Campaigns to End Violence against Women and Girls - Virtual ...

sub-themes for the campaign were identified, such as xenophobia, harassment and
corruption by police and immigration officials, as well as some of the root causes of
migration. Having first-hand interviews was essential to keeping the story in the radio
drama rooted in real experience (Graham, 2008).
Listen to the Dealers/Troco radio serial.
� Using different channels and different media that have the greatest chance of
producing the intended outcomes (e.g. enhanced knowledge or a specific behaviourchange).
The campaign message has greater chances to be heard if people
encounter it in different settings. Ensure the key points of the message remain clear
and unambiguous as the message is adapted to different audiences and different
media.
� Pre-testing communication materials and tools, and monitoring
communication outcomes will help ensure the audience will actually understand
the message in the intended way, and prevents wasting campaign resources. It is
advisable to share campaign tools with members of the target audiences who have
not yet been involved in campaign planning and ask them to describe what they see
and how they feel about it, how they interpret the message, and what action, if any,
they feel compelled to take. Focus group discussions are a good way to obtain such
qualitative information. If pre-testers suggest substantial changes, the
communication materials must be adapted and reviewed in a second pre-testing loop
before full-scale production. Longer brochures or reports can be broken up into
shorter sections and sent for feed-back to colleagues who may be interested in the
subject for their own work (“peer vetting”). For audio-visual materials, one can record
a “draft”, (low-cost version) for pre-testing. It is worth the effort, and can save time
and money in the longer run.
Example: A pre-testing workshop of posters for a campaign against domestic violence
in Kisumu (Kenya) yielded astonishing insights. Villagers were asked to describe what
they saw on a poster depicting a man standing in a room with a raised fist and a woman
lying by his feet. One man answered, “The man is angry because his wife is wasting
money”; others assented. Further questioning revealed that it was the elaborate braided
hair-style that distracted the community members from the key message of domestic
violence. Having one’s hair styled in that manner was considered a time-consuming
process and expensive!
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Campaigns December 2011