia in implementing the methodology known as Community Capacity Enhancement through Community Conversation (CCE-CC). CCE-CC was introduced into FHI 360 programming in 2006 with a focus on supporting the Home and Community-based Care Program (HCBC). FHI considers CCE-CC to be one of several methodologies that should be used within a comprehensive behavioural intervention. In this context, CCE-CC specifically addresses the creation of an enabling environment for behaviour change at the community level.
  

• 7. Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights Campaign for Mobile Populations in ZimbabweAction Institute for Environment Health and Development Communication (Action IEHDC) in Zimbabwe embarked on a sexual and reproductive health and rights campaign focusing on mobile populations at two border posts - Beitbridge and Chirundu. The campaign messaging focused on addressing sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) issues to reduce HIV incidences among mobile populations, primarily long distance truck drivers, commercial sex workers, and young women. Campaign activities included the development of a set of posters and a brochure for young women and sex workers, as well as community dialogues and events attended by a cross section of the community.
  
• 8. N'weti Millennium Challenge Account Project - MozambiqueFrom October 2011 to August 2013, in partnership with the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), N'weti Health Communication implemented a social and behavioural change intervention in northern Mozambique focusing on the prevention and mitigation of HIV and AIDS among workers living in and outside of MCA camps, as well as the resident population around them. N'weti implemented a multi-pronged approach combining methods such as community dialogues, interpersonal communication, film screenings followed by discussion, stage theatre, and roadshows complemented by Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT).
  
• 9. Under the Mango Tree Radio Project - UgandaUnder the Mango Tree combined recorded community-based discussions with national radio broadcasts to communicate information about health problems and solutions in Uganda. The project capitalised on two realities in Uganda: people listen to each other, and people listen to the radio. By recording community dialogue for regional broadcast, the programme recreated the intimacy of a small-group setting for a mass media audience.
  

• 10. Enjoy Life - Keep Good Health Toolkit for Community Dialogues [2012]This toolkit is designed to help guide community dialogues around the prevention and management of childhood illnesses. Produced with support from Malaria Consortium, the toolkit is to be used within a Village Health Team (VHT) programme in Uganda to help community leaders and VHTs facilitate community dialogues.
  
• 11. A Toolkit for Community Dialogues [2011]By Mvuyisi AprilAlthough not health related, this toolkit, developed by the Institute for Democracy in Africa (IDASA), may be useful for people planning community dialogues in all contexts. The toolkit provides basic steps for communities to engage in school governance and community participation processes through community dialogues. It encourages readers to consider their school community and think about what is happening that a dialogue - for example, a dialogue on budgets - could address.
  
• 12. Relationships: Intimacy without Risk - Facilitators Guide to MCP Community DialogueDeveloped by C-Change, this manual from the Relationships: Intimacy without Risk Community Dialogue programme in Lesotho, provides guidance for holding a series of conversations during which participants reflect on how they can improve their relationships and sexual lives without taking on extra lovers.
  
• 13. Tasankha! Facilitator's Guide [2011]This discussion guide for facilitators, published by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs as part of the Tasankha! Campaign in Malawi, is designed to promote community dialogue around health and wellness issues. In particular, it seeks to create an understanding of specific issues regarding HIV transmission and prevention and the values, beliefs, and practices that prevail in Malawi culture and how the two are related.
  
• 14. Community Conversation Toolkit (for HIV Prevention): HIV/AIDS: What Are You Doing about It?C-Change developed the Community Conversation Toolkit - a set of six materials on HIV prevention for low-literacy audiences - to assist communities in the southern Africa region to initiate discussions around key drivers of HIV. It includes a Facilitator's Guide, roleplay cards; storytelling finger puppets; and dialogue buttons.
  
• 15. Community Health Information Cards - Taking Action for our Health [2010]Published by the Respond Project, this set of behaviour change communication cards was developed to accompany the related Facilitator's Manual. The cards are designed for use by community health workers (CHWs) to generate community dialogue and increase knowledge of family planning and post abortion care, while encouraging positive health-seeking behaviour.