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Ku Saurara! (Listen Up!) Project, Phase II
PROJECT OVERVIEW
 The Ku Saurara! (Listen Up!) Project, Phase II, took place between 2003 and 2005 in 12 states in northern Nigeria, following the project’s first phase. It was implemented by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (CCP), in collaboration with the African Radio Drama Association (ARDA), NewAge Network, and a consortium of northern adolescent reproductive health service providers, opinion leaders, and Youth Serving Organizations (YSOs). Funding was provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Ku Saurara! (KS) continued work begun in Phase I on HIV/AIDS prevention and prevention of unintended pregnancy, particularly in behavior change communication, with the strategic addition of two key audience groups: service providers and traditional community leaders. Phase II also shifted to emphasize increasing demand for and access to adolescent RH (ARH) services.
OBJECTIVES/STRATEGIES
Similar to Phase I, KS Phase II was designed to promote healthy behaviors among young people ages 10 to 24, enhance the policy environment for adolescent reproductive health, and improve the capacity of YSO to support adolescent reproductive health activities. Specifically, Phase II activities addressed the following objectives:
- Reproductive health information and services available to youth,
- Promotion of early reproductive health decision making, and
- Increase in popular awareness of and promotion of positive policies to reduce reproductive health risks through public education and advocacy.
RESEARCH
Evaluation data suggest that KS Phase II program activities had significant impact in changing the reproductive health attitudes of the target audience. Compared to the results of Phase I evaluation, exposure to the campaign increased in Phase II, and exposure was linked with increased knowledge and more positive attitudes towards family planning. Campaign exposure was also linked to increased use of modern family planning, including condoms. While women’s exposure did not increase as much as men, the impact on them was significantly greater – an encouraging statistic showing a particularly receptive audience in young women. The evaluation also asked the “Akwai Mafita!” audience about the video and found audience members overwhelmingly liked it and found it to be both entertaining and informative.
ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS
 Radio Variety Show
Phase II saw production of 52 new episodes of the weekly, half hourKS Radio Variety Show. The format remained similar to that of Phase I including music, two dynamic hosts, a quiz question and popular feedback on the previous week’s topic, a serial drama that told the story of a variety of characters, and regular guest appearances by doctors or other authority figures to address the topic of the day. While provision of ARH information was still the main focus, the shows began to encourage youth to think about accessing services such as youth-friendly reproductive health counseling. All episodes were successfully broadcast on one regional station that reached all 12 northern states (and some southern), as well as 6 state-level stations.
Listeners’ Clubs
CCP continued to support the twelve state chapters of the Ku Saurara! Radio Listeners’ Club and use regular focus group discussions within these clubs to assess popular opinion of the radio program. Under KS Phase II however, youth members of the Listeners’ Clubs were challenged to take on leadership roles for adolescent reproductive health in their communities. For example, youth leaders were exhorted to action (e.g., organized activities in their schools) by competitions featured on the radio programs. The Listeners’ Clubs were also increased in number from 32 at the end of KS Phase I to 168 during this phase and more than 200 young people completed peer education training as members of Listeners’ Clubs.
Akwai Mafita!
A feature film enter-educate video, “Akwai Mafita!” (which means, in Hausa, “there is a way out”), and a companion discussion guide were produced during Phase II. This video was designed to be thought provoking to its audiences on such topics as parent-adolescent communication, early sexual activity, youth-serving organizations, and peer pressure, even as it entertained them. 3,000 copies of each were made and distributed through the YSOs.
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TV Promotional spot for 'Akwai Mafita!'
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Scene from the film: In this scene, Zaleefa tells her friend Jamila that she found out that she is pregnant. Jamila tries to help her decide what to do since she is not married.
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Advocacy and Outreach
There were over 70 Community Outreach and Youth Outreach Activities to promote the radio program, video release, and health service sites. These events included rallies, school shows, and sensitization lectures, where the distribution of T-shirts; promotional handbills; ARH informational brochures; abstinence/self-esteem time-table cards, and headscarves occurred.
The YSOs conducted 130 advocacy activities with community and religious leaders in the 12 Ku Saurara! Project states to address the needs of youth in their communities including the provision of information and youth-friendly services. The Advocacy Kits (Unintended Pregnancy Sheet, Sexual Abuse Sheet, HIVAIDS Sheet, Early Childbearing Sheet, Project Sheet, and Endorsement Letter ) from Phase I, which include action points for leaders as well as contextual information on such issues as early pregnancy and family planning, were refined and distributed. These advocacy activities, primarily lead by YSO representatives, resulted in several commitments from policy makers, community leaders and media executives. Examples of these commitments included: additional airings of radio show, viewing of film on local TV stations, media coverage, as well as donation of land/building for youth-friendly centers, etc.
“Youth-Friendly” Service Provider Training and Clinics
The KS local steering committee in the twelve states conducted 12 step-down trainings for service providers on youth friendly services, using a training manual that was developed during Phase I of the project. Participants for the training were service providers from clinic-based settings, school nurses, and counselors from YSOs. A total of 242 participants were trained in the twelve KS states. BCC materials distributed during the training include Ku Saurara! clinic identification stickers, cue cards on contraceptives (updated in Phase III), family planning booklets (updated in Phase III) from the VISION project, and hand bills on various forms of contraceptives.
The original 14 KS I clinics providing ARH services were expanded to a total of 67 clinic based service sites (5 in each state) during Phase II.
MATERIALS AND RESOURCES
CONTACT INFORMATION
In Kano, Nigeria:
Hadiza Babayaro, Senior Program Officer
kusauraraa@yahoo.com
011.234.(0)802.309.1775
In Baltimore:
Katie Frank
Program Assistant II
kfrank@jhuccp.org
410.659.6300
Ku Saurara! (Listen Up!) Main Page
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© 2005 The Johns Hopkins University. All rights reserved.