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Malaria Consortium Field Communications Toolkit Contents MALARIA CONSORTIUM FIELD COMMUNICATIONS TOOLKIT CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 3 SECTION ONE: INFORMATION GATHERING 4 - Build story gathering into planned visits 4 - Recognise a story 5 - Working with partners and capacity building 6 - Use your community contacts as researchers 6 - What makes a good interview? 7 - Capture quotes accurately 8 - Handle difficult situations 9 SECTION TWO: PHOTOGRAPHY 10 - Tips 10 - Portraits 11 - Activity shots 11 - Context shots 12 - Telling stories with photographs 12 - Examples of common mistakes to look out for 13 SECTION THREE: PRODUCING YOUR CASE STUDIES 14 - Always check 14 - Writing up 15 - Templates 16 - Finally 19 COVER SHEET 20 SECTION FOUR: SECURING CONSENT 21 - Permission form 22 SECTION FIVE: FIELD TRIP TOOLKIT 23 - Project and story information form 23 - Interview form 26 - Photo caption form 29 © 2013 This toolkit was produced by Malaria Consortium and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivs 3.0 Unported Licence. Edited by Michelle Davis. For more information contact the External Communications team: [email protected] Photography: Pedro Sa Da Bandiera, Benoist Carpentier, Kevin Coles, William Daniels, Tine Frank, Mimi Mollica and Jenn Warren. 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION This toolkit will help to illustrate the successful impact of your projects with both donors and partners. Real life stories and pictures can be used in public information posters and leaflets, provide valuable examples to use in national workshops, and support a project’s advocacy activities. As field and project staff, you are most likely already documenting the progress of the work you do. This handbook will provide you with the tools you need to add an extra dimension to that documentation by giving you some simple ideas and techniques for gathering interesting stories, photographs and interviews, which can also be used to help achieve so much more. Most international NGOs use external communications to connect with key stakeholders, audiences and policy makers in support of their work. Timely and relevant communications are a powerful Field Communications tool for NGOs looking to raise awareness of issues and Toolkit objectives: influence global policy and practice. To support project staff in the gathering At Malaria Consortium, we continue to build our of stories and other qualitative material communications expertise in order to inform and engage people in support of ongoing malaria efforts that will add value to their own project worldwide. For us, this means communicating key communications and that can also be learning and evidence of the impact of our work. used for wider dissemination The Field Communications Toolkit provides practical To encourage the collection of material guidance and support to Malaria Consortium staff that will enable Malaria Consortium and partners who are looking to increase their to share learning and knowledge communications capacity. It has been developed as with partners, stakeholders, political a resource for project staff who work at field-level, to decision makers and civil society support you to communicate responsibly, creatively and effectively about your work through highlighting achievements and impact. As well as supporting projects you are working on, information gathered in the field has the potential to be of great value to your organisation as a whole. By documenting programmes qualitatively in this way, you can provide stories that will help promote the achievements of a particular project or field, highlight engagement with partners and show the impact of your work on the ground. Capturing this information as you carry out your work can add significant value to reports and provide materials for case studies, news articles, interviews, photo stories and even films. These can then be used online and in printed publications to showcase your organisation’s work and to advocate for changes in policy. INTRODUCTION 3 SECTION ONE: INFORMATION GATHERING This section provides advice and specific examples to help you spot stories, make the most of your time with communities and partners, develop key communications skills and deal with any difficult situations that may arise. Build story gathering into planned visits You are actually already doing most of what is needed to gather good WHO SHOULD FEATURE IN stories, quotes and photographs. A ‘HUMAN INTEREST’ STORY? You are working closely with Most stories have a subject, an ➡ colleagues in the field, with partner individual who is not only the organisations and with governments. focus but who illustrates or acts as ‘evidence’ for the point you You are planning field trips, research are making. It is important to pick ➡ programmes and workshops where you someone who is relevant to the are meeting community members, health story that you are telling. workers and officials who are benefiting from Malaria Consortium’s support. Things to look out for