“Herstory: Women working in corrections” book  tells the stories of pioneering women working in prisons in Solomon Islands and how collectively they fought for women to be considered equal to men in the male-dominated security sector. Sukwadi Media worked with the CSSI Women’s Network over nine months on this participatory research and media project to bring the book and a film to fruition, with funding support from Australian Government.

The book HerStoryis the collective story of 24 women who worked in prisons and correctional services from 1986 to the present day. These women have a combined total of 377 years of service to CSSI. It is the first time Pacific correctional officers have published their own history of service.

Free download e-version is available: http://d1009381.my.ozhosting.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Herstory-Booklet-FINAL_BLEED2.pdf

Riots broke out in Solomon Islands on 24 April following the parliament’s controversial election of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare. Despite the country peacefully holding its first elections since the end of the regional assistance mission earlier this month, frustration with the political system has been fomenting for some time and the riots were targeted with political meaning, as argued in a submission for the Australian Institute of International Affairs “Australian Outlook”: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/riots-solomon-islands-day-after/

In a recent article for the Australian Institute of International Affairs, Dr Anouk Ride argues that donors need to be more cognizant of, and responsive to, local conflict risks in where and how infrastructure is delivered. Using the example of Solomon Islands, she tracks the impacts of previous infrastructure decisions on conflict and gender equality in the local context. Read more: http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/infrastructure-conflict-and-the-pacific-risks-and-realities/

An analysis of the impact of the switch in bilateral relations from Taiwan to China is provided today in a new article by Dr Anouk Ride published in Australian Outlook, the online publication of the Australian Institute of International Affairs. An outline is given of implications of the switch for conflict, with some guidance about how donors can respond and encourage early intervention in conflicts which could arise in Solomon Islands in the next few years. Read the article online: http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/after-the-switch-the-new-china-solomon-ties-conflict-and-international-aid/

At the inaugural Native Lens Film Festival in Honiara, a team of local    and international judges awarded the film “Herstory: Women working in corrections” coproduced by the Correctional Services  Solomon Islands (CSSI) Women’s Network and Sukwadi Media the  award for Best Feature Film 2019. Herstory is a participatory  documentary film that tells the stories of pioneering women who were  the first to work in prisons in Solomon Islands. These women tell their  personal stories of achievement and how they collectively fought for  women’s rights in a once male-dominated workplace.

Dr Anouk Ride, co-producer initially accepted the award on behalf of the film-making team then, at a ceremony yesterday, this award was formerly handed over by co-producer Wendy Gebe to the CSSI Commissioner.

A new report “Women’s Experiences of Family Violence Services in Solomon Islands”  was launched today in Honiara as part of the celebrations for the 16 Days of Activism  Against Gender Based Violence. The Solomon Islands Government has taken a number  of measures including the gazetting of the Family Protection Act 2014 (FPA) in April  2016. Three years later, this research discovers women’s sense of safety and satisfaction  with family violence services including courts, counselling and refuges, health services  and the most often used service: police. The findings are based on qualitative analysis  of approximately 10% of all service users: a total of 126 interviews with service users  across five provinces, plus 24 interviews with service provider staff. The findings  triangulate violence survivors’ perspectives on service provision, situational factors and  personal agency in order to provide recommendations for the future of the FPA system.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE REPORT ONLINE

Women still lack adequate influence in setting security agendas, yet there is evidence that significant gains can occur when a more gender-sensitive and inclusive approach is taken, Anouk Ride and Meg Keen write in this analysis on Policy Forum: https://www.policyforum.net/too-few-boots-on-the-ground/

In a recent article in Policy Forum, Dr Anouk Ride and Gina Kekea outline how the State of Emergency in Solomon Islands is creating problems of governance and trust of civil society in the ability of government to uphold their citizen’s interests. The article also points to critical reviews of use of emergency powers by other Solomon academics and institutions. Read more here: https://www.policyforum.net/together-or-apart-against-covid-19-the-solomon-islands-state-of-emergency/

Although as of June 1, 2020, Solomon Islands had no coronavirus cases, there was a national economic recession plus restrictions on people’s movement, gatherings, education and business activities. For rural areas, two of the biggest changes have been increased circulation of people—those who moved out of Honiara and back to the provinces—and reduced cash flow. A new report by WorldFish Solomon Islands details what this means for fish, local fisheries mangement and food security across a sample of rural communities in the country. Read the report here: https://www.worldfishcenter.org/content/changes-and-adaptations-village-food-systems-solomon-islands-rapid-appraisal-during-early and a summary of findings on Devpolicy https://devpolicy.org/coastal-fisheries-in-a-pandemic-solomon-island-and-vanuatu-experiences-20200729/

Authored by local researchers in five countries and edited by Prof. Diane Bretherton and Dr Anouk Ride, “Community resilience in Natural Disasters” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) is gaining renewed interest in times of COVID19 where communities are dealing with an unprecedented health crisis and differential access of support from government and international actors. The book details how aid and government interventions can help or hurt local community resilience in disasters (including chapters and cases from Kenya, Indonesia, Pakistan, Solomon Islands ,Myanmar, Mexico and Australia) and is currently available directly from the publisher https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230114289 and from major retailers including Target USA https://www.target.com/p/community-resilience-in-natural-disasters-by-anouk-ride-diane-bretherton-hardcover/-/A-80966315

