Interview with the Communication for Social Change Consortium

The Communication Initiative: You recently launched the Communication for Social Change Consortium. Can you explain the reason for specifically a "consortium"?

Denise Gray-Felder: I think it is important that the principles of Communication for Social Change [CFSC] which have at their core the notion of participation and inclusion and hearing a variety of different voices be extended to the organisational structure of whatever this entity is that we decided we needed. And "consortium", to me, provides the opportunity to have a collaboration of ideas, of practices and of people and institutions. So the Consortium is really a consortium of ways of working, of ideas, of institutions.

Alfonso Gumucio Dagron: At some point, this will be a consortium of other consortiums - universities, practitioners, etc. And we are kind of the facilitators of this network.

DG-F: Essentially we would have a series of networks, a series of ideas, a series of what one of our board members likes to call "platforms" - or a way of organising principles.

The CI: This used to be a programme of The Rockefeller Foundation. Why was an independent organisation needed at this point?

DG-F: Well, at the risk of speaking in clichés, it seems to me that any way of working that wants to be, needs to be sustained over a period of time cannot survive in a foundation ultimately because foundations are about giving away money. They don't do well at running programmes. They are not set up to be hands-on and doing work - they are set up to be several layers above that and actually catalysing and funding the initial ideas. So when the work gets to a point where there is a real plan of action and a sustained effort of what has to happen, you need to figure out how you are going to institutionalise it in some way, in order for the progress to continue. We could have done that in a more virtual sense without an institution. But clearly, I don't think it was a choice of continuing in The Rockefeller Foundation, because ultimately, whether it was this year or in 5 years, ultimately the work would not be able to be sustained in a foundation. They have limited time periods in which they are going to fund things.

AG: Also I think, frankly speaking, when we were within The Rockefeller Foundation, there was something that was very interesting and that was the power of the foundation to gather people and the appeal that it had when we would call for a meeting and the people would be there. So now it is a test for us. Is it that our ideas are so valuable that people will continue working with us now that we are not with a foundation and we are not donors and we are not talking about money - just about networking and ideas? So it is important for us to look at this as well.

DG-F: And there is every indication that there is power - a lot of power - in the ideas. And a lot of people are gravitating toward the vision and the mission that we have.

The CI: So what are the basic principles?

DG-F: Well, the long-term mission is that people ultimately are in the best position to own and control the means of communication that will help them improve their lives. And in order to get to that point, we believe we have to approach this work in a multi-faceted way. By building local capacity through training in particular, and in that area we are working at a university-level, as Alfonso has already said. We have plans to work directly within institutions and how they train their own staffs and the consultants and the communities in which they work as well as ultimately - we are working to come up with a training and educational approach that will work with decision-makers working directly with communities. The second area or function is this notion of best-practices - that people learn from gathering knowledge and understanding what others are doing in various other parts of the world. The notion is of the Consortium will be a central repository of best-practices and thought. This anthology meeting plays both into the best-practices arena, as well as into the training arena. The third way in which we work is actually in influencing institutions themselves. We believe firmly that we need to change the way the practice of communication within development is practiced and the only way that we can influence the direction that the field goes is by looking at the major institutions that are playing in that arena. So the major 8 agencies in particular. And so it is sort of a strategy of advocating within those organisations, as well as advocating from outside those organisations. And the fourth area is what is called applied practice - where what we are really saying is that it is no longer good enough for our ideas to exist in a conceptual frame, in an ivory tower, and so how do we test the methods and the concepts ourselves in real-life situations? And that kind of piece of work is called "applied practice" where we will work directly with organisations that are doing real projects. For example, we are involved with the WHO [World Health Organisation] in helping them think through how we can integrate the prevention and the treatment communication approaches for HIV/AIDS on a global scale.

