During
May 2004, Fred (project Coordinator) visited the 91 Reflect circles in Ruyigi
province to share some of the learning from the India exchange visit. In India
Reflect work is well organised and fast moving and members are very active and
conscious of their work. In India the caste is a crucial issue - with an upper
caste in charge of management of the country's policies, middle-castes and lower
castes which have little or no access to land, education and other resources.
Partnerships:
In a matrix of appropriate sources of information undertaken by facilitators
and correspondents, radio was ranked as number one. We have therefore negotiated
a partnership with Radio Isanganiro to facilitate communication between communities
and exchange on the mechanisms for development and reconciliation in our country.
According to this contract, journalists from Radio Isanganiro will visit Reflect
circles in Ruyigi to gather ideas and record testimonies on peace and reconciliation
and development in general. This will feed into programmes aimed at Burundians
living as refugees in Tanzania, to encourage them to return home.
Another partnership concerns UNICEF's efforts against the proliferation of weapons and mines. UNICEF want to provide materials to facilitators, for them to diffuse messages and encourage discussion and action in their communities, in collaboration with the zonal development committees. This shows that facilitators and EJO correspondents are recognised and respected information sources, based on Reflect work since the outbreak of the Burundian crisis in 1993.
Another potential partnership is ASI (African Strategy Impact) funded by USAID who do not have facilitators to work with the community. They are offering to help out with the ICT project, with transport for trainings for example. I am discussing with them about the feasibility of this engagement, to encourage NGO collaboration.
Reflect
activities:
Reflect circles are going well in their daily activities towards development,
and in particular peace and reconciliation. We organized refresher training
for EJO correspondents and facilitators of all ethnic groups to go over some
of the activities that were planned last year. Participants also shared learning
about the Reflect and ICTs project from the first training.
Participants of the training worked together on a plan of activities for second quarter 2004. This will include purchase of audio-visual equipment within Reflect circles. A second refresher training will take place in July.
At present, the Reflect circles are dealing with very interesting topics, and it is good season for visits from the ICT team. Many ex-combatants and repatriated persons are just joining the circles and these have good communication and testimonies.
Why EJO correspondents?
EJO Correspondents have been made central to the new communications systems
because they already work within a structure to gather information within the
community. Over 36% of EJO correspondents are Reflect facilitators. This builds
on existing work of ActionAid, strengthening information and ideas sharing elements
of their work.
August 2003:
At this stage, the pilot is focusing on analysis of access to information at village level. Having developed a holistic framework for thinking about sources of and access to information, Reflect participants surveyed what information is and how it can change one's life.
Reflect participants commented on the limitations to accessing reliable information, particularly around the role of administrative officials. Because of the conflict in Burundi, all information must be first received by administrative officers who verify it and then communicate it on, with great power implications. In particular, it is felt that information from different sources is not given equal importance under this system, and the degree of access and exposure depends on power and wealth. Bernard Mayunzuguru (Nyakabanda Reflect facilitator) said:
"It is deeply embarrassing for the community not to have a right to say what they think, and no one in this country seems to be able to agree on anything. When you are a politician you suppose yourself to know everything. It is easy to be discouraged by day-to-day difficulties but eventually those difficulties will be resolved one day."
Finally participants identified many sources of information and means to access them. The main sources of information were: Radio, Television, Newspapers, Telephone, Cinema and Internet. The following matrix is a compilation from the 69 circle reports, showing that while letters and radio are important, cinema and the internet are rarely used by Reflect participants, and more generally poor and marginalised Burundians.
Sources of information . Total Place
1. Newspaper ---- 3rd
2. Television ---- 4th
3. Radio ---- 2nd
4. Letters ---- 1st
5. Internet ---- 6th
6. Cinema ---- 5th
The next phase will be to identify the needs and potential
for documenting local knowledge, and based on all of this analysis to develop
a plan for the resource centres of phase two.