when In the information forms and recommended interview identifying the right person for questions (see page 23), you will see that you already a human interest story are: have a great deal of the information needed and may already be asking these questions of the people you Someone who represents the work you do meet, especially if you are carrying out surveys. – such as an experienced community health worker (CHW) This section is designed to provide you with simple techniques and systems for recording what you Someone who has an engaging or inspiring already know and see to provide essential context story – such as a mother who can talk about for a story or ‘snapshot’. her child surviving an illness, or a CHW whose life is completely different now that they are able to help the community they live in An individual who represents the community where you are working - such as a community leader or district health official or worker – who is inspired by the positive changes he or she is witnessing 4 SECTION ONE: INFORMATION GATHERING Recognise a story Powerful and effective communication materials rely on information, facts, quotes and photographs which collectively can be called a story. A story should always be interesting and informative, and where possible, inspiring to read. Stories are important to the international development sector because they help us explain issues that can be hard to If we were telling the story from the understand, or interventions that are point of view of Malaria Consortium, often technical or - theoretical. a global health organisation, we might A story helps people who are not experts wish to include: to understand our work and see how our interventions fit into the broader context. Health issues faced by the countries we work in Stories are often told from the perspective Our response to these challenges of one or several individuals rather than just Change that has happened as a result being a description of an intervention that of our interventions has taken place. To bring the description further to life Later in this toolkit we have included we might include: some examples to help you understand The issues, challenges and the change through the how to write and structure (see page 16). eyes of an individual who has first-hand experience These are people who provide what we call ‘human interest’. EXAMPLE Here is a story from the field written for Malaria Consortium’s South Sudan country brochure. It identifies a health worker who has been trained by WHO WE ARE MalariaWHAT Consortium WE DO and is making a real ANGELINA’S STORY The principal aim of The organisation works to assistance to support the Malaria Consortium has a MALARIA CONTROL NEGLECTED TROPICAL Angelina is a Community past they had to go to a clinic Angelo Agany is Angelina’s improve not only the health development of its policy which is many hours walk away,” supervisor. He has a total of Malaria Consortium is the range of programmes in The control and elimination of DISEASES NTDs Drug Distributor (CDD) of the individual, but also the environment, evidence base, difference to her community’s health. she says. The previous day, Ahok 16 CDDs under his supervision malaria is at the core of Malaria prevention and treatment of capacity of national health and to expand access to life four states focusing on the Malaria Consortium has supported who has received Lual brought her seven month who he visits twice per month. Consortium’s work globally. disease, particularly but not systems, which contributes saving services. following strategic areas: the GoSS-MoH to implement a training through Malaria old daughter Aluat Deng to When asked what the biggest Mosquito net distribution is a exclusively malaria, among towards poverty relief and Angelina talks about the impactnational programmeshe hasfor integrated Consortium so that she can see Angelina, as she had been challenge in his role is, he says To better facilitate its expanding key malaria prevention activity improved economic prosperity. neglected tropical disease control sick for a few days. Angelina that he is facing problems with the poorest and most at risk. support to state level Ministries in Southern Sudan. Malaria diagnose and treat malaria, since 2007. The programme examined Aluat and diagnosed the rains, which hamper his Malaria Consortium sta Malaria Consortium has been of Health, County Health Consortium has been a lead pneumonia and diarrhoea. had in the village and explainstargets how fi ve NTDs andshe focuses on her with malaria. She gave her ability to continue to supervise engaged in Southern Sudan Departments, and direct partner in the distribution of work in a variety of settings conducting rapid assessments, Angelina has treated eight the fi rst treatment at her house, the CDDs who live across the since 2005. With the end of implementation work, Malaria long lasting insecticidal nets in accross Africa and Asia, surveys and subsequent mass children under fi ve in the past 13 and then showed Ahok Lual river from him.
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