AG: I think the Consortium is in a unique position to build the bridges between the academy and universities (the intellectual debate on communication), the development organisations (bilaterals, multilaterals, NGOs, and International NGOs), and the communities. I think there has been a divorce in principle between the academics and the development world. But mostly between the development organisations, the huge development organisations and the way they work with communities. So we are trying to bridge the three. And by bridging the three, what we are doing is we are trying to put Communication for Social Change at a higher level in the agenda of both development organisations and universities. And the problem seems now, we feel, that communication is not valued as it should be as a tool and a process that helps development and sustainability. And that the background of what we call communicators has been a little bit lacking in terms of education and that is why we want to support the academic world in implementing these Masters Degrees or higher level studies so that the new communicators for social change that come out of these centres will have more horizontal dialogue with decision-makers in development organisations to include Communication for Social Change at a higher level in all development plans. So we are working as facilitators in this.

The CI: So practically, you see the Consortium setting up meetings and trainings. Is it face-to-face you are talking about or will you be using the Internet at all?

DG-F: No. However, there have been a series of conversations with the World Bank about whether we can introduce a Communication for Social Change module into an existing training programme that they do on Strategic Communication. One of the ways that a portion of that course is delivered is through distance learning. And as I understand it, it is not an internet base, but rather, offering the course in various regional centres and people gather there and they can, from that centre, connect virtually to a trainer in Washington, DC.

Jim Hunt: In talking with some of the universities, they have mentioned their virtual programmes. And they have expressed some interest in ways they might be able to incorporate some of what we are talking about into those virtual programmes. We could contribute to universities that have already set up the framework and have guidelines in place for distance learning programmes.

The CI: Your contribution to these universities, will that be a face-to-face contribution - you want to meet the students and professors of these universities and discussing Communication for Social Change or will you be working virtually as well?

AG: It is very important to visit them, to see what they are doing, to see if their ideas somehow coincide with our ideas. And basically we are going to contribute the contents that they are going to build into their regular programmes and the programmes that they are going to create - such as the programme in Baranquilla [at the Universidad del Norte]. But of course, the main role - other than these meetings with them exchanging information or contents through the internet - basically, they will be doing their own programmes; we are facilitating them grasping the concepts of Communication for Social Change and including them in their courses. At some point I think we would like to have a meeting of 10 or 15 universities that are already doing these types of programmes. We would like to meet with them to discuss with them the possibility of facilitating exchanges among them.

DG-F: There is this image in the mid-west - I am sure it is everywhere - but the notion of "kicking the tires"? That is to say that when we are beginning a negotiation, or a conversation with a university, it is really important for us to see what their existing programme is and their existing course offering and what their students are like and what they are interested in. And it is very hard to do this virtually. The conversation we have been having with the University of the West Indies incorporates two options - teaching either face-to-face or through a teleconference. And my thought is that initially, actually being there is a better way to go.

JH: As Alfonso was saying - any of the work that we are doing involves trying to create networks. The university network, in the future, will involve a significant number of electronic meetings, as well as gathering people together. But the thought is not just to have meetings with us, but with each other, networking as they make decisions. And especially with the educational programmes, the thought is that those [students] who go through the educational programme will continue to network with each other as they move through their careers We want to foster an expansion of that kind of "learning community," if you will, for the graduates of the programme. And again, much of that will happen, no doubt, through electronic means.

The CI: You mentioned a repository of knowledge, of best practices - are those things that you are pulling from the field that already exist or are they position papers or...?

DG-F: Of course, we are building on the history of "Making Waves" which Alfonso spent more than a year working on and the response to it has just been tremendous. So, there have been conversations about - what happens after "Making Waves"? There could be a video version or a DVD version, for example. There could be an effort to collect a whole new set of stories. There could be an audio version. But also, we have to commission and send people out to actually do research and figure out what is working in communities. For example, at the [Rockefeller] Foundation, we spent three years funding a programme, a CFSC programme in Zimbabwe, in three different locations. That [project] has to be assessed in some way. And that will require a team of people to go out and spend some time looking at what was done, writing up a case study, if you will. We have inherited one that was done at the Foundation, which is the Decatur, Illinois case "Talking Cure". So I see a little of both, actually.