Hero-ine, a short action film, questions who are the heroes around us in cases of family violence? The Solomon-made production by Sukwadi Media was launched as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence with local family violence service Family Support Centre on November 30. It has since become one of the most-watched Solomon films of 2019 and been screened at the Native Lens Film Festival, along with other Pacific films produced under the film4gender project of the Pacific Community Filmmaking Consortium. Watch the film here: Hero-ine_Short Action Film – YouTube

Dr Anouk Ride was invited to be part of a special edition of Development Bulletin on security with an article “Solomon Islands Long Summer of Discontent: Security Challenges” available online today: https://lnkd.in/gu2-en4 The edition is produced by the Development Studies Network in close collaboration with, and support from, the Australia Pacific Security College, ANU. Thirty respected Pacific Island and international academics, development and security professionals provide a wide-ranging exploration of the unique and urgent security needs of Pacific Island nations in the special edition, which is open access and available to all to read.

Communications products are seen as the burps of the development sector – after the project recipe is finalised, some activities are underway, an agreed set of communications products will be defined and burped out, a result of the “main meal” which is the project activities. As burps, there is often less foresight and planning, and the idea amongst the project designers that “anyone” can do it: project staff often having communications added to the list of their other tasks.

I’ve been working in this field in different capacities for around twenty years, as a journalist on the receiving end of these burps, as a communications officer making materials as required by my employer, and as a researcher trying to evaluate the effects of communications on individuals or groups of people’s knowledge, behaviour change, or particular attitudes. The following is my distillation of what I have learnt being surrounded by the many communication burps of the development sector.

The easiest mistake to make doing communications in development sector is to not understand your audience: what their knowledge level is, what they care about, what information sources they trust and what kinds of information they want and need. Some good examples of investing in understanding your audience in Solomon Islands, where I live, include Information in Natural Disasters, a report in which communications materials were tested with disaster affected communities to find out useful information like people did not want to be talked down to, disliked cartoons as a form of communication about serious issues and thought hiding under the table during an earthquake was terrible advice.

What NGO workers assume people know, think and how they communicate can be different from reality, and, in a culturally diverse population like Solomon Islands, it is imperative to check how messages are received. For instance, I was involved in Solomon Islands’ first social marketing study into attitudes and communication on violence against women and girls. We talked to 200 people across different cultures and situations and found that local people had many messages that they thought worked to stop or prevent violence – 324 messages but almost all of them different from those used by iNGOs. We need more organisations to tap into local messages that work, rather than trying to design slogans from head office. Messages identified from that piece of research that were seen as most effective in preventing or stopping violence are now being spread through mass communications to address high rates of family violence.

The second easiest mistake is to forget about the audience and please your boss. If you work for an organisation in which your managers believe you have to explain in each communication the organisation, the project aims, the Sustainable Development Goals and whatever higher-level policy led to the project, you will have little room to actually communicate your message.

The third most common mistake is not to test communications products using research. As a result, what the donor and development management professionals think is great, is often what is least effective and appropriate. For example, individual “success” stories or “faces” of particular issues that “personalise the issue”. Often international NGOs believe that an individual woman talking will inspire women in the audience to achieve, advocate or act on an issue. However, my own internal testing indicates Solomon women will often focus in on following features of the person profiled: their education (particularly if they were schooled overseas, or at a private school), influential people the woman is related to (usually politicians or former politicians) and their ethnicity or tribe’s status. That woman is judged relationally before her message is heard, and often status and relationality can overtake message in what is retained by the audience. Younger women will talk about how young women who speak publicly take the risk of any small “mistake”, like wearing certain clothes or posting something frivolous on Facebook, is amplified and used to shame and humiliate them. “Inspiration” stories can work, but they need to be pitched right and tested properly, to avoid negative flak for the people profiled, who may be unprepared to be the “face” of climate change, or gender equality or whatever topic in the story.

The final mistake in development communications is to be so creative that you are creating another world rather than designing communications for the real world. This often happens when expatriate communications staff are riding the “innovation” and “technology” wave, to get funding for new communication outputs. For instance, some of the more ridiculous pitches I have heard in development meetings the last ten years include “street art” in Pacific villages (until it was pointed out most people live in houses made out of timber and dried leaf panels, with few fences, so there were no public walls to adorn with spray paint). Another idea was to build a computer generated “person” or “bot” that women violence survivors could call for advice (when many women in violent relationships do not have their own personal phones and also have apprehension about using services that needs breaking down through human interaction).

Communications in the development sector will probably always be relegated to the burps, but a good burp (or series of ones) can be deeply satisfying. Communications that release local messages, in the most appropriate format, using pre-existing modes of communication and information sharing can be useful for knowledge and social change.

Dr Anouk Ride is a researcher on aid, development, conflict and social inclusion, and is based in Solomon Islands. She is an Affiliate Researcher with Australian National University and a Social Scientist with WorldFish.

Originally published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/development-communications-how-burp-well-dr-anouk-ride/