COUV ACTES - Psychologie communautaire

Community Psychology: Common Values, Diverse Practicesmembers, they tend to gossip about women who have been abused. The respondents saw that gossiping washindering not only survivors’ help-seeking but also community members’ candid dialogue about IPV as acommunity problem. This information prompted us to address the difference between gossip and discussion thatpromotes awareness among people in one’s social network, and to design campaign messages and activities topromote the latter type of discussion of IPV. During the campaign activities, we often pointed out thepervasiveness of gossip, which resonated with the experience of many of the event participants. This served as apoint of initiating a dialogue, not a gossip, about IPV among event participants.Informed by findings from the formative research, as well as ongoing discussions with CAT members andconsultation and discussion with community leaders, we determined the campaign’s target populations,objectives, main strategies and messages. Prior to developing campaign materials, we conducted concepttesting. The concept testing was another important means through which we obtained community feedbackregarding the campaign concepts, approaches and messages to further strengthen their socio-cultural relevance.We created multi-media campaign materials in English and Gujarati, including posters, brochures, and print andradio public service announcements (PSAs). We distributed these materials through various media channels andcommunity venues, such as radio, Internet, publications of community-based organizations, and communityevents. In addition, we created various opportunities open to all interested community members to further developtheir knowledge and skills in IPV prevention. For example, we hosted film and theatrical presentations, trainingsessions and small informal discussion group meetings, where participants were encouraged to engage ininteractive discussions of IPV and how to prevent it. Furthermore, we worked with the leadership of communityandfaith-based organizations to engage them in discussions of IPV prevention. These discussions were aimed atstrengthening their interests, knowledge and skills in IPV prevention so that these organizational leaders, in turn,would initiate, sustain and expand prevention activities at their respective organizations.As we developed the campaign messages, we were faced with tension between theories, empirical data, andcommunity perspectives. On the one hand, feminist theories and previous studies of IPV (Ahmad, Riaz, Barata, &Stewart, 2004) pointed to a strong association between patriarchal attitudes and IPV perpetration. Thus,prevention of IPV needs to challenge the patriarchal ideology and associated traditions and practices (e.g., rigidgender roles). On the other hand, our formative research and ongoing meetings with community leaders andmembers repeatedly found a considerable degree of reluctance, and outright opposition in some cases, toaddress and change “traditions.” To avoid the risk of alienating the very audience we hoped to engage, we soughtways to elucidate patriarchal aspects of family and community practices so that community members can begin torecognize the role of some aspects of traditions in supporting IPV and explore ways to change them, while stillvalidating the importance of many aspects of their traditions.The formative research and ongoing discussions with CAT members and community informants identified thecentral importance of the concept of respect in family and community relationships. Although expectation ofrespect for those in power was often used to support hierarchical family and community structures, we realizedthat the importance of respect can be used to promote egalitarian couple/family relationships. Specifically, wedeveloped campaign messages by incorporating the notion of respect: “everyone deserves respect, regardless159