The CI: Other than the "Talking Cure", the Decatur case, can you point to a particular example where the CFSC approach is being done and being done successfully?

DG-F: I would say that there are a lot of places in the world where the methods are working, that we had nothing to do with. And that is actually the beauty and excitement of the effort. Perhaps we catalysed it indirectly - somebody read something or they heard something and they decided to try it. Or it had been going on for years anyway - which sort of validates the need for our work. For example, last week at this global meeting at WHO on integrating prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS communication, after my presentation and Neil Ford's presentation on Communication for Social Change and how it can be applied to communication in general, a gentleman stood up from Botswana (and we all know Botswana has spent a ton of money and time on communication efforts against AIDS) and he represents a physician's group, I believe, in Botswana working in AIDS. And he said, "This is very exciting to see that the WHO has finally caught up with what we have been doing for five years." And then he proceeded to describe, across Botswana, the grassroots efforts where people come together and say, listen, we've got people in our community who are very sick. We've got children who have no parents because they have lost them to AIDS. We have people that could be well - what they call the Lazarus effect - that if you give them antiretroviral treatment they can, like Lazarus, suddenly turn their life around and be healthy again. And [he pointed out that] they have used this notion of community-based dialogue and decision-making, implementation and evaluation to take on the issue on their own. That for me is what the potential of the Consortium is - to actually capture many of those and share them. So that the next time we talk, there will be 35 examples that we can list. It takes time - to find them, to write them up, to really understand them - because you don't want to do just a superficial job of documenting these processes.

AG: This is very important in terms of our role, in terms of the leverage we have, because of the work that we have done over these past 7 years. We can help make visible many experiences that otherwise would remain invisible and would remain unattended by those organisations that are working in development. And in fact that we are now dialoguing with WHO, with Stop TB, with USAID, etc. and telling them, listen, this is happening already and you are still doing the top-down communication... You know, I think it helps to move the concept forward, because there are already experiences that are happening - we are not just talking empty concepts, not just theories, not just another Johns Hopkins [University] kind of ABC method of step one, step two, step three... We are kind of rescuing a concept that has been out there that hasn't been valued enough.

JH: I think [CFSC] is being validated at two levels. The visibility the approach has gained and the change in thought processes at some of the major agencies. We hope that can lead to more support for what is being done by the grassroots organisations and groups.

The CI: to advocate for them?

JH: To advocate for them, exactly - both at the level of the community and at the level of the policy-maker - in order to create space for them to carry out this kind of activity which many have been involved with for so long, without the kind of support that would make their efforts even more productive. And I think that over the last seven years of beginning to create that space we are seeing progress in terms of the organisations that now have begun to incorporate this kind of discussion - even in their requests for proposals.

DG-F: I am going to focus on this [WHO] meeting because it is fresh in my mind. One of the presenters from JHU [Johns Hopkins University] presented their new conceptual, what did they call it, communication for community or some such thing, programme - the HCP [Health Communication Partnership] programme. And it is a circle - it is the CFSC model, in a circle. And so I am sort of hyperventilating in the back of the room, and my colleague is also sitting near me, and you can see him also hyperventilating, and he says - "This is good! Think about it! This is exactly what we said we were going to do seven years ago." Which is this notion of - one of the planks of the very first meeting - "broadening the debate" and really rolling out the concepts in a bigger way, particularly among those institutions that are spending most of the money and doing communication for development.

AG: It was very seldom that you would hear "Communication for Social Change" seven years ago. Very few people would use [the phrase]. Most people would say "participatory communication" or "development communication" or "communication for development" but "communication for social change"? - now it is very much a part of the language of people working in development and in participatory communication are using.

DG-F: And even in this meeting - as you can see over this past day - even though there may not be a clear understanding conceptually of what the differences are - four or five years ago there would have been a great deal of time spent arguing about whether this was even the right terminology. There has been a more accepting notion among scholars who are pretty entrenched in what they do, there has been a more...I see a greater readiness to accept that there is something...that there is a "there" there...without having to have these debates that we saw as recently as three or four years ago.

