Shelburne, VT - Clay Bennett, a 2002 Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Christian Science Monitor, won the 2004 National Population Cartoon Contest. Mr. Bennett’s cartoon, “Be Fruitful and Multiply… Now Divide,” triumphed over 187 other cartoons to win the $7,000 grand prize as well as an all-expense paid trip to New York City. He received his award on October 5, 2004 at the Yale Club of New York City.
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Shelburne, Vermont, USA– In response to problems related to the exploitation of children in western Africa, Population Media Center (PMC) is launching a new behavior change communication project that will support the protection of children, promote reproductive health, and avoidance of HIV/AIDS in Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) will fund the new $1.3 million two-year project that will include six months of formative research and training and eighteen months of production and broadcast of a serial radio drama using the Sabido methodology for behavior change (accompanied by monitoring and evaluation research).

The radio program will address issues related to child protection, trafficking of children across international borders and the link between this problem and poverty-inducing factors such as unplanned childbearing. The program will also confront underlying issues (such as insufficient family income) that put children at risk of exploitative labor situations. Often, children or their parents believe that offers of employment (such as on cocoa plantations) for their children will result in added income to the family, while in reality, such offers sometimes lead to long hours of hard labor with little or no pay, and frequent beatings or other physical abuse.

Population Media Center (PMC) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that works worldwide with the broadcast media, educating people about the benefits of small families; promoting the protection of children from exploitation, elevating the status of women; promoting the use of effective family planning methods; and motivating behavior change for the avoidance of HIV/AIDS.

The U.S. Agency for International Development administers the U.S. foreign assistance program providing economic and humanitarian assistance in more than 80 countries worldwide.

Johannesburg, South Africa – People don’t change behavior when they’re told how to act. Rather, people are likely to listen when they are presented with accurate information that depicts a situation they can relate to and touches their heart. Life-like radio dramas are one way to effectively reach people and influence positive behavior change, discovered workshop participants from radio stations and health organizations from 8 African countries last week.

Radio can influence behavior when programs include social content. Entertainment-education, radio programming and HIV/AIDS prevention were the main topics discussed during a UNFPA training workshop organized by the Culture, Gender and Human Rights branch. Last week, UNFPA, The United Nations Population Fund, in collaboration with Population Media Center, launched a weeklong training workshop for local FM radio stations and non-governmental, reproductive health service organizations from Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, South Africa, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Namibia.

The workshop on entertainment-education strategies and HIV/AIDS is part of the project Strengthened Partnerships among Local FM and Community Radio Networks and Reproductive Health Agencies on HIV/AIDS. Participants were selected based on on-going collaboration with the UNFPA country programmes, and a needs assessment questionnaire that was distributed to radio stations and NGOs in 12 sub-Saharan African countries with high rates of HIV infection. A similar pilot workshop will be held in Asia in May.

Communication strategies such as the Sabido methodology for behavior change, radio drama script writing, social merchandizing and audience research and monitoring as well as issues related to gender sensitivity, HIV/AIDS research, and discrimination, were also discussed.

Also present at the workshop were representatives from UNAIDS, One World Radio, Free Play Radio, South Africa’s Department of Communications, Love Life, Soul City, the Reproductive Health Research Unit, the HIV Paranatal Unit, ABC Ulwazi, and AMARC, all of whom shared information through presentations and lively debates. As a result of these exchanges, participants expanded their knowledge and their networks.

The aim of the project is to develop effective, compelling and culturally relevant communications on HIV/AIDS by strengthening partnerships among local FM radio networks and health and education, youth and women community-based organizations. The project is funded through UNAIDS and UNFPA. Co-implementing agencies are UNFPA and Population Media Center.

