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Initiatives
WASH Journalist Orientation: An Effort for Change
Background
A large number of people in Nepal do not have access to basic drinking water and sanitation facilities. The latest census, 2001 estimated national sanitation coverage at 48%, which is very low. Many people here die every day from water borne diseases. These diseases take away lives of 15,000 children every year according to UNICEF. They die quietly in villages without anyone noticing.
People still follow the age-old traditional sanitation practices due to lack of awareness. In various parts of Nepal, people in communities do not feel comfortable using a latrine. "When we have land as big as the sky above us, are we rhinos or blue sheep to defecate in one spot" are commonly held beliefs. Tradition in many places disallows a father-in-law and a daughter-in-law to use the same latrine. Such conservative beliefs and practices are some of the reasons for the poor status of sanitation in Nepal.
It is probably why the media has also not directed their attention to sanitation issues. Until some years back, matter on sanitation, latrines and hand washing were hardly seen or heard in the media. In the case of Nepal news on politics, the ongoing conflict and social crimes usually make the headlines as these stories sell newspapers like hot cakes. When it comes to the government media, all they care about is covering a minister's inauguration speech or formal news. The reality is that sanitation issues have always been considered a taboo, which people do not like talking or hearing much about.
Under such circumstances, in 2003 the Nepal WASH Group was formed to advocate for improvements in the status of sanitation as well as to coordinate the WASH campaign in Nepal. This group comprises members from each of the key sectoral organizations (Department of Water Supply and Sewerage, Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Fund Development Board, WaterAid Nepal, UNICEF, World Health Organization, and Nepal Water for Health (NEWAH). NEWAH a national level NGO working in the water and sanitation sector has been acting as the WASH Secretariat in carrying out WASH activities in Nepal.
Nepal has committed to the Millennium Development Target (MDT) of halving the proportion of people without access to sanitation by the year 2015. The implications of the targets for Nepal as a whole and for the districts in which community discussions were held by the WASH group showed that approximately 14,000 latrines need to be constructed each month for the next 12 years in order to meet the MDT in Nepal. If there is no progress in meeting the targets the number of latrines to be constructed is sure to increase day by day. Therefore, media plays a vital role in disseminating awareness among the people to help improve the coverage of sanitation in Nepal and help meet the MDT.
Working on WASH activities in 2003 NEWAH learnt a number of lessons and tried to respond to these lessons when designing the 2004 activities. Developing more partnerships with the media in order to promote about sanitation was one of them. Hence, the WASH activities for 2004 focused on building a strong partnership with the local media. Nepal WASH Group organised a journalists' orientation programme in three regions of Nepal (Central, Eastern and Mid-Western) to coincide with the National Sanitation Week in March. 74 journalists participated in the programmes of which 35% were female. The main objective of the orientations were to sensitise journalists about sanitation and hygiene related issues and to motivate them to write more about them.
How the orientation was structured ? briefing/discussion vs. field trips - The two-day programme was divided into various sessions. During the first half of day one, presentations were made by various experts and discussions took place amongst the participants on various topics such as: Global and National Scenario of Sanitation, Health impact of poor Sanitation, linkage of Gender and Sanitation, Global and National Sanitation facts and 'What is the story on sanitation' to provide various writing scoops. Prisoner of the daylight, Present Condition of Public Toilets in Kathmandu, Provisions for Latrines for Women in Government Organizations etc. were given as examples of scoops not covered by the media.
The second half of the day was a field visit to a nearby community to grasp a better understanding of the actual sanitation situation in the communities. While on the field visits the journalists were involved with the community in faeces flagging (the community walk around the village placing bright coloured flags in faeces found lying around and by the end of the exercise many flags are visible all around the village making them feel ashamed), faeces calculation (the community calculate how many kilograms of faeces they produce and subsequently ingest each year to give them a feel of disgust) and it's mobility (to identify routes of contamination) etc. The journalists were involved in this process to make them understand the unsanitary conditions under which people live and its impact on their lives. These tools are mainly used for creating awareness about sanitation and hygiene and motivating the community people to build latrines while implementing Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) programmes in communities. Journalists were able to collect stories about the impacts of poor sanitation and these appeared in the local press the following morning.
Resource materials on sanitation and related issues, including global and national sanitation facts, the WSSCC media guide, summarised materials, policy documents, list of references and websites for further reading and other relevant information were provided. This was mainly to save journalists the effort and time in exploring for necessary information. As far as possible materials were also provided in both Nepali and English.
On the second day, the journalists put forth their views and queries from the previous day and discussed about what they experienced and learned from the field trips. They expressed that the field trips were a good learning experience and an opportunity to be sensitised towards sanitation issues. Before participating in this programme they had not thought that sanitation situation in a community could be a news item. It made them realise the role they could play in its promotion.
Achievements, Learning and a Way Forward
Media campaign was organised for the whole month of March. Journalists wrote and published articles in various broadsheet and local newspapers as part of a fellowship programme and awards were given for the best articles. For the first time journalists, many of whom had taken part in the journalist orientations, began to write candidly about urine and faeces, breaking the taboo surrounding these issues. Articles such as 'Gents urinating, ladies watching, 'People living in mill area deprived of toilets', 'Its gone the compulsion of climbing trees to defecate', 'Children's whistles encouraged building of toilets in the village', 'Daily routine of going to the river carrying a bag of faeces' are some of the real life based uncovered stories that were written by the journalists. During the campaign the WASH group commissioned and broadcast TV documentaries, comedies, and radio programmes. A WASH calendar with comical and satirical pictures and sanitation messages was also published and disseminated at the local level to create awareness among the people.
The journalists pointed out various reasons for the low coverage of sanitation issues in the media. They agreed that their lack of awareness was one of them. It was admitted that greater concentration has been towards writing news and articles about politics, insurgency, violence, disruptions and murder as only those find space in the media and are saleable in the market. Journalists also complained that coverage of news other than that mentioned above are less remunerative for them. Once reports are written they then need to persuade their editor to print it and if the editor does not understand the issue this is a problem some journalists suggested we should also invite editors to such orientations. A view that WSH stories do not sell newspapers unless you can bring in the human element of suffering was put forth. Participating in this type of programme was a first time for most of them and they took it as an opportunity to be sentitised towards sanitation, learn about its importance in the lives of the people and understand their role as agents of change.
The journalist and fellowship awards have been a successful and cost effective model for encouraging the media to cover sanitation issues. The coverage on sanitation markedly increased and the media started to discuss these issues far more openly. The response from female journalists was particularly encouraging and 50% of the award winners were female. This was a significant achievement considering that the media is a male dominated sector. To keep up the momentum of the media campaign, the WASH group started a feature service 'Lekhmala' in partnership with a women media organization, Sancharika Samuha, to publish articles on gender and sanitation issues in various newspapers. The journalists have started relying on NEWAH for information support on sanitation as and when required. NEWAH plans to organise follow up programmes like 'Meet the Press', continue orientation and give briefings to keep journalists continuously motivated towards writing about sanitation.
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