Literacy and Empowerment is a partner of ActionAid that developed out of Reflect training in 1998, now implementing Reflect circles in 25 villages in Kabarole region of SW Uganda. The organisation currently supports 20 trained facilitators working in 11 village-level circles, mostly involving women, and 6 peer circles for adolescents in local primary schools. In an area where education is a key indicator of marginalisation and poverty, literacy has been the obvious entry point for Reflect. However, issues arising from the Reflect circles have included poverty, disease, and power.
Reflect circle in Kabarole
The focus of Reflect in
Kabarole:
HIV/AIDS has been an important element of Reflect work in the area, and links
have been made with Strategies for Action, a participatory approach to HIV,
sexual health and gender. The school circles were developed for adolescents
to share information and attitudes around sexual health and HIV with their
peers away from their parents. Another major component has been agriculture,
as income is a major issue.
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Information sharing and generation through Reflect:
Information is currently shared through:
- Reflect circles: where people share information and analyse issues directly, and facilitators meet regularly to share lessons and strategies;
- Drama groups: have been trained to formulate and communicate issues;
- Videos are distributed from district level with key messages on issues including HIV/AIDS and agriculture. They can be costly to distribute and are often produced in other districts or countries;
- Religious centres: can be used to disseminate information, including through sermons, counselling services, burials, visits to the sick etc. There are 47 religious centres in an area of only 25 villages;
It is envisaged that ICT project will add value in terms of:
- Documentation of work done at circle level, so as to enable sharing, access, secondary analysis and monitoring;
- Dissemination of information and analysis to decision-makers;
- Strengthening local democracy, including budget information and analysis, involving people in government programme planning and implementation;
- Strengthening micro-macro linkages, adding outreach to district level initiatives, developing local materials for dissemination, linking reality on the ground to policy making;
- Networking and sharing with other organisations and associations to avoid duplication, including Youth Concern;
- Building on existing communication work through,
for example:
- combining radio, video and telephone for phone-ins - people can ask questions, anonymously if necessary, for the benefit of all;
- replacing or complementing existing information
videos with locally produced versions;
To contact the Uganda pilot please email: Mr Maiso Grace Williams, Reflect ICT Pilot Coordinator
Read more about the Reflect ICT Uganda pilot on the Communication Initiative website
Sugar growing as a result of Reflect discussions