Diversify forms, optimize quality of propaganda Project 8

Members of the Community Communication Team in Linh Truong Commune, Gio Linh District use Project 8's communication publications to guide people - Photo: TCL

With the goal of promoting gender equality (GEA) and solving urgent issues for women and children (W&C), Project 8 has proposed many important contents related to propaganda work for W&C and ethnic minority people. The project targets ethnic minority people in remote, isolated, and border communes, so it is relatively difficult to bring contents such as preventing and combating gender violence and GEA into people's lives.

To improve the quality of propaganda, right from the project implementation, the Women's Union at all levels has researched and learned to innovate methods of activities and propaganda, promoting appropriate and easy-to-understand forms of propaganda for ethnic minorities, bringing practical results.

Thanks to the active coordination of all levels, sectors and localities, up to now, the Women's Union at all levels in the province has established 171 "Community Communication Teams" with 1,560 members who are commune and hamlet officials. The Executive Board of 54 "Trusted Addresses" in the community has disseminated 121 sessions to 7,220 people about local issues; established and maintained 29 "Leaders of Change" clubs in schools. In the community, 100% of the communication teams have come into operation.

Initially, members selected appropriate forms of propaganda for each content and target audience such as: direct communication at community activities, integration in village and hamlet meetings, communication at home, through the radio system, dramatization, etc.

The Women's Union at all levels has diversified its propaganda forms such as: organizing 57 communication campaigns to learn about knowledge about gender equality, gender bias, gender stereotypes and urgent issues for women and children in districts, communes, and residential communities with more than 6,450 participants; organizing communication in the form of dramatization; integrating communication in meetings and events of communes, hamlets, and residential areas; oral propaganda, on local radio systems and social networks about gender equality. In particular, focusing on the participation of men in communication campaigns about gender equality in the locality.

Along with promoting communication in villages and hamlets, the Women's Union at all levels also promoted propaganda through social networks such as Zalo and fanpages about the activities of Project 8 to widely spread positive information, raise awareness about gender equality, eliminate gender stereotypes, bad customs, the role of women and children... to all classes of people. Content on preventing and combating child marriage, domestic violence, and gender development has also been digitized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Women's Union into videos, podcasts, audio books, and regularly updated on the social networking sites of the unions at all levels.

The Women's Union at all levels has proactively organized competitions, contests, performances, forums for exchange and experience sharing to diversify the forms of propaganda, and at the same time, spread the humanistic meaning of the project in the community. Along with participating in competitions and forums organized by the Central Committee of the Vietnam Women's Union, the Provincial Women's Union organized the contest "Communication Initiatives on Gender Equality and Prevention of Domestic Violence" in 2023 and the contest for composing communication works to raise awareness of gender equality for children in ethnic minority and mountainous areas with 120 entries; the contest "Searching for ideas and communication initiatives on preventing and combating child marriage"; coordinated the organization of the painting contest "Communication Initiatives - Safety for Children" and "Exchange Forum of Children's Rights Club, Leaders of Change Club" in Quang Tri province...

The Women's Unions of the districts also organized 20 exchanges and festivals to share experiences. Through competitions, exchanges and festivals, members of the Executive Board of the models shared and learned experiences to improve their knowledge, skills and methods of mobilizing women members and people in ethnic minority and mountainous areas to change their thinking and working methods and actively participate in union activities.

Since the community intervention models began operating, the Provincial Women's Union has supported means, publications, and communication identity for the models at the grassroots level. Specifically, the Provincial and District Women's Unions have supported more than 81 sets of mobile speakers and handheld speakers for community communication teams to serve communication work in villages, duplicated hundreds of copies of the document "Handbook for establishing and operating community communication teams" to distribute to districts and communes; notebooks for the Executive Board of the Community Communication Team; printed and distributed thousands of shirts, helmets, baseball caps, handbags, flip charts, and brochures for members of the models and participants in communication campaigns.

Holding a flip-book on “Eliminating child marriage, preventing and combating domestic violence” compiled by the Provincial Women’s Union, Ms. Ho Thi Thuong, Head of the Community Communications Team in Ba De village, Linh Truong commune, Gio Linh district, said that the legal regulations on marriage and family as well as what to do when violence occurs are compiled concisely and easy to remember.

Thanks to these media products, the team members are more confident and bold in conveying information to the people because the content is selected to be focused, easy to understand, and accompanied by vivid illustrations.

As a reporter for many training courses, Ms. Le Thi Lan, Head of the Organization Building Committee, Provincial Women's Union, emphasized that to bring knowledge to the people, especially the people in the highlands and ethnic minority areas, there must be an appropriate method of transmission. Before each business trip, she always takes time to research to better understand the subjects and the area, from there, choosing appropriate content and methods of propaganda.

At any stage, propaganda work requires reporters and propagandists to update new information and to innovate and be flexible in the way they convey it. It is not only about saying the content that they intend, but more importantly, it is about disseminating the knowledge that people need, and must train and guide them carefully on how to use media products so that local propagandists are the most proficient and knowledgeable, only then will the quality of propaganda achieve optimal effectiveness.

Tran Cat Linh

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/da-dang-hinh-thuc-toi-uu-chat-luong-tuyen-truyen-du-an-8-193003.htm