Social Norms
Social norms action with informed and engaged societies
Social Norms
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Arab Women Speak Out (AWSO) - Middle East/North Africa

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Launched in the winter of 1999, Arab Women Speak Out (AWSO) is an advocacy and training programme that aims to help Arab women overcome social, economic, educational, and political obstacles to achieve their potential inside as well as outside the home. The training workshops give women the analytic tools that enable them to rethink their assumptions, to analyze critically opportunities as well as obstacles, and to propose their own approaches or solutions to the problems or barriers they face. AWSO also helps Arab women develop the self-esteem necessary to voice with confidence their opinions and discuss their concerns with their husbands, their families and their communities.
Communication Strategies

AWSO offers a series of ten video profiles, training and discussion materials, a tool for monitoring the image of women in the media, and a case study publication of 30 women from Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and Palestine. Arab women researchers and film makers produced the materials, which feature realistic examples of women who have taken the initiative to make positive changes in their lives.

Development Issues

Women's Rights.

Key Points

Though women in the Arab world are active participants in day-to-day practices and struggles that create opportunities and improve the conditions under which they live, women in the developing world in general and the Arab world in particular are often presented as powerless and passively subordinate to men. Such images of dis-empowerment are both self-perpetuating and inaccurate. Unfortunately, there are few accurate portrayals of Arab women in the media today. This project highlights the achievements of thirty Arab women and presents them as role models to encourage other women to take action and change their situations.


By August 2002, Arab Women Speak Out had been implemented in seven Arab countries—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Tunisia, Algeria and Yemen—and reached some 80,000 women. AWSO workshops are ongoing throughout the region.


AWSO is an internationally recognized program and won a 2002 Gold Quill Award for Excellence from the International Association of Business Communicators. Entries were judged by an international panel of communication professionals on the bases of how well a program is conceived, created and executed for its intended audience(s), how appropriate the strategy and objectives are in relation to the results desired and achieved, and how the outcomes are measured. Of the 1,347 entries received in 2002, AWSO was designated one of the five best communication programs across all categories.


The materials are currently being used by 25 local non-governmental and governmental organisations to guide training workshops for women at the community level.

Partners

Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs(JHU/CCP); he U.S. Agency for International Development; the Arab Gulf Program for UN Development Organizations (AGFUND) through the Center for Arab Women Training and Research (Tunis) and the European Commission through Population Initiatives for Peace.

Sources

Emails sent from Kim Martin and Carol Underwood to The Communication Initiative on January 14 2002 and October 8 2002, respectively.

Comments

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Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 11/30/1999 - 00:00 Permalink

this is a very good programme I appriciate it.