Women and youth targeted with common bean info …
20 October 2016: Partners in the Scaling-up Improved Legume Technologies (SILT) project are looking at ways to ensure that messages on growing common beans reach interested farmers – especially women and young people in Tanzania.
November 2016 will see the arrival of a youth campaign delivered by Well Told Story/ Shujaaz. The campaign will combine a 6-page story in the next issue of the comic, supported by radio and social media. Over half a million copies of the comic will be in distribution.
This is part of a long-term relationship. In October and November 2015 Well Told Story developed some materials targeted at young people. This included two issues of the Shujaaz comic, a Facebook campaign and a short film which was available on-line. The 2015 campaign was in the start-up phase of Shujaaz and this created some real challenges. The comics were distributed in the South of Tanzania, when the focus of the Legume
Alliance activity was in the North and Shujaaz had not managed to get a radio partnership secured.
The funding from IDRC has allowed the 2015 campaign to be revisited and renewed. It also means that the project can revisit some of the young farmers that tried growing common bean, to see how they got on. Now all facets of the youth promotion activity are in place so the promotional impact of this campaign will be much greater than 2015.
Lucky Komba of Shujaaz said: “Through social media we heard from some of our followers who had attempted to grow commonbeans. We have followed up some of these and they are profiled in the new comic. Other told us about the challenges they faced and we have tried to address these in the comic. We know once our audience have consulted comic, social media and radio we will get a lot more questions and we are working with CABI and IITA to see how we can most effectively follow-up on the specific issues that young farmers face.”
Summary of the Shujaaz activities:
- 500,000 copies of Shujaaz will be circulated from 29 October (70,000 in Mwanasporti and the 430,000 free of charge distributed through outlets stocking Coca Cola)
- The social media campaign on Facebook and instagram will run throughout November
- Radio: For the whole month of November, Shujaaz radio show will produce four hours of radio (one hour every week) to be aired on 2 national radio stations in Tanzania (TBC FM & East Africa Radio) with other 3 regional stations (Kings FM – for Tanzania southern highlands, Abood FM for central Tanzania, Chuchu FM for Unguja & Pemba). Each radio show will carry bean messages to an estimated number of 1million listeners every week.
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Platform Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Radio 3-5 minute segments Show how young people & beans are a good fit
Topic of discussion will challenge myths around women and men – which will also include info about bean farming
Comparisons (returns on investments -applications of fertilizers, inputs & outputs model, turnaround time, costs & benefits, risks & opportunities). Show why bean is a perfect crop
Last show will bring everything together –making people think thoroughly – Is bean farming a good decision this season?
Case studies interventions. Money side of things: How could youth make money out of beans?
Are there cooler bean farming ways and the value chain?
Compare jobs and opportunities
Show opportunities in beans value chain
Powerful questions to consider:Why do people behave like this?
How decisions are made about what is done by whom? At a family level? Are the girls in the house taken seriously?
Comparisons (returns on investments.
applications of fertilizers, inputs & outputs model, turnaround time, costs & benefits, risks & opportunities). Show why bean is a perfect crop via:agronomist interventions and Bean 411
Last show will bring everything together –making people think thoroughly – Is bean farming a good decision this season?
via: Highlighting powerful case
Studies; Interview with bean champions; Role model intervention
High level of positive conversation around bean farming that can be traced back to radio prompt, mentioning:Critical success factors – radio
- How cool the idea is
- Cool opportunities in bean farming
- Decisions & Trial (I will do this, I have tried)
| Platform | Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 |
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Bean 411 (infographics):
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Bean 411 (info graphics):
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Bean 411 (infographics):
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Bean 411 (infographics):
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Critical success factors – social media
High level of engagement on all ASHC posts, mentioning:
- How cool the idea is
- Cool opportunities in bean farming
- Decisions & Trial (I will do this, I have tried)
There are other exciting plans to develop radio programs on common bean targeting women farmers and their families.
GN Nderingo, project manager for Farm Radio International, said; ‘We have great experience of working with radio stations to target content to specific audiences. We have also been running listening groups made up of women farmers and running Her Farm Radio, which is trying to encourage more women to interact with the radio. We now want to bring all of this experience together to create new programs targeted at women, but to do so in a way that does not alienate other listeners.”
The new radio series on common bean will commence in February 2017 to coincide with the planting season. Farm Radio is looking for creative input from composers and drama companies to get the desired sound and feel for the programs.
Nderingo continues: ‘We are looking to have original songs to reinforce the messages and to use comedy to grab peoples’ attention. Just because the subject is serious does not mean that it cannot also be fun. Women work hard in the fields but they still find time for songs and humour – we will be trying to replicate this atmosphere on the radio.
We know common bean is a subject that will appeal more to women than men, however we will create this strand of the campaign in a way that does not alienate male listeners. The men have to be engaged too as they often make the decisions about what programs are listened to.’