PMC’s Ethiopian serial drama, Sibrat (”Trauma”), is featured in this month’s edition of Harper’s Magazine.

Sibrat, Harper’s Magazine Article (PDF, 104 KB)

Sibrat (”Trauma”) is being broadcast throughout Ethiopia on the National Service of Radio Ethiopia in the Amharic language. Sibrat is a 25 minute program that airs every Sunday and Wednesday after the 21:00 news. It is repeated on FM Addis on Monday and Thursday at 15:00. The main themes of the program are female genital mutilation/cutting, gender equity, and child abuse.

Thanks to Kathleen Mogelgaard, Senior Program Manager for Population and Climate Change at Population Action International for this article from PAI’s blog.
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“We farmers don’t have access to family planning and we are moving more and more into poverty.”

As the world focuses on the outcomes of the meeting on climate change that just concluded in Poznan, Poland, I am sitting in a workshop in Nazret, Ethiopia, listening to a panel of farmers talking about the effects of climate change on their lives - less rain, lower crop yields, malaria, no milk for their children. The farmers, from Amhara Region in the Rift Valley, talked about population pressure. They are acutely aware that farm sizes shrink with each generation and speak eloquently of the need for access to family planning so they can have fewer children. Rural Ethiopians currently have an average of six children.

For full article, visit:
http://www.populationaction.org/blog/2008/12

An interview with Dr. Negussie Teffera, PMC’s Representative in Ethiopia, and me by Canadian Broadcasting Company’s program, “The Current,” can be heard on the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars blog, at http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/2008/09/reading-radar-weekly-roundup_12.html. Link to it from the last paragraph on the page and then play Part Two of the show.

In this announcement from Nazareth, Ethiopia, thirty religious leaders from the Afar region, representatives from the Office of the Supreme Sharia Courts, Islamic Affairs Bureau, and the Women’s Affairs Bureau of Ethiopia issued a declaration to end the practice of female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation (FGM). The declaration was issued at the end of a Population Media Center (PMC) workshop held from July 30 to August 1 in 2007, to discuss the issue of female circumcision and what religious leaders can do to help eradicate the practice. The PMC workshop was the first part of a “whole society” strategy to eradicate the practice of FGM in Ethiopia, and the Afar region in particular. PMC uses a “whole society” strategy to strengthen the impact of communication initiatives. The PMC strategy in Ethiopia includes a radio serial drama with a storyline about the risks and negative consequences of FGM.

For full article, visit:
http://www.comminit.com/en/node/270991/38

Population Media Center’s Ethiopia Representative, Dr. Negussie Teffera, and I were interviewed on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s National Radio’s program “The Current” that aired on Friday. The interview can be found at http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2008/200809/20080905.html. Scroll to Part 2, and click on “Listen to Part Two” at the end of the description. The program was aired nationwide in Canada, in the northern US, and on satellite radio.

The January 2008 issue of Population Reports carries a feature article on Population Media Center’s Ethiopian radio serial Yeken Kignit (“Looking Over One’s Daily Life”). The publication can be found at http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/j56/j56.pdf.

Many thanks to NaHyun Cho, who authored the article.

Ned Lundquist recently sent the message below to the 10,000 members of his newsletter for communication professionals (The Job of the Week). It includes many members of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). It is already yielding numerous donations of communication resource materials for Population Media Center’s resource center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I thought I would share it with you in case you wish to send something for this small but growing library.
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The Job of the Week (JOTW) network is embarking on a noble effort to obtain communication resources (books, manuals, CDs, DVDs), to expand the materials available at the Population Media Center resource center in Ethiopia. This resource center is open to any professional communicators in Ethiopia, and so would be serving the general business community in Addis Ababa.
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The article below appears in the current issue of Communication World, the magazine of the International Association of Business Communicators. Congratulations to Dr. Negussie Teffera for this publication!

Hearing Is Believing (PDF, 2 MB)

The January 2008 issue of Population Reports carries a feature article on Population Media Center’s Ethiopian radio serial Yeken Kignit (“Looking Over One’s Daily Life”).

The publication can be found at http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/j56/j56.pdf.

Many thanks to NaHyun Cho, who authored the article.

Launched in 2002, Dramatool is a web-based platform described as “an international meeting point for drama/theatre education”. Available in Amharic, Chinese, English, French, Kiswahili, and Spanish (as of this writing), this website is an effort to empower drama and theatre practitioners through networking. Dramatool is run by a team of 11 people from 5 countries (Ethiopia, Kenya, Sweden, Tanzania, and Uganda) who have experience in working with drama and theatre as a tool for an inclusive and humane society.

Dramatool aims to be an open forum, which is available to anybody who is interested in and works in the area of drama education and performing arts.

Contact: info@dramatool.org

For full article, visit:

http://www.comminit.com/en/node/265376