Population Media Center, Inc. (PMC) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that works worldwide with the broadcast media to motivate people to achieve small family norms through family planning; to take effective measures to prevent sexually transmitted diseases, such as AIDS; and to respect equal rights for women. PMC is based in the United States.
UNFPA extends assistance to developing countries, countries with economies in transition and other countries at their request to help them address reproductive health and population issues and raises awareness of these issues in all countries, as it has since its inception.
PMC provides the technical assistance for the curriculum, inventory, needs assessment and training of radio stations for the project. UNFPA Culture, Gender and Human Rights Branch developed the project concept and proposal; it also coordinates inputs from UNFPA Country Offices in identification of countries, radio stations, health agencies and personnel.

By the end of the week, participants had committed plans to enhance their own radio programmes and the need for entertaining, accurate and culturally relevant programming to address HIV/AIDS.

One South African participant said, “Recognize you always need to learn from others. The media has power. So recognize and accept it. Recognize that people like to see themselves reflected back at them. They want characters to relate to.” She added, “In order to change a society, you need to change its ideas about itself. You need to target preconceived notions and stereotypes about gender, class and race. You need to reflect that community back to itself, so that they can see not so much their problems but rather the things that need to be rectified in their society.”

Shelburne, VT- A novel sex-ed program is broadcasting on Ethiopia’s airwaves. Population Media Center (PMC), which uses serial radio dramas to promote healthy and safe sexual practices, is receiving a $100,000 grant from the Ethiopian Government’s HIV/AIDS Council to boost sex education.

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Shelburne, VT– In a country where infection rates are soaring, three popular television programs may prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. The United Nations Development Program-Swaziland has asked Population Media Center (PMC) to work with three television shows, Swazi View, Coca Cola What’s Up?, and the evening news, to build their capacity for entertainment-education with regard to reproductive health issues.

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Shelburne, VT, - September 12, 2002 – It is no accident that for 25 years soap operas have been a vehicle for social change around the world. To mark the 25th anniversary of promoting social change by broadcasting hugely popular television and radio serials, Miguel Sabido and David Poindexter, of the Population Media Center (PMC), reunited in Mexico City last week in celebration of past achievements through their programs in countries such as Mexico, Tanzania, and India. Sabido and Poindexter also met to discuss works in progress, including countries throughout Africa. The reunion included other big names in the field of pro-social entertainment, such as Population Media Center President William Ryerson, Michael Cody of the Norman Lear Center, and World Entertainment Education Director Sergio Alarcon.

Poindexter first met Sabido in 1977. Sabido, who was Vice President of Research at Televisa at the time, was giving a lecture on telenovelas (Mexican soap operas) and their potential for creating social change. The meeting was to mark the beginning of the pair’s crusade against overpopulation, AIDS, and low status of women. Sabido’s first telenovela promoting family planning in Mexico, Acompañame, is credited with increasing calls to Mexico’s family planning information center (CONAPO) from zero to an average of 500 a month, increasing contraceptive sales by 23 percent in one year, increasing family planning clinic enrollment by 33 percent, and encouraging over 2,000 women to register as volunteer workers in the family planning program.

Currently, the two PMC leaders are focusing their efforts on various African countries. Upcoming activity is scheduled in Swaziland, Mali, Kenya, Sudan, and Nigeria—to name a few. Two radio serials created by scriptwriters from the National Theater of Ethiopia and the University of Addis Ababa are currently on the air in Ethiopia, where there are estimated to be over three million HIV/AIDS carriers. Poindexter feels that “as a result of these broadcasts, in a few years we will see enormous positive change in Ethiopia.”

Rather than simply informing people about HIV or AIDS through direct messages, role modeling in popular soap operas has and is moving audiences to change patterns of behavior in pro-social ways. With twenty-five years of success to their credit Sabido and Poindexter are continuing their work through PMC in countries around the world.

Population Media Center-Ethiopia (PMC) will launch a research-based radio serial drama designed to address Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS issues in Ethiopia on June 1, 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. This is a unique program, the first of its kind ever to be carried out in the country.

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Shelburne, VT, USA—May 30, 2002—The Population Media Center (PMC) will launch two radio serial dramas in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on June 1 that address reproductive health and HIV/AIDS. What do a small town in Vermont, USA, and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia have in common? A passion for the creation of modern serial dramas and a commitment to helping people through those dramas.

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