Educating and communicating for social change: a letter from Aminou.
G. Bessette · PubMed · 1999
Making information accessible is not enough to promote true awareness and learning of the kind that development requires and that will make real participation possible. In educating and communicating for social change, it is, therefore, necessary to change the content-oriented approach to one that puts the user at the focus of attention. In this paper, Aminou, a community worker within a rural literacy and cultural development center in West Africa, talks about the participatory communication for development approach and points out some of the main difficulties he has encountered in his work. He begins by explaining the concepts of development, communication for development, and community participation in the context of development projects. He then discusses the importance of developing communication practices that are focused on the people targeted by the project rather than on the message that will be delivered to them. Lastly, he relates some of the problems he encountered during his work and a few lessons he has learned.