Women Connect! - Eastern and Southern Africa

This initiative sought to help women's organisations use all forms of media to communicate and advocate for the causes they felt were important in their communities, including reproductive health rights, gender-based violence, inheritance rights, and women's participation in government.

Specifically, the project worked with groups to develop effective communication strategies using traditional and mass media. The project also connected participating groups to email and the Internet to allow them to network with each other and with other groups around the world, sharing problems and solutions. This strategy included training workshops and the provision of project grants to 26 NGOs in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Uganda. The grant awards allowed groups to implement pilot communications projects suited to their needs, including:

• Downloading health information from the Internet and repackaging it for bi-weekly email updates to local health service providers and NGOs that lacked updated resource materials.
• Producing a community newsletter soliciting narratives on local approaches to HIV/AIDS education and care, primary health care needs, and economic development projects.
• Producing health programmes on three radio stations – one providing health tips and one featuring dialogue and problem solving with a local personality.
• Training staff in email use for networking and online advocacy.
• Conducting HIV/AIDS outreach to disabled women, who are often left out of national HIV campaigns and often have limited knowledge of prevention of STIs and available services.
• Carrying out a media campaign aimed to increase reproductive and sexual health information and services to adolescents.

Development Issues
Women; Rights; Family Planning; HIV/AIDS; Health; Economic Development; Political Development; Youth.

Faced with limited financial resources in an era of increasing social problems, women's organisations in developing nations must find ways to utilise both traditional media to reach their rural audiences and digital media for international audiences to get their messages out and improve women's health and well-being.

The dissemination of Women Connect! evaluation findings and the significant activities of participating NGOs began in January 2002. Here are examples of the outcomes in terms of women's health among participating NGOs:

• Two NGOs launched Internet cafés in Zimbabwe and Uganda, focusing on training for women and women's organisations. They also trained women parliamentarians.
• Nine NGOs conducted media campaigns and produced media materials on health promotion, disease prevention (including HIV/AIDS), promotion of women in leadership roles, and advocacy to reduce violence against women.
• Eight NGOs became connected to the Internet and acquired an email account allowing them to network more efficiently with other women's groups and lobby online for social change.
• Fourteen NGOs received advanced training on the use of email and the Internet.
• Five NGOs developed web sites to share programme objectives and successful programme strategies.
• Six NGOs acquired Internet research skills allowing them to locate, analyse, and adapt health information for repackaging into traditional media printed in local languages.

Two dissemination workshops were held in February, 2002 in Uganda and Zimbabwe with project grantees to discuss the findings from the evaluation report. Informal as well as formal presentations on the project have been conducted, and have included a screening of a short video profiling five of the Women Connect! NGOs. The videos are expected to be placed on The Annenberg Center (University of Southern California) site.

Programme highlights include:

• Zimbabwe Women's Resource Center and Network (ZWRCN) plans to train grassroots women in IT skills, and to offer IT training in schools. They are also considering setting up IT facilities in rural communities.
• ZWRCN indicated that prior to 1999 (when Women Connect! began), most African countries were lagging behind in Internet access. Now that all countries have access, the programme focus will be shifted to an exploration of how the Internet can impact the lives of women.

The Pacific Institute for Women's Health is strategising on ways to build upon the network of women's NGOs in the three project countries so that it may conduct new projects in women's reproductive and sexual health and rights.