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Health is the product of many different, but interrelated factors – biological, social, environmental, cultural and economic. Other factors are where a person lives, their level of income and what they eat. Equally important is that people have a say in the decisions that affect their well-being. Canadian Nurses Association, 2005

Health in the Commonwealth

• Incidence of HIV/AIDS in the Commonwealth is twice the world average (Commonwealth Secretariat) • The top ten national rates of infection are all Commonwealth members, save for Zimbabwe (UNAIDS) • Eight Commonwealth nations have rates above 10%, three above 20% (UNAIDS) • As many as 500 million people develop malaria each year, with 90% in sub-Saharan Africa and 6% in India. (WHO) The WHO predicts that 380 million people will develop diabetes by 2025; and in Kiribati, diabetes already accounts for 8% of deaths nationwide. (WHO)

Good health is a prerequisite for learning and earning a livelihood. Throughout the Commonwealth, disease and illness take an enormous toll on communities, their education systems, their members’ livelihoods and productivity.

COL aims to increase access to appropriate learning materials and programming by citizens, community groups and healthcare workers, enabling better community responses to maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS and other health and development challenges, particularly in remote and resource-poor areas of the Commonwealth.

Health & community development

COL’s Healthy Communities initiative takes a holistic approach to community development, one that encompasses issues of well-being and everyday quality of life as well as major health concerns. For example, we’re helping develop community-based open and distance learning (ODL) programmes to increase HIV/AIDS knowledge and treatment literacy in South Africa and Tanzania, as well as programmes that help communities learn about nutrition, addiction, and life skills like parenting and conflict resolution.

COL’s focus is determined by community needs and national priorities in different regions of the Commonwealth including 

• Maternal and child health
• HIV/AIDS: awareness, treatment literacy
• Malaria, TB, diabetes and other major illnesses
• Life skills: parenting, conflict resolution, understanding gender
• Healthy lifestyles: nutrition, moderation and fitness
• Healthy environments: waste management, sanitation

Non-formal ODL

COL’s Livelihoods and Health Sector looks at ways that the principles and practices of ODL can be applied to non-formal education, essentially helping people outside the formal education system to learn about their own health and well-being, alongside that of their communities.

Given the often low levels of literacy and basic education in our target communities, non-formal ODL requires a dynamic approach to the use of media, especially audio-visual and multimedia. The groups involved in developing and delivering non-formal education are also non-traditional, including non-governmental and community-based organisations, local public institutions, e.g. district health offices, as well as media and ICT groups.

At COL, we believe that non-formal ODL works effectively with a community orientation, both in terms of developing content and actual learning.

Further reference:

Community learning programmes

Community learning programme profile

In the Mchinji district of Malawi, COL helped bring together a community health project, the district health office and the local community radio station to design and operationalise a learning programme about maternal and child health. Phukusi la Moyo, literally Bag of Life, is a collaborative effort centred on a 30-minute weekly radio programme and a supporting network of over 200 grassroots women’s groups. For more information see the Phukusi la Moyo profile on the Community Media Space of WikiEducator. Other community learning programmes: - Jeffrey Town, Jamaica - Isabel Province, Solomon Islands - Karagwe, Tanzania - Upington, South Africa

Community learning programmes bring together local media and health/community development groups. Learning content is carried on local media channels and reinforced and monitored through face-to-face mechanisms, e.g. women’s groups, listener clubs, schools and health clinics.

Key principles of community learning programmes:

1. Address local needs with clear learning objectives
2. Collaboration between a) media, b) health/community development groups and c) education agents
3. Interactive, participatory formats
4. Face-to-face learner support
5. Driven by local resources

Further reading:

Community learning

Perspectives on the role of media in non-formal education with a case study from Mchinji District, Malawi

Capacity building

COL’s main emphasis is on developing the capacities of individuals and groups that have educational mandates and missions at the community level. Intermediaries such as healthcare and extension workers, local media and development agents, teachers and other community leaders are the keys to reaching larger and larger numbers of people with learning programmes and educational content.

Distance Training

In 2009, Farm Radio International, with support from COL and other partners, developed and ran an open and distance learning course on scriptwriting for radio, specifically about writing scripts to about farming innovation for smallholders. Over 120 broadcasters and small hold farming agents participated actively in the course, which was run as part of a larger scriptwriting competition designed to increase innovation among small hold farmers in Africa. Check out the course materials.

COL runs skills training, organisational and programme development workshops at regional, national and community levels. In 2009, COL worked with the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and staff from the International AIDS Society on a regional workshop for over 25 African broadcasters and community HIV/AIDS groups.

We are also increasingly involved in running training courses in ODL – for example, COL recently worked with Farm Radio International to develop an ODL scriptwriting course about smallholder innovations in agriculture.

Appropriate learning technologies

People learn best when they are engaged in the education process and so COL spends a lot of time thinking about how to design ODL programmes to make them learner-centred, learner-driven, interactive and relevant, making the most of appropriate media and educational technologies.

Since learning needs are greatest in remote and resource-poor areas where infrastructure, services and literacy & basic education may be severely limited, it’s essential that we consider low-cost and scalable technologies like radio that address local issues in local languages, involve local learners and teachers, and that can be driven and sustained with local resources. Given that radio remains the most accessible learning medium for the majority of the world’s poor, community radio has a special place in COL’s work.

At the same time, we’re actively exploring the opportunities offered by new technologies and philosophies, including open educational resources and other free and open source digital content, new networks made possible by the Internet, and the interactivity and unique reach of mobile phones through applied research in these areas with both academic and development partners.

Addressing gender

COL's Healthy Communities Partners

- UNESCO - Farm Radio International - World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) - Story Workshop - Media Training Centre for Health - Caribbean Institute for Media and Communication

Gender concerns crosscut all of COL’s programmes, including Healthy Communities. Health is a critical issue for women and gender considerations extend to decision-making power and access to health facilities and information. Some of our activities specifically address gender issues, e.g. helping young men and women better understand gender roles and stereotypes that contribute to underachievement, crime, teenage pregnancy and other social problems; others activities focus on empowerment through education, e.g. enabling women by increasing their knowledge of child and maternal health programme; and others aim to increase women’s participation in decision making, e.g. women leading the democratic organisational and governance structure of the Mang’elete community media centre in Kenya.