Since their training in May and June, the 91 facilitators are now beginning to take their learning back to their communities. You can read the full report of the training here...
In a country like Burundi all consultation must be agreed by the Governor of the province in order to avoid subversive action in times of conflict. The Reflect ICTs Coordinator, Fred Munyampeta, has therefore written to local administrators requesting authorisation for community meetings to explain the project in depth. Once the authorisation is received, the facilitators will be able to begin to explain to Reflect groups and their communities the aims and processes of the project. Also under development is a plan of action which will serve as a reference point so that Reflect participants can begin to exchange with the help of facilitators, on the first theme of analysing how information can add value or give power.
In particular there are three themes developing: the value
and power of information; access to information; and the documentation of local
knowledge. Conversations in the Coordination office and from different Reflect
circles show that this first theme is very interesting for Reflect participants,
to establish the difference between information and news. People say "information
is what is in the newspaper" because they take the literal translation
of the word 'information' from the Kirundi 'Amakuru' which does not distinguish
between the newspaper and the information within it, or between the facts and
the reporting. The facilitators will begin work on this first theme according
to the plan of action.
June 2003:
Training
of Reflect facilitators: The training of facilitators was conducted in two
series respectively for 45 (May) and 46 (June). The focus for this update is
the last that was hold in June in Ruyigi. 46 attended the training which make
91 (that is 32 women and 59 men) facilitators that represent the number of collines
(village) where AAB support Reflect programme. Although the coverage is 100%,
it is however of 52% of the total facilitators as we have in many cycles two
groups of participants in each colline. As the first group, the discussion and
analysis were around the following themes:
In order to promote discussions and analysis, PRA tools were used. Throughout the workshop, the training did not only provide knowledge and tools but also a raising awareness of facilitators on number of issues such as gender and development, peace and development as related to information and communication.
In terms of access to information and information gaps, in general, women and vulnerable are the most lacking information and communication means, particularly, the elderly, widowers and orphans. Whereas men have the monopoly of information and communication particularly administrative authorities and community local leaders, this because either for their power and or their responsibilities that require information. However after discussion, it is clear that the lack of access to information for women is mainly because of lack of gender sensitivity and acknowledgement of the role of women in development.
It was interesting to note that if there is a need, people fight to get information no matter economic and social barriers. From examples shared by facilitators who fled either to Tanzania as refugees or to internal camps, information was very crucial, as they wanted to be updated on the situation at home. The value of information also depends on the source, for example, IDPs (internal displaced peoples) rely and trust information from their home administrators more than their neighbours whereas refugees, although they listen to Burundi and Tanzanian radio broadcasts, crosscheck news by listening to BBC broadcasts in Kirundi and Swahili.
In terms of means of communicating information, radio was the most used and accessible followed by newspapers and television and letters. The newspaper and television were highly scored (see matrix) mainly because of "EJO" (a community peace building, reconciliation and development newspaper initiated by AAB) and television because of the mobile TV for peace and development initiated by AAB as an audiovisual tool for peace and reconciliation. Other communication technology were also mentioned but very low ranked because they know that it exist but they cannot access them either because it is expensive or because it requires some skills, competencies and electricity such internet, telephone and cinema. Although it doesn't appear on the matrix, bicycles were also mention as a communication tool only because it is used to disseminate information (letters and newspapers).
Action Plan: The action plan is the framework for ICT integration into Reflect. Facilitators every week will organise session around the main themes and it was suggested to go beyond Reflect participants and include all key community stakeholders so that the implementation of findings will be then easier benefit everybody. See attached the framework matrix.
The Pamoja conference: Fidele (reflect contact person) and Esperance a Community Development Worker (CDW) attended the Eastern and Horn of Africa conference and presented the Burundi ICT experience. According to Fidele, most of participants don't believe on the ICT to rural community and could not believe on the success of such a programme, after discussions and information on Burundi experience, it has raised interest to a number of participants and recommended to visit Burundi to learn from the ground.
