Women’s Contribution towards social change

“A woman is the full circle.
Within her is the power to
create, nurture and transform”

Women in Bangladesh face huge discrimination in all aspects of life. There are approximately 55 million women in Bangladesh, relatively half of the country’s entire population. Low literacy rates, low political participation, low labor participation, and conservative practice of purdah (women cannot leave their home unless accompanied by a male family member) have all led to the unequal status of women and gross levels of discrimination.

However, since the early 1990’s women have made significant improvements in their status and women’s rights and issues are at the forefront of debate in Bangladesh and around the world.

Literacy rates, political participation, and the labor and economic role of women are three areas that are a focus for improvement.



Concept of social change

Social change means the structural transformation of political, social and economic systems and institutions to create a more equitable and just society


Identity & Role of Women in society

Until the mid-eighties of the twentieth century, a Bangladeshi woman’s sole identity and basic achievements were weighed with very conservative balances.

Her role was
• confined within the territories of her husband’s household
• to be a good wife to her husband
• And a good mother to her children.



However,

• Household expenditure and, schooling of children, investment of savings, and so forth were not to be her concerns.
• No bank account
• And financial matters were not discussed with her.
• not to voice any opinion

• In the past, women like Empress Razia Sultana, Mughal Queen Noor Jahan, Queen of Natore, Bhagvati, Begum Rokeya and the women of the Tagore family, Nehru family and the women revolutionaries of the Swadeshi Movement during the British Raj came out of their usual home making role.


• They influenced society, education, politics and economics and ultimately made history.


Women’s Contribution towards social change:

• Despite the historical and persistent discrimination against women, the situation is improving. Many of the gaps are slowly narrowing.
• Interestingly, both of the posts of the Prime Minister and the leader of opposition are hold by the two women of this society.
• Even in the home there is evidence that women are having more influence. A (BIDS,1996) survey claims that between 1990 and 1995 the proportion of women reporting that men dominated household decisions on house purchases fell from 36% to 27%.
• Some of these changes reflect broader movements in society. More women whether pushed by the poverty or pulled by opportunity, are working outside home and gaining greater independence both moral and monetary (UN, 1997).


• At the end of the twentieth century, average women of Bangladesh are rapidly overcoming social, cultural and corporate barriers and acquiring important positions in national, private and international sectors. They are also generating huge foreign currency through garment exporting sectors and export processing zones (BGMEA, 1999). They are becoming self-sufficient through Grameen Bank type of policies of micro-credit without any collateral.

• These movements are changing the traditional roles and reshaping modern roles for the women of the country. One of the major changes is witnessed in fund management where average middle class and formerly poor women are voicing their opinions in terms of profit and loss, both at home and outside of homes. There has been a dramatic change in behavioral practice relating to family structure.

• After the rise of employment of the women in government, in business and in industry, particularly in garments and electronic assembly industries, there has been a rise in the number of female entrepreneur.
• Qualified, competent and deserving women are coming up with their own projects and competing with their male counterparts on equal terms


Role of NGO’s


Non-Government organizations play a vital role in the intellectual, economical, and physical development of our women. The target group of the world famous NGO GRAMEEN BANK is the women folk of rural Bangladesh. All other major Non Governmental Organization’s including BRAC, PROSHIKA are primarily concerned with the development of women.


Case Study -1

Asmat, Grameen Bank member for ten years, owner of milk-giving cows, currently building grocery store in Savar, mother of two.

She has been with Grameen Bank for over 9 years. Since she first entered the Bank, she have made a house, bought two cows, provided adequately for her children and have been able to send them to school. her life has become much better. She is now building a grocery store in the center of her village-town.



Case Study-2


Monsura Begum was destitute when she received her first loan. Her husband left her when she became pregnant, and therefore she is a single-parent. She used the first loan to deal in oil, soap and groceries. She saved the resulting profits over a period of three years. With the additional help of further loans, she bought a sewing machine at the end of these three years. She had learnt to sew in the mission. Now, she became self-employed and sewed for the whole locality, for the market and for the clothing factories. Sometimes, also free of charge for very poor people in the area. In 1977, she used her seventh loan to acquire her own house. She is now saving for the education for her son, who is now eight years old, and to buy him a plot of land.



Other activities of Grameen Bank

By means of a kind of social constitution from the Grameen Bank, which comprises of 16 points, Monsura Begum's whole life has changed in a positive sense. At training sessions for these 16 points, Grameen customers primarily learn things about daily life: how to plant vegetables, and why one should not live from rice alone, how to build a toilet, that water should be boiled before drinking, how to build a fountain etc.