JH: Absolutely. I heard someone say during this meeting that there has been some research out there that says "communication or communications is not the answer". And while I would agree if you take it as "communications is not the answer"...that may be valid, but probably every answer involves communication. If people work at the community level, communication is always going to be part of the solution that they come up with. And it is the continual centrality of that concept - the communication between people - that I think has emerged strongly over this meeting.

The CI: I would like to ask you a question that Warren Feek asked you back in 1998 when you were still working with The Rockefeller Foundation

DG-F: Meaning he didn't like the answer or it is still a good question?

The CI: We think it is still a good question. How do you break through the cycle of the traditional expectations of the "communication role" which may be holding back the change potential of communication interventions?

DG-F: I have a slightly different answer this time because I am, I don't know, I am back on my sort of missionary zeal at the moment. I think we, as practitioners, haven't taken enough responsibility. I have been reflecting on this for these last couple of months - this notion that our lack of acceptance, our lack of visibility within institutions, our inability to get large budgets, our inability to sort of make communication central to any institutions programme work - we often seem think this is someone else's responsibility. You know, "Those people have done something to me...they won't give me the money, they won't give me the credit, they won't include my strategies into their programmes." And I am currently thinking - when are we going to be more effective advocates for our field? And it strikes me when I listen to people in health, and in medical practice in particular, if you really want to get something done, you have to own the possibility of selling it yourself and not expect someone to give something to you. So I think that is part of the issue.

In terms of the way that communication is practiced and your question - talking about it being done in a more traditional way - I think you do that through a combination of demonstrating to people that a more expansive way of working is more effective. So you do that through demonstrating the best practices and doing research and collecting evidence of what works and how it works. With my promotional hat on, I think, you know, the best way to motivate people is when they get recognition for doing something the way you want them to do it. So, if we want the paradigm to shift from a traditional way of practicing to a more expansive way of thinking and a Communication for Social Change way, then we have got to elevate this, we have got to shine that spotlight on people when they really are making tremendous progress, at some risk, in some of these institutions. People like Neil Ford at UNICEF. It would be much, much easier, frankly, for him to hunker down and do communication the way UNICEF is comfortable doing it. And he puts himself at some risk by being the guy that is kind of out there on the edge. Our role, as the Consortium, is to give him the backup and the support and the visibility and the international "shining that spot light on" because for every person that sees and hears about what they are doing in Ethiopia and Zambia in UNICEF... Now your initial reaction, as a human being, might be - "Well why him? I'm doing interesting stuff too!" Well guess what! If you are doing some interesting stuff in the Communication for Social Change way, we are going to help you - and shine some light on it.

And I think the third way, is we have got to go directly to the decision-makers. I don't have patience anymore for working at the bottom of an organisation and trying to convince a practitioner whose got five years of experience to work differently. I am about dealing with the Dr. Roses at PAHO herself (the Secretary General) and going directly to, if not the top person - if not Jim Wolfenson [head of the World Bank] - certainly his Vice-President of External Affairs, you know the people who are right underneath that are the top decision-makers for the way this institution works. The same for foundations. I think our strategy has to be - and this is interesting, because it is not a bottom-up approach, as CFSC is - I think when you come to influencing institutions though, you really do have to look at how you influence at the top.

AG: When you think about Africa now - you mentioned UNICEF - both Africa and Latin America now at the regional level - which means the regional advisor for the whole continent - are really willing to convince their representatives and the other communication officers to get into Communication for Social Change. That will have enormous impact because UNICEF, within the United Nations, is recognised as the agency that uses more communication than the others. So this will influence the other agencies that are working in each country, in each region. After we started this work, both in Africa and in Latin America, the number of people who have written from UNICEF offices in different countries saying "Yes, we want to immediately start something like that [CFSC approach]." Very interesting.