July main activities: For July, the main activity will
the follow-up and supervision of facilitators and time allows training for all
field staff on the same modules that were covered for facilitators so that they
can participate fully in the project.
The Burundi Reflect ICTs team consists
officially of Salvatore and Fred, although all field workers in the pilot area
of Ruyigi are involved directly in the project. It is exciting for the team
because while they all bring knowledge and experience of relevant areas including
Reflect, PRA and development, they are all learning on the job.
… training: The Burundi team held a very successful residential training of 44 facilitators this month. The participants were all very excited about the project and felt that the link between information, power and poverty was very relevant to their work, and had previously been overlooked. Salvatore was sure to keep all the participants on track to make sure that rather than actual planning, what was achieved was a true participatory planning process engaging the most marginalised members of the target communities.
Analysis was based around issues as identified and laid out in the resource pages, available on the website - namely: The value of information; what makes information useful; documentation of local knowledge; access to information; and identifying information gaps. Facilitators had lots of ideas about the types of information, which would be of use in their context and how this might be accessed. Popular suggestions included innovative use of audio-visual equipment, newsletters and a community post service.
In particular participants were interested to think about who is most vulnerable to the lack of information, including women, youth and elderly and refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs), what the barriers are to their access to information and potential solutions. Anastasia, one of the Reflect facilitators, summed up her experience:
"at home we have a radio, the most popular means for getting information it is actually the man's tool for both information and socialisation. At the time for national news, my husband takes it away to the local pub where he meets other men and when he is back, I am forced to follow programs that are for his interest and not necessary for me. Even if he has travelled, I am not allow to use it because of fear of breaking it and cannot decide to purchase batteries. In addition, we women are so overloaded to the point we cannot have free time for radio. So we are very disadvantaged."
Facilitators will integrate the resource pages into their existing Reflect modules
and plans, and will attend regular monthly meetings at local level to discuss
what is being achieved, develop the modules according to the context and practice
and review what findings and observations are coming out of the analysis. This
will eventually feed into the working plan for resource centres to be implemented
in phase two of the project starting January 2004. Training for a further 45
facilitators is scheduled for 17th to 19th June.
… security: Insecurity is still a big issue in Burundi, with the pilot area of Ruyigi under a lot of strain. Reflect groups are continuing in most places, although with reduced participation in some cases. However, Reflect is able to continue in part because of its ability to adapt to, and deal with, the current context. Groups are discussing, analysing and acting on issues of insecurity, rumour and mistrust.
Team building: Regarding the ICT-Reflect coordinator recruitment, four candidates were short listed, three attended both a written and oral interview and Fred-Soustin MUNYAMPETA was finally selected for the job. He is just graduated from the university of Burundi with a degree in Geography. He has not much professional experience but he has a very good understanding of poverty issues, research experience and REFLECT. He was a the winner of the ActionAid Africa Strategy (INGENDO) competition among students, was paid the trip to Accra where INGENDO was launched, he also had one year internship with AAB and he is joining AAB after a few month research for UNICEF in Rwanda.
As ICT-REFLECT is concerned he will be undertaking a good induction and orientation on the project and some key items of the package have been translated into French so that he can have full understanding of the project, with all of our support he will catch up very quickly.
Project work: The project is getting exciting. Fred is in Ruyigi for induction on Reflect and this coincides with a reflect training of about 81 facilitators, so he is taking advantage of this activity to introduce the project. We developed a small checklist for updating information on Reflect in Ruyigi, particularly the contribution of reflect in mitigating the impact of current increase of insecurity in Ruyigi. The small survey will serve also as a baseline information for the project.
Fred and the Ruyigi team are working on a detailed budget for training workshops for facilitators that are scheduled this May. As mentioned the training material has been translated into French and Kirundi both as training material and handouts. Click here to see trainslated copies.