Lessons learned

Topic:	Lessons learned on the use of community-based participatory video: the Video Sabou et Nafa project (Guinea)
Author:	Lauren Goodsmith, Communication for Change (C4C), New York (USA)
Background document providing these lessons learned:	Lauren Goodsmith, Video Sabou et Nafa: community voices joined in a common cause, (published in Communication for Development and Social Change, Volume I, No. 1, 2007; Hampton Press)
Applied Participatory Approaches:	Community-based participatory video

 

Background

The practice of female genital cutting, also widely known as female genital mutilation (FGM) or excision, is nearly universal in the West African nation of Guinea .

A law expressly forbidding the practice has existed since 1969;however, it has not been enforced, and many Guineans are unaware of its existence. Although building public awareness of the law is considered an important component of prevention, many anti-FGM activists consider that a focus on legal/punitive measures carries the risk of creating backlash or sending the practice underground. Overwhelmingly, advocates working to end FGM in Guinea , as well as in other countries where the custom persists, have favored approaches that stress public education and community outreach.

The leading organization working to end FGM in Guinea is La Cellule de Coordination Sur les Pratiques Traditionelles Affectant la Santé des Femmes et des Enfants (CPTAFE), the national affiliate of the Inter-African Committee for the Prevention of Harmful Traditional Practices. Founded in 1988, CPTAFE’s activities have included training workshops for midwives and traditional birth attendants, advocacy meetings among local officials and religious leaders, mobilization campaigns among youth, theater presentations, sports events, a television documentary, and numerous radio broadcasts

 

Video Sabou et Nafa project development  

In mid-2001, discussions began between CPTAFE and Communication for Change (C4C), a non-profit training organization based in New York City , on the possibility of undertaking a joint participatory video project. Working in collaboration with non-governmental and community development organizations in several countries, Communication for Change (C4C) has helped establish participatory video projects that focus on enabling women, young people, and other frequently under-represented groups to articulate their concerns and depict their own experiences.

From the outset, the dialogue between CPTAFE and C4C focused on the potential of community-based media to complement CPTAFE’s existing public education efforts and, in particular, to help strengthen the outreach capacities of its regional committees.

A planning trip undertaken by C4C in early 2002 provided the opportunity for in-depth discussions with CPTAFE members from the central and regional committees, and resulted in the development of detailed project objectives and a phased program of implementation. In Phase I, teams would be established in three areas: Upper Guinea , Middle Guinea, and Conakry . In Phase II, activities would be extended to the remaining two regions of the country.

During the first ten months of the project, the Video Sabou et Nafa teams produced over 15 videotapes on topics ranging from the benefits of family planning and the consequences of FGM to various income-generating opportunities for women. Screened at community “playback” sessions, the tapes served as triggers for facilitated discussions among various audience groups, including secondary and college-level students, members of women’s associations, expectant mothers, and men. Team members elicited viewers’ comments on the quality and content of the videotapes, as well as ideas for future programs.

In the year that followed, the teams produced new videotapes on such issues as HIV/AIDS prevention, girls’ education, and the dangers of early marriage as well as FGM. In December 2004, members of all of the community video teams gathered in Conakry to share their experiences and discuss ways to continue their work into the future. Participants also took part in assessment activities, offering their reflections on the project’s accomplishments, strengths, and shortcomings and its effect on their lives and communities.

 

Results achieved

The primary aim of the Video Sabou et Nafa project was promoting dialogue and reflection among community members. In order to enable productive discussions after video screenings, teams usually tried to limit audience size to no more than 30 or 40 viewers. In some cases, holding separate screenings for various groups within the community — for example, women, men, adolescent girls, and boys — can help promote open exchange on sensitive issues. Following some screenings, audience members volunteered to help spread the messages contained in the videos they had seen. Some viewers went a step further, openly declaring their resolve to not excise their daughters. It is difficult to ascertain whether such spontaneous resolutions were followed through. In at least one instance, however, it appeared that a pledge prompted by a Sabou et Nafa production was kept.

Another aspect of teams’ participatory productions is the involvement of community members as agents of change in other ways as well. Positive modeling, both on-screen and off, proved a powerful factor in viewers’ receptiveness to the video’s message.

 

Challenges, constraints and responses

The chief constraints that faced the project were linked to funding issues and to various logistical factors. Funding uncertainties created delays in fully equipping each project community, and temporary measures to share video gear among teams proved problematic in practice, as described under “Lessons and Observations” (below). Long distances and difficult terrain between various communities within the interior added to these challenges.

Some challenges were related to the geographically diffuse but administratively centralized structure of the local partner organization. Although CPTAFE has active committees in each of the country’s four geographic regions, complemented by the activities of smaller CPTAFE antennes at the prefectural level, most of these antennes have few material resources available to them. As an example, access to means of transport – to carry equipment to various sites during the course of production, or to enable playback sessions at different locations – proved a greater problem than anticipated. The few vehicles to which some members had access were not available as regularly for team activities as expected, and the hiring of local taxis became a regular need.

Communication was another area in which challenges proved greater than expected. G aining detailed updates on activities in the interior proved especially difficult. Communication between regional and especially prefecture-level teams to the main CPTAFE office in Conakry was sporadic. As a result, the U.S. partner was unable to offer timely advice in response to certain situations, such as the theft of the video gear in Kissidougou and the difficulties in equipment access experienced by one of the sub-regional teams.

Other constraints were related to CPTAFE’s volunteer nature. Team members were inevitably faced with the challenge of balancing their involvement in the project with family obligations, livelihoods, and other commitments. This tension was exacerbated by a nationwide economic crisis that emerged in late 2003 and heightened over the course of 2004. In combination with a growing state of political instability in Guinea , this situation contributed to a significant decline in both production and playback activities for many video teams during 2004. Rising costs of food, fuel, and other basic needs, and a resulting preoccupation with matters of daily subsistence among both team members and their local constituencies, were cited by participants as major obstacles during this period.

