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Introduction
Narrow Casting is an interactive/participatory peer
education and development communication concept as
well as a tool. It is designed to inform and educate
various target audiences on sexual health issues,
including HIV/AIDS, using entertainment as a vehicle.
Specifically, narrow casting uses the power of television
plus the advantages inherent in interpersonal communication
and interactive participation to educate specific
target groups.
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Tsha
Tsha is a South African entertainment education
drama series that focuses on the universe of
young people living in a world affected by the
realities of HIV/AIDS. |
Background
Over the years, development interventions have explored
the peer-to-peer concept to reach specific target
audiences. This has been the case especially for youth
programmes; and peer education as a concept has been
applied in different contexts and environments. In
the course of our work in Nigeria at Youthaid Projects
Incorporated, we discovered, however, that trained
peer educators experienced challenges in educating
their peers due, as they put it, to the “dry”
nature of just talking to young people or groups of
young people, addressing meetings or giving awareness-raising
talks that sounded way too didactic (Youth Agenda
Summit 2002).
At Youthaid, we saw this as a challenge, especially
when we also realised that behaviour change is not
an event but a process. Seeking to address this challenge
led to the development of two television programmes.
It also became clear to us that television programmes
that are not backed or supported by off-air interpersonal
communication components can hardly bring about the
desired behaviour change.
This thinking led to the development of drama presentations
targeted at in-school and out-of-school youths. Again,
we found that with this concept, because the presentations
are usually one-off presentations per project site,
they lacked the support, the ingredients that that
the peer educators craved.
We returned to the drawing board because of the need
to develop a concept that would combine the advantages
of drama as an entertainment-education medium, the
use of technological innovation provided by television,
plus the facilitation capacities of trained peer educators.
The end result of responding to these various challenges
is the Narrow Cast concept.
To this end, the Narrow Cast multimedia option of
using an educative television drama serial on HIV/AIDS
and Adolescent Reproductive Health (ARH) issues was
realised. The advantages of the Narrow Cast format
includes the fact that it is produced specifically
for targeted age groups, and it gives the young people
the opportunity to reap the benefits of facilitation,
be entertained while learning. In addition the Narrow
Cast sessions are coordinated by trained youth facilitators,
using appropriate off-air behaviour change communication
materials and these activities are sustained over
a period of time. This format allows for indictors
for the measurement of behaviour change.
The Concept
The Narrow Casting concept as stated earlier, combines
the known advantages of television as a major source
of information on sexuality issues for young people
and the advantages of interpersonal communication.
These are further reinforced by facilitated viewing
sessions of a drama serial produced for television
and played back on a specific day of the week, at
a specific time of the day, over a period of time
which is dependent on the number of episodes in the
drama serial being used. The beauty of the Narrow
Cast concept is that there is a high probability of
having the same audience watch every episode of the
production till the end of a particular serial (This
consistency in viewing behaviour is powered or sustained
by the sheer quest to find out what happens ‘next’).
The facilitated viewing sessions provide the young
people with the opportunity for interactions including
question and answer sessions, the chance to make contributions
and to seek clarifications. The facilitated sessions
also enable participants to access coordinated HIV
voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) services and
referrals which can be monitored and evaluated in
a more specific and accurate manner for behaviour
change; much more than is possible through a broadcast
process.
The audience participating in a Narrow Cast session
is expected to be a ‘captive’ audience,
which is school-, church- or community centre-based.
Such an audience is expected back each time an episode
is aired for a number of reasons: because of their
inherent desire to know what happens “next”
to some of the characters they like, because of the
lure of multimedia and again because of the exchange
that can be enjoyed with peers as well as the trained
facilitators. The advantages of the Narrow Cast over
the broadcast media also include the absence of programmes
that run simultaneously on various television channels
that usually compete for the attention of the young
viewers; the availability of a generating set at the
viewing centres to counter the problem of power failure;
and the opportunity for discussions and clarifications
that Narrow Casting offers.
Expected Outcomes
This process is expected to empower adolescents and
young people with information and education on sexuality
issues in a manner that is culturally acceptable and
would enable them to assess their HIV infection risk
factors and therefore imbibe or practice abstinence
behaviours. For yet others, it promotes the use of
VCT services.
The process is also expected to ignite the creative
abilities in the target group such that they direct
their energies into putting into practice what they
have learnt, or advocating for what they expect or
what they want done about the various situations and
challenges that young people face as far as sexuality
issues; including HIV/AIDS and relationships are concerned.
They then express their ideas through paintings, songs,
poems and dramas that they can share for the benefit
of themselves and their peers. This would also ultimately
allow both adults and youth and other stakeholders
working on adolescent and youth issues to have a privileged
peep into the minds of their target audience. Thus,
programmers and others can understand how the youth
think, their feelings and struggles and can respond
effectively to these.
Successful Pilots
Two pilots of the Narrow Cast concept have been conducted.
One was implemented in an in-school setting using
Tsha Tsha, a 39-episode television drama
serial on HIV/AIDS, produced by CADRE and the South
Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
One hundred and sixty seven (167) students participated
and one hundred and fifty seven (157) viewed all the
26 episodes that were presented. The second pilot
took place in a community centre (a church) using
King Ubika: A Harvest of Whirlwinds, a 24-episode
drama serial also on HIV/AIDS, produced by Family
Health International (FHI) in Nigeria. Eighty-four
(84) young people aged 14-26 years participated. Seventy-two
(72) of them viewed all the episodes.
The outcomes of these pilot projects have been so
encouraging that presently, there are 25 centres in
four states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja,
in Nigeria. Of these 25 centres, ten are in Lagos
State in the southwest of Nigeria and funded under
World Bank-assisted HIV funds. Eight of the centres
are located in educational institutions (six are at
the tertiary level and two at the secondary level)
and two centres are located within community centres.
For further details on the Narrow Cast concept and
outcomes of the pilot projects, contact Youth Projects
Inc., PO Box 5785, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria. Tel: 234-1-4735422
/ 234-8023133383. Email:
richieadewusi@yahoo.com
* Richie Adewusi, Ph.D., the Executive Director,
Youthaid Projects Inc., in Lagos, Nigeria
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