Transformative writing: ~~~~~~~~~~

from practice to publication to advocacy and action

Marge Berer

Editor, RHM

~~~~~~~~~~

24 January 2014

7th APCSRHR

Manila

Finding time for writing

Few NGO people working for sexual and

reproductive health and rights are given

enough work time to write about their work.

So, the time has to be stolen ‒ from free

time, nights, weekends, holidays.

That's how it is.

This talk is to inspire you to do it anyway…

Because telling others about the work we are

doing to achieve sexual and reproductive

health and rights is as important as the work

itself. Otherwise, no one but us will know about

it or understand its purpose and importance.

Disseminating knowledge

From practice… to publication… to advocacy…

to action…

to practice…to change the world!

Writing about what you do

Promotional material ‒ an idealised picture,

look what we've accomplished! ‒ is what you

write for a donor and in your annual report…

OR ‒ the real story, in-depth, the problems,

the mistakes, the false starts, the limited

progress, the failures ‒ and the successes…

Promotional material helps you get funding

and reach out to people needing services, but

it doesn't describe the reality of your work, and

it doesn't help fellow NGOs to use your

experience as a model (or learn how difficult

implementation of our goals can be).

Barriers to telling the truth

Fear of punitive reaction by donors if you admit

to anything except success/impact. E.g.

Evaluation of youth safer sex behaviour change

projects in Latin America ‒ after two years

knowledge was greatly improved but behaviour

hadn't yet changed. Donor pulled the funding.

The government who asked for the report

doesn't want anyone to see that things are less

than perfect so excellent reports sit in filing

cabinets gathering dust and no one learns a

project even existed, what it accomplished or

what it can teach others about how to succeed

and avoid mistakes (UNFPA Africa Road Maps).

How to present your work

Research report ‒background, methodology, participants, finding

s, discussion, conclusions and

recommendations.

A narrative history of activities ‒ like a diary.

A narrative centred around individual case

histories of people your project has helped.

Videos/photos but with narrative explanation.

Blogs with narrative history/diary instead of an

article ‒ could be daily or weekly describing

what you did that day/that week. Could be

edited into a report after 3‒6 months or a year.

Other media/means people have used too.

Where to publish

RHM ‒ crucial to publish these sort of articles.

Do you know of other journals who do? If

not, you need to search for them.

In a quick search I found:

WHO SE Asia Journal of Public Health ‒ section on

policy and practice, reports from the

field, commentary, and voices

Indian Journal of Public Health

Publish on the website of your NGO.

But no matter where/how you publish your

report, you will need to disseminate it ‒sending to colleagues, posting on listserves

and web, tweeting, using in presentations, etc.

Writing skills ‒ yes, it's very hard!!!

Very few people enjoy writing.

Editing is the largest part of the work of writing

and even fewer people like editing.

I like to compare writing and editing to

sculpture. You sculpt a piece of stone until

your vision appears in the material itself.

Or painting ‒ you paint millions of dots and

lines, you add something, you take some

away, you make it bigger or darker or brighter.

Or knitting, one stitch at a time… it needs

patience and thought. Edit and edit again!

The end product makes it all worth it!

Audience / language: prioritise

Will a description of your project be of value for

people all over the world? Or mostly for your

region or country? Or for specific people in

your country, e.g. a government committee?

Answering these questions affects where you

seek to publish it ‒ e.g. an international,

regional or national journal, or a specific group.

It affects which language you write it in. Why

use English if the paper is significant only for

speakers of your own (other) language?

Or, if for both, you may want to have it in your

own language for local publication and also in

English for an international readership.

A paper in a widely read national

journal may lead to a different kind of

influence and change from a paper in

an international journal.

Should everyone try it?

Should everyone try to be a writer or editor? No! People who like it/want to/are good at it, yes!

But everyone who is capable of conceptual-

ising and carrying out research and projects in

our field is capable of contributing to articles,

reports, videos, i.e. reading and critiquing a

draft text and realising what is right and wrong

with it, what's missing, and so on.

To help, there are certain "formulas" you can

use. For example, every abstract needs

specific components relevant to the type of

paper, e.g. why this project, aim of the project and

this paper, project description, participants,

activities or findings, outcomes, what's next.

Using formulas

A good abstract serves as the outline of the

main sections of the paper, and of the

headings of those sections.

Thus, after writing only a few hundred

words, you already have an outline. Then you

can fill that in with lots of details, data, case

histories, and the equivalent of a project

diary/history.

Other good practice:

plan the paper with your co-authors before starting.

