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Ku Saurara! (Listen Up!) Project, Phase IV
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Ku Saurara! (Listen Up!) Project, Phase IV, is taking place between 2007 and 2009 in 5 states in northern Nigeria (Kano, Kaduna, Bauchi, Katsina and Jigawa), following the project’s third phase. It is being implemented by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Communication Programs (CCP), in collaboration with the Evangelical Church of West Africa (ECWA), Rotary International, Pathfinder International, and a consortium of northern adolescent reproductive health service providers, opinion leaders, and Youth Serving Organizations (YSOs). Funding is provided by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.
Ku Saurara! (KS) Phase IV will integrate methods and lessons learned from each of the previous phases to persist in RH education among young people, especially the married, and to strengthen complementary attitudes and outreach among providers and YSOs – instilling in them a greater understanding of the challenges that married youth face in their RH decision-making. The project will also scale up its successful programming by expanding its work into a new state, Jigawa.
OBJECTIVES/STRATEGIES
The goal of Ku Saurara! Phase IV is to continue to increase the use of RH services, particularly by adolescents, married and unmarried, in five states in Northern Nigeria in order to increase use of modern contraception and decrease fertility. Objectives for the youth and the IPC/C quality improvement components include:
- Strengthen youth reproductive health behavior
- Strengthen the service delivery system
- Increase collaboration among RH NGOs
RESEARCH
The endline results of Phase III of the project will serve as project baseline, with additional qualitative research performed as needed to inform specific activities. KS IV will also conduct a final impact evaluation study at the end of the project.
ACTIVITIES AND HIGHLIGHTS
Radio Variety Show
The project will continue to promote the 169 existing radio show episodes, capitalizing on what is already available. Twelve additional KS radio episodes will also be developed during this phase. While the exact format of the new episodes will evolve during the creative process, the aim of these will be to model some of the experiences of a young bride – her challenges, questions, and some constructive resolutions to each of them. The program should continue not only to provide relevant information on the technical health areas, but also encourage couples’ communication and remind listeners of the resources available to them, including YSOs and trained clinicians. There will also be renewed emphasis on distribution of the recorded programs so that young people eager to hear the KS program can assemble at a time that is convenient for them, and can use battery powered devices that are not subject to electricity fluctuations or the limitations of the radio stations themselves.
In addition, feedback from listening groups during Phase III included the desire to be more involved in the radio program. In response, KS IV proposes to build on its growing expertise in the area of reality radio by recording and producing short segments directly from listeners’ clubs, community leaders, and role models that can be run as spots during the week to promote the regular program broadcast.
Listeners’ Clubs
Phase IV will continue to support the radio listeners’ clubs established in previous phases. KS also will solicit input from the active listeners clubs, be it reports on their activities, songs (we have heard that quite a few have written their own in response to KS radio), or dramas, and include live recordings of them in the radio show, facilitated by an experienced producer. This has the potential to be implemented as a competition, where the best submission from a club will win the chance to be on air, which may encourage clubs and contribute to high quality outputs.
Akwai Mafita! Sequel
Akwai Mafita! (There is a way out!), the film developed at the end of KS Phase II was a great success. Documentation shows video houses full to capacity and frequent borrowing from local shops. In Phase IV, KS will create a sequel to the first film. The project will use formative research to help guide a new storyline, either directly related to “Akwai Mafita” or more loosely linked, depending on what seems appropriate based on feedback. As part of this process, KS IV will work to develop local talent in the area of script-writing on a movie script. A discussion guide for facilitators of video viewings in cinema houses and with youth groups will also be developed and distributed.
Packaging Materials for Youth – The Ku Saurara! Youth Kit
KS will spearhead a toolkit specific to the four health areas around which the project is built: adolescent reproductive health, safe motherhood, birth spacing, and post-abortion care. The toolkit will be attractive, self-contained, durable, and easy to document and evaluate, and inside will be packaged not only posters and pamphlets along the lines of those materials to be found in any clinic or YSO, but also copies of the KS video, CDs, 18 of all the KS radio programs and discussion guides, reference materials, clinic referral information (compiled under KS III), and interactive tools for more complete and versatile programming. The Ku Saurara! Youth Kit will include all of the materials developed under KS III, others produced by partners to date, and leave room for new materials to be developed and added, including an activity book filled with age-appropriate interactive games and exercises.
Adaptation of the Egypt Mabrouk! Initiative
One material that deserves particular mention, and that will be included in the Youth Kit, is an adaptation of the Mabrouk! Initiative (Mabrouk! Initiative Press Release, Mabrouk! The family's health and happiness) recently implemented in Egypt by CCP under the Health Communication Partnership (HCP). Mabrouk!, which means “congratulations” in Arabic, was developed based on the recognition of the household and family as the primary producer of health, and of marriage as a strategic entry point for family health information. The Initiative centered on a mass wedding conducted in a large stadium in Cairo where each couple received the gift of a booklet, cleverly packaged inside a photo frame, which covers messages relevant to health events likely to occur within the first few years of marriage for the new couple. While a mass wedding is not culturally appropriate for Nigeria the way it is in Egypt, the attention to the needs of newlyweds, the booklet itself, and the approach it uses to present the information is suitable for our purposes.
The booklet currently covers such topics as hygiene, nutrition, healthy lifestyles, antenatal care, safe delivery, post-partum care, infant care, family planning initiation, and birth spacing. The KS team will adapt the manual for our specific use and audience context, link it to the 12 new radio programs, include a section on couple’s communication, and add it in the Youth Kit so that YSOs are familiar with it and know to ask for copies as relevant. KS will work with local partners to incorporate distribution into the marriage ceremony, or provide copies to those who are about to be wed.
“Youth-Friendly” Service Provider Training and Clinics
The field office team will continue to work with partner clinics to identify providers to be trained, as well as encourage supervisors to support their trained staff. At the start of phase IV, KS staff will do a full assessment of Jigawa state to identify appropriate partner facilities and providers for training. They will also briefly re-assess sites from KS III local government areas (LGAs) in order to determine whether there is more need for training at the same sites, or more sites within the LGA that need providers trained.
KS will also continue its role in linking young people with services with the continuing promotion of the KS III-designed Quality Logo among grantees. The logo itself is still under development, but once finalized, will represent a provider skilled in IPC/C and a badge will be created that is given to trained providers. Under KS IV, young people and trained providers will be formally introduced in a public community event which serves several purposes: first, to give recognition to the provider for their training and improved skills (based on the final exit interview data from KS III) – this public recognition also serves as a mechanism to hold the provider accountable to their commitment to excellent IPC/C skills; second, to familiarize the young people with the providers who are most likely to be their allies in service provision; third, to encourage use of services – young people who are excited about having a youth-friendly provider will spread the word among their peers.
YSO Advocacy Action Plans
Contributing to strengthening the supportive environment around youth programming, during Phase III the KS team worked with a network of NGOs in each KS state to develop a state-specific action plan for advocacy largely supporting the process of adopting the National Adolescent Health Care Policy originally drafted in 1995, and currently under revision. Unfortunately, many of the planned activities did not come to fruition for lack of funds, so, as part of KS IV, the budget will include resources available for YSO advocacy efforts. KS staff will be able to provide additional technical assistance for the planning and implementation of these plans, and the activities realized will contribute to the improvement of reproductive health services for all. KS will also facilitate the creation of a Jigawa network of NGOs and, with appropriate technical assistance, work to build their advocacy capacity, and assist them in developing and implementing a state-specific action plan.
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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