Ten Comparative Advantages of “Speaking Books” over other forms of communications for low literacy audiences
1. Visual messages accompanied by sound are doubly effective at conveying accurate messages. Messages heard as well as seen are more readily retained. They appeal to several senses and help focus attention.
2. Community volunteers and outreach workers are empowered and proud to have such a visible tool, enhancing their authority. The recorded text serves as a script and provides quality assurance where volunteers receive only brief training and cannot be supervised.
3. When the issue discussed is delicate, touching on cultural taboos such as gender, sexuality, or diseases that are stigmatized due to ignorance and fear, the Speaking Book serves as a transactional object: the discussion is about the characters in the book, and not about the health worker nor about the client.
4. Contrary to radio and television, the Speaking Book does not depend on the electricity supply or on being within transmission range.
5. Radio and television programs are ephemeral. Sometimes a listener hears the second half of a program, and has no way of hearing the beginning. A listener may hear the full program and yet be unable to share it with their family, their students, their church, and their place of work.
6. Timeliness: the program may offer answers to questions the listener hasn’t yet asked. (For example, a young woman who is not yet married or pregnant is unlikely to retain messages about breastfeeding: once she is expecting and the questions arise, how can she retrieve the information?)
7. Speaking Books are user-driven: the audience can play and re-play the message at any time, at their own pace.
8. The Speaking Books are durable and have a lasting impact. The well-bound laminated materials have lasted over three years in extreme climates and are not affected by repeated usage.
9. Each copy of a Speaking Book has the potential to reach hundreds of people with accurate and life-saving messages. Each copy of a Speaking Book can be heard simultaneously by several listeners, between 2 and 10 depending on the setting and the background noise. Each copy can be played between 50 and 60 times for the lower model, and between 120 and 500 times for the more upgraded model.
10. The Speaking Book is easy to track, monitor and evaluate. |
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Links
UNDP, The United Nations Development Program publishes excellent data on global development indicators, notably literacy and education. http://www.undp.org/
UNAIDS is the Joint United Nations Program on AIDS and hosts a multi-lingual website at http://www.unaids.org/en/
RBM, the Roll Back Malaria Partnership is an umbrella organization and has links to its numerous partners at http://www.rollbackmalaria.org/
PMI, the United States Presidents’ Malaria Initiative has good reports for its 15 focus countries at http://www.fightingmalaria.gov/news/enews/index.html And other news can be viewed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/malaria/
The World Bank supported the first Speaking Book and clearly is one of the major agencies working on many health and development issues around the world: see http://www.worldbank.org/
Johns Hopkins University Center for Communications Program is the premier Health Communications site: http://www.jhuccp.org/ See also the Media-Materials Clearinghouse at http://www.m-mc.org/
C-CHANGE Project is the US Government’s flagship Health Communications project. AED, the Academy for Educational Development, is the lead partner agency. http://www.c-changeproject.org/
The World Literacy and Factbook
http://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2103.html
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