DG-F: Not forgetting, you do have to approach this in a multi-pronged way. Early on - and I think it is still a strategy that works - we said we need to influence the next generation of practitioners. That in some ways, someone who is 50, 55, 60 years old practicing is not going to be at the same point in her career that she may even be interested in changing the way she works. But if we can influence the way that the people who are currently coming out of graduate schools think and practice... That is why, again, our university training course and our partnerships with universities become so critical. Particularly if we can strategically place them in different regions of the world. Because with that strategy, in five years, you have a whole new cadre of recent graduates who are automatically, right out the university door, thinking differently and working differently.

JH: For example, in a conversation we had recently with one of the universities, I am not sure they recognised the power they have in their alumni network to be forces for social change in the communities their graduates have returned to. When they begin to make those linkages between existing graduates in the alumni network and facilitate communication for social change processes, there is an exciting possibility for the universities to have real-world impact.

DG-F: Anything we can do to speak with academics, like here at this meeting - you know, most of them are still teaching... So you hope that with a new tool, this new anthology, and with a new sort of exposure - or not new, but a different way, opening a different window on their thinking and practice - they in turn will share that with their students and think about what they are teaching and how they are teaching it.

The CI: One last question - why the need for a heavy emphasis on community control in the CFSC methodology?

DG-F: This very young woman from South Africa was arguing with me at the recent [WHO] Geneva meeting, and her point was that conceptually, she very much liked the notion of voice and dialogue and that ownership resides in the community. But as a practitioner, she didn't think it worked to let the community "rule". For me, the question is - why not let the community rule? For me, it gets to the heart of where the knowledge lies. Does the knowledge that people need to improve their own circumstances lie outside in a Fifth Avenue office or a 43rd Street office or a Geneva office? Or does it reside right there? For me, the only answer can only be that people have what they need to...in terms of basic intelligence and capability...they have what they need in just about any community on earth. What they can use help with is additional information, additional resources, additional skills. So for me, the community has to rule. Because if you are ever going to sustain any change it has to start where people live and work and die.

AG: I think it also has to do with a wrong concept of "community". The idealisation of community - something homogenous and pure and all that. We know that when you work with any community the issue of power is within the community - there are the rich, there are the poor of the community, there is the struggle between the sectors that have economic interests. And all of this we have to take into account - this is part of what we mean when we talk about dialogue. And of course, we would like to support, within communities, democratic processes whereby representation will be the genuine representation of the majority of the community. So that is one important aspect. But basically, what Denise is saying, it is true - a lot of the knowledge, a lot of the history, the cultural values, the community can use for development. But in the past nobody has asked them about these things. And what we are saying now is let's let them dialogue at the same level as the planners, as the people who come from outside, so that they can contribute to the making of decisions. The decision-making process should be something that is done through dialogue and participation.

DG-F: And the notion that the answers are elsewhere is in my mind a very incorrect premise. Why should communication operate any differently from any other thing in one's life. When I leave the hospital with my newborn infant, I don't expect somebody in Geneva to tell me how to raise that child. I learn how to raise that child from the people that are around me - usually the people in my community, and more immediately, in my family. When you think about employment and educating your children, well maybe educating your children comes from more of a national perspective, but most of the things that are happening in your life, the normal channel of communication as well as the social norms, are resident within that community. And I think what for me is most interesting about this work is how do we better understand those so that we can piggy-back on some of those more informal communication channels to help communities deal with issues that are critical? Issues like the prevalence of AIDS or unclean water or all of the other social issues that are facing our world.

JH: One of the other reasons the community has to do it is so they can do it over again. It becomes not just "one time, one problem, one solution," but a continuous process through which the community takes what it already has, supplements what it needs, and owns a process that leads it to continually be able to meet a challenge. The community will have the capacity to continually confront the new challenge and decide what it needs for itself, and wants for itself.

DG-F: Jim uses the term "self-renewing communities", which I really like. What are the skills and outlooks and approaches that they need to use today? These will help them continually renew themselves.

The CI: Thank you.