Community Media/CCMW/Materials/Priorities

The assignment

1. Brainstorm five community development priorities that could be addressed through learning programmes
2. Consider any reasons why or specific focus areas

The results

Red group

• Crime and violence
  • Need for conflict resolution
  • Way to address the issue include popular theatre, talk shows, mentoring programmes

• Teenage pregnancy, prostitution
  • Share real life stories

• HIV/AIDS

• Opportunities for young people

• Environmental issues

• Tourism livelihoods
  • Stem the harassment of tourists

Orange group

• Rehabilitation and prison reform
  • Creating space for open dialogue
  • Getting stories from those who commit crimes
  • Create understanding of why crime persists
  • Allow the public to get a bird's eye view of what happens in prisons
  • Address the needs of the children of inmates

• Young men at risk
  • Increased gang activity
  • Not doing well in school
  • Self-esteem issues: bleaching, lack of identity
  • The need to be pretty
  • Sexuality and the downlow game

• Deadbeat dads
  • Getting men to live up to their responsibilities (women are carrying the "burden")
  • Women wanting men for the wrong reasons, e.g. the jock
  • Women getting pregnant to "improve self-esteem"

• Continuing education
  • Poor academic achievement among many community members
  • Poor transportation: community members don't have access to education opportunities
  • Lack of local resource people
  • People need access to technical skills

Yellow group

• Conflict resolution
  • Anger management
  • How to step back from conflict

• Environmental concerns
  • Waste disposal
  • Pesticides
  • Global warming / cost of electricity
  • Oil drilling
  • Watershed management

• Teenage pregnancy
  • Perpetuates the poverty cycle
  • Single parent family
  • Family practices, food and learning

• Health: AIDS/HIV
  • In-school intervention
  • Treatment literacy: How to live with the virus
  • Adolescent sexual and reproductive life
  • Confidentiality
  • Health and responsible lifestyles
  • Stigma and discrimination

• Family life
  • Fathers' responsibilities (gatekeepers)
  • Parenting intervention
  • Roles of family members
  • Instilling values
  • Gender issues
  • Crime and the impact of "absent" families

Blue group

• Farming livelihoods
  • Promoting good farming practices through sharing success stories

• HIV/AIDS education
  • Sharing content on good practices
  • Creating interactive spaces for exchange
  • Creating partnerships with groups that already have the content
  • Tap into other programmes that have influence on target groups

• Supporting formal education
  • Virtual assembly halls: A means of effectively reaching students in a formal, post-secondary education setting and involving them in media programming in order to
    • disseminate inforamtion
    • engender solidarity
    • promote discipline and positive social practices
    • support learning

• Parenting skills
  • Programmes should target both mothers and fathers (and other "parents")

• Crime and Violence

• Marginalisation of Youth
  • Amplify youth voices
  • Give them the chance to create programmes for themselves