answer: who, what, where, when, why, how.

when you are recounting the history of the

project, present the information in historical order.

Don't tell what happened in 2011 before you say

what happened in 2009.

Language: options

Write/edit in your own language first, and then

have it translated. Getting an excellent

translation is not easy + it also needs editing!

RHM editions in translation ‒ in both Chinese

and Arabic the editors decided to create a

glossary of translated terms. Even the

translation of "reproductive health" was not

obvious, e.g. in Chinese or French.

Writing in English only ‒ yes but then help is

needed from an editor who understands your

English so as to be able to edit/correct it.

Examples

RHM 41, May 2013 (1)

Making it Real: Sexual Health Communication for

Young People Living with Disadvantage

(Australia) ‒ activity using focus groups with young

people. The report puts forward recommendations on

communication strategies on STIs based on their

input, including in their own words.

Pacific Youth: Their Rights, Our Future: Report of

an Open Hearing on Adolescent Sexual and

Reproductive Health in the Pacific (NZ) ‒ The NZ Parliamentarians' group on population and

development initiated this in the Pacific region. Wide

range of written submissions received and 12 chosen

for oral presentation at the Open Hearing. Outcome:

recommendations by regional stakeholders for action.

RHM 41, May 2013 (2)

The Sexuality Education Initiative: a

programme involving

teenagers, schools, parents and sexual health

services in Los Angeles, CA, USA ‒ Starting in

2008 Planned Parenthood Los Angeles developed and

launched a teen-centred sexuality education

programme. It was based on critical thinking, human

rights, gender equality, and access to health care. It

reflects a theory of change that recognises the

complex relationship between the individual and

broader environment of cultural norms, socio-economic

inequalities, health disparities, legal and institutional

factors.

A history of learning by the people providing the

education, not just the school students receiving it.

RHM 41, May 2013 (3)

Crowdout AIDS: crowdsourcing youth

perspectives for action ‒ To develop a strategy for

how to better engage young people in decision-

making processes on AIDS, UNAIDS launched the

participatory online policy project CrowdOutAIDS in

2011. A total of 3,497 young people aged 15–29 from

79 countries signed up to nine online forums, and

volunteers recruited through the online platform hosted

39 community-based offline forums with an additional

1,605 participants. Conclusion ‒ it is possible to

integrate grassroots perspectives from across the

globe into a new model of engagement and

participation, which should be further explored for

community empowerment and mobilization.

Using web, social media, local forums to create policy.

Examples: RHM 42, November 2013 (1)

Mobilizing women at the grassroots to shape

health policy: a case study of the Global

Campaign for Microbicides ‒ examines the

contribution of this Campaign to the movement to

expand the range of HIV prevention options for

women. It describes how they mobilized hundreds of

grassroots policy activists around the world to take

coordinated action on this issue, and considers the

value of similar efforts on the part of grassroots

advocates seeking to influence the post-ICPD and

post-2015 development agendas.

Use of basic scientific research, political campaigning

and lobbying.

Examples: RHM 42, November 2013 (2)

Discrepancies between national maternal

mortality data and international estimates: the

experience of Papua New Guinea ‒ Over the

past 30 years maternal mortality estimates for Papua

New Guinea have varied widely. This disparity has

been a source of considerable confusion for health

workers, policy makers and development partners.

Knowing the maternal mortality ratio is a necessary

starting point for working out how to reduce it.

Complex statistical research and analysis, using e.g.

hospital records, to make practice effective.

Examples: RHM 42, November 2013 (3)

From MDGs to post-2015 sustainable

development: SRHR in an evolving aid

environment ‒ Using research from country case

studies in Lao PDR, Malawi, Senegal, and Tajikistan,

this paper offers insights into changes in development

assistance between 2005 and 2011, and their impact

on the inclusion of a SRHR agenda in national

planning. Globally, donors supported sector wide

approaches, poverty reduction strategy papers, direct

budgetary support with use of economic frameworks in

decision-making. The MDGs brought heightened

attention to maternal mortality, at the expense of a

broader SRHR agenda…

… continued

Advocacy at the national planning level was not well

linked to programme implementation; health officials

were disadvantaged in economic arguments, and

lacked financial and budgetary controls to ensure a

connection between advocacy and action. With

increasing competency in higher level planning

processes, however, health officials are now

refocusing the post-2015 development goals. Today,

advocates need to link SRHR to the key sustainable

development themes: inequalities in gender,

education, growth and population, but also to

urbanisation, migration, women in employment and

climate change.

Use of policy analysis and in-depth interviews with a

wide range of stakeholders.

All papers available at:

www.rhm-elsevier.com