Training – Media Support Activities

In any process of empowerment, articulation and giving voice to one’s issues and concerns play a crucial role. Avehi believes that media can facilitate this process, by building confidence, self awareness and helping to make visible the concerns of invisible and marginalised groups. With this in focus, Avehi has been involved in imparting training in a range of media skills and perspectives. From 1988 onwards training became a regular ongoing activity of Avehi.

Avehi’s training programmes aim at equipping its users and others to produce and use media materials in a participatory, dialogical way. This process, of developing not merely technical skills but also critical perspectives on the media, facilitates demystification of the media and democratises its use. It makes participants aware of their own creativity and potential for actively using the media for campaigning, advocacy and creating community awareness on social issues. The participants in these workshops include teachers, non-formal educators, health workers, activists and other facilitators of change.

Avehi has been designing tailor-made training programmes for specific groups, keeping in mind their strengths and needs. The designing of these training programmes has been a process of a number of consultations with the partner organizations and dialogue with the resource persons.

In addition to these specific training Avehi has developed a short duration media training course, which consists of modules offering low-cost media training to field workers and teachers in various areas, which we think would be useful for any groups working directly with the community. These training programmes are held at Avehi centre or a suitable venue involving a number of stakeholders like community workers, NGO personnel, and teachers.

The eight training modules that Avehi has developed and tested are:

  • Critical Analysis of Media
  • Facilitation through slides and videos for training and mobilisation
  • Use and production of low-cost media, like posters and flashcards
  • Theatre for change – street theatre
  • Use of puppetry – communication through puppets and making of puppets
  • Media Advocacy through print media
  • Media Advocacy through radio
  • Setting up local Audio Visual Resource Centres.

These have been documented.  Avehi has brought out two training manuals: Theatre for Change and Production and Facilitation of low cost material – Posters and Flashcards.

Avehi also conducts training in use and maintenance of A.V. Equipment.

Training Highlights

  • 1989 to 1990 – Training programmes conducted for the personnel of 125 Health Post Teams of the Indian Population Project V file of Mumbai Municipal Corporation
  • 1992 –  A seven day residential workshop on Media Facilitation for 22  science educators and activists of All India People’s Science Network from 9 states.
  • 1993 –  10 Training programmes for Municipal Primary School Teachers.
  • 1995 – 1996 –   One teacher from each school in two city wards trained by Avehi as a trainer to teach other teachers puppetry as a medium of  instruction. A total of 150 teachers trained as trainers.
  • 1996 -1997 –  As a part of its first outreach programme in Rural Gujarat in collaboration with SNDT Women’s University, Mumbai,   Avehi     trained 14 women community workers from 6 villages in media  facilitation, handling of equipment and management of an audio  visual resource centre in 40 training programmes over a period of  two years.
  • 1999 – A 3 day residential training programme on Setting up of  Local Audio Visual Resource Centre in which eight NGOs and educational institutions from four states participated.
  • 2000 – 2003 –  With support from IDBI, ICICI, BCPT, BPCL for Avehi’s Short Duration Media Training Programmes, 42 training programmes  including 9 residential were conducted for 822 participants from 118 organisations including 27 from out of Mumbai. A training package of eight modules was developed and tested.
  • 2002 –  A 4 day residential workshop on Setting Up Local Audio Visual Resource Centres for participants from Maharashtra & Gujarat.
  • 2003 –  A 3 day residential training in Radio and Print Media Advocacy for 16 organisations.
  • 2005 – 2006 –  A total of 12 training workshops were conducted, 5 based on the training modules and 7 customised, tailor made, A total of 369 participants were trained.

Some of the training programmes conducted with partners in 2006 to 2008

  • Partnership with Family Service Centre, an NGO in Mumbai. Community workers were trained in the use and utilization of Avehi’s media materials on various health and related issues for educating their respective communities on these health issues. These trained health animators have become trainers training people from other communities.
  • International Institute for Population Studies, a deemed university, has been conducting research on sexual health in the ‘M’ ward i.e. Cheetah Camp, Mankhurd, Govandi. Topics are substance abuse, domestic violence which affects marital relations and sexual behaviour.. Since communicating these topics effectively is crucial, a workshop was conducted by Avehi for CBOs and Research Investigators.
  • One year partnership with Aseema an NGO which works on Child Rights and has been closely working with the primary school at Pali Chimbai, Bandra. An initial meeting between Avehi and Teachers revealed a need for parents’ participation in the upbringing of their children. Sessions were organized for parents of children of balwadi, montessori class, parents of children from std. I-V . The health and hygiene talks led to segregation of garbage. The family life education led to understanding the role of parent in upbringing of the child.
  • A training workshop was conducted for the International Justice Mission ( a human rights organisation ) Aftercare Teams and its partners – The Shaskiye Mulinche Punarvasan Kendra (Govt. Home for Rescued Minors) Mahila Vastigruha (Govt. Home for Rescued Major Girls), Sir Catherine’s Home ( Private Home for Rescued Minors) . Areas covered Importance of Communication to Bring About Social Change, Different Kinds of IEC materials available and the effective use of these materials.
  • In 2007 Training Workshops for student nurses of College of Nursing at K.E.M. and Sion Hospitals in Facilitation and Production of Visual Aids were conducted. Some of the visual aids produced in the follow-up workshops have become part of the local resources of the departments.
    In 2008 training in Puppetry – facilitation and making simple puppets – conducted at SNDT College of Nursing
    All these 3 training for College of Nursing were conducted as part of their regular curriculum in the last semester.