It is broadly recognized that the closer the institutions are located with respect to their users, the more effective they will be. This common knowledge is known in technical jargon as the principle of subsidiarity ( The principle of subsidiarity basically consists in the idea that problems should be solved at the level where they arise and should only be elevated to subsequent levels as a function of the complexity they carry). In the Latin American context, as well as in many others, the institutions that are closest to civil society are the municipalities. However, whereas on the one hand municipalities are too small to reach directly into policy decisions at central government level, on the other hand they are too big to reach all families, especially those residing in remote rural areas. For this reason, a chain needs to be built in order to connect the rural producers and their families with the communal (representational) institutions of their villages and through them into municipal decision-making processes and further up-the-line with regional inter-municipal associations, and subsequently with national associations of municipalities which will then be empowered to establish a dialogue among equals with central government decision-making bodies.

 

Lessons and Observations drawn from participatory video activities

The priorities of the local partner should take precedence.

As with any social development initiative, it is important for partner organizations in a participatory communication project to establish common objectives and indices of achievement in the planning stages.However, situations may subsequently arise in which it is necessary to respond to changing conditions or a shift in local needs. The perceived priorities of the local partner should be kept foremost in this case.

In Guinea , the original project objective was to establish five participatory video teams: one for the central CPTAFE committee in Conakry , and one in each of the country’s four regions. It was initially anticipated that the teams in the interior would be located in the respective regional capitals, with travel to area villages as required by production and outreach activities. However, the organization’s leadership considered it vital to include CPTAFE members from key sub-regional (prefectural) committees in the training as well; among them, individuals from villages that had taken part in dépots de couteaux (laying-down of knives ceremonies) and who were compelling spokespeople against harmful practices. Enabling these village-based activists to carry out their own video activities emerged as lead priority for CPTAFE because of their central role in promoting local anti-FGM resolutions as well as their access to interior communities where the practice is especially ingrained. C4C sought to be responsive to the needs of its local partner, and available resources were therefore turned towards the goal of fully equipping four prefectural-level teams as well. In light of limited funding, this meant that certain other activities could not be carried out. In addition, it meant that activities were broadly spread, which increased the logistical complexities related to transport, follow-up, and monitoring. However, the investment proved beneficial in other ways, as the village-based teams have produced some of the project’s best work.

Each designated participatory video team should have autonomous use of, and full responsibility for, their production and playback equipment.

In Guinea , efforts to share video production equipment between communities within the same region were developed in light of CPTAFE’s strong wish to include certain strategically important villages in the initiative, as described above, and because it was not possible to completely outfit each team from the project’s outset. Although equipment sharing between certain sites had some limited success, it was ultimately not practical or conducive to the overall success of community media activities.

In general, equipment sharing – or any other arrangement in which gear is not located within the designated project community – prevents regular, assured access and a sense of community proprietorship. In Guinea, specifically, it proved problematic because of the distances and difficulty of terrain involved, the cost of transport, and the reluctance of some regional coordinators to abide by agreements for sharing (even when transport costs were provided), apparently through concerns for the safety of the gear.

When individuals have gained skills in the use of new tools but subsequently lose access to them for any reason, it not only leads to erosion of skills through lack of practice; it is also disheartening and inherently disempowering. For these reasons, it is recommended that equipment sharing between communities not be undertaken unless absolutely necessary, and unless the partner organization has exceptionally strong oversight capabilities and resources to insure the efficient and timely movement of gear. Even then, this approach is inadvisable except for limited periods of time. Instead, every effort should be made to establish autonomy for community video teams in terms of both skills training and production/playback materials.

In a participatory video project, the most important results usually take place “off-camera.”

Participatory communication initiatives directly invert the priorities that drive mass media operations, in which the prime concern is the final “product,” and results are measured in quantitative terms of viewership and ratings. In a participatory video project, the processes entailed in the preparation, creation, and use of each program are fully as important as the finished tapes themselves. As noted by Rodriguez (2001: 127), these processes “engage both producers and audiences in complex dynamics that go far beyond the normal production and appreciation of an audiovisual text.” The collaborative effort involved in deliberations over content and approach, or in seeking the cooperation of community members who will help illuminate the themes being addressed in a tape, are among the many acts of dialogue and communication that contribute to the evolution of the initiative as a whole.

Development takes place at the individual level as well. Less visible than group processes, these can be difficult to document or even perceive unless one gains access to the “back story” that informs what is seen before the camera. In part because of the interplay of such dynamics at the individual and collective level, the potential long-term effects of a participatory video project can extend beyond the expected outcomes of a “communication” intervention. Teamwork, advocacy, decision-making, and leadership skills are integral components, as well as outgrowths of, participatory communication. The difficulty of measuring such factors is one of many reasons that the value of participatory communication initiatives can often be underestimated, or inadequately represented, through traditional models of evaluation.  

“Capacity-building” is among the greatly overused terms in the lexicon of development; nevertheless, it serves as a shorthand description of one of the benefits of genuinely participatory communication activities.

When people learn to make a meaningful and compelling video program, to master a new and sophisticated tool, or to facilitate a group discussion after viewing a relevant video program, they develop communication skills that increase their visibility in the community. Even after putting down the camera, cassettes and VCR , participatory video producers remain experienced communicators….Strategic thinkers and communicators are important and valuable assets, not only to their organizations, but to their communities and nations as well. They are the ones who will ask challenging questions and inspire others to make changes to improve their lives. (Stuart and Bery, 1996)