Case study-3

Jagoni is 55 years old and her husband is a disabled person. Jagoni lives in a remote village of Jhikargacha Thana of Jessore District, where Rural Reconstruction Centre (RRC) is working. By occupation she is beggar and she was looking for opportunity to get out from this begging occupation. Getting motivation from the Field Organizer under the Financial Services of the Poorest Project (FSP Project : an experimental project of PKSF for the hardcore poor) she took a credit amounting Tk. 1000 and started rice trading. She buys rice from the market and sells in the village. Now she makes profit around Tk. 15 to Tk. 20 daily from her business. Jagoni also sells puffed rice, which she prepares by herself. Jagoni joined in Hawoa Mohila Samity organized by RRC on 31 December 2002 and after 12 weeks of enrollment, she applied for a loan. Jagoni plans to take higher amount of loan and increase her business. She is grateful to RRC for contributing to the positive change in her life. Jagoni selling rice, no more begging




Many little things, in many little places, by many little people, can change the world.

By overall judgment as a final point we can say, The status of women still has a long way to go, but they have made several gains in achieving many things In spite of these achievements, the majority of women in Bangladesh are rapidly overcoming social, cultural and corporate barriers and acquiring important positions in national, private and international sectors.

Women's cooperatives are being developed. They are now homemaker and breadwinner as well. So the women are in ‘double employment and now they have much less time than before for themselves. It is argued that Bangladesh would benefit by bringing the tremendous untapped resources of its female population into the development process.

Participatory Development Communication Approaches To Rice Farming

Target theme:

Development communication can improve the knowledge of farmers.
And the way are categorized into the following ways-
• Media based strategies
• Participatory strategies
• Information technology strategies and
• Knowledge based strategies



Media based strategies(by Reshenda Aziz)

Media based strategies mainly base on media. The main object or goal is to the adoption of new technologies by farmers in achieving desired progress in agriculture. Through media, farmers are getting all types of information, knowledge and become rich day by day. Here technology playa vital role behind the development of farmers.




Participatory Strategies (Hasan Md. Shariful Haque)

The communication researchers found that participatory strategies can play an important role where the media strategies have failed. Because in participatory approach the communication channels are very important tools and these tools are more accessible to farmers. Like as involve farmers in formulating messages and designing communication programs and projects. Through this process the audiences, mainly the farmers becomes both sender and receiver of the messages. Other significant steps are participatory decision making and action and participatory message making even with video.

But, there are some problems.
• It’s tough to sell the idea among the farmers.
• It’s hard to reach the knowledge to the rural people.
• Lacking of knowledge of sound planning and management.
• Looks the dependency on international funding.




Information technology strategies (by Romana Islam)

Knowledge based strategies was applied in the 1990 to 2001. Development planners and contributors including the indigenous and local knowledge system. They believed that farmers are researchers, teachers and consultants and they also know about soil, microclimates, flora, fauna and lunar cycles. This knowledge should be viewed as evolving and dynamic rather than static and conservative.

Sometimes religious rituals played important role in knowledge and practices because belief systems are also sources of indigenous knowledge.

Scientist can share knowledge with farmer for transferring information.




Information Technology strategies( Galib and Shahrear Karim)

In 1980 development communication practitioners started looking into the promise of new communication technology. It’s for developed through rural area. Technology works as an agent to change the view of health service, education and agriculture.

Govt. and others invested a technology and they invested on that to prevent poverty.

The promise of new communication technology in addressing development problems. New communication technology is revolutionized access to information but the revolution is likely to reach everyone but the poor. In a world where 80% of the world population has to access to reliable telecommunications and one third has no access to electricity. It is hardly surprising that the internet reaches few poor people, like wise more than half of low income countries population is illiterate.

The Role of Communication In Peru’s Fight Against Tuberculosis

Each year approximately over two million deaths are TB related. 95% of global TB cases and TB deaths occur in the developing world. Despite the challenges, few of the developing countries have succeeded in achieving the global targets set by WHO. Like as in Peru, the detecting of 70% infections and curing the 85% among them of the TB is one of the successful stories of TB.

Although it is succeeding in its fight against TB, Peru faces new challenges. The National Tuberculosis Control Program (NTCP) is carefully monitoring the development of multi-drug resistance TB (MDR TB).


The role of communication:

The NTCP used communication to address several issues that challenged the program. These issues included:

• Reducing stigma about the disease, especially among health care workers, and introducing an enabling environment for case detection and cure

• Gaining support from political, governmental, international, and local leaders for the program

• Raising awareness about TB in general, including the effectiveness of treatment and that diagnosis and treatment were available at no cost

• Improving knowledge about TB case detection

• Encouraging those with symptoms to seek help

• Strengthening the link between health facilities and the community to improve case detection and treatment success

• Improving both passive and active case identification by building health care workers’ capacity to approach and counsel patients and by increasing community involvement in detecting new cases

• Improving compliance with treatment by motivating patients and supporting volunteers, family members, and the community

• Reaching high-risk groups, particularly the urban poor

• Reaching “closed population” groups with high TB prevalence, such as those living in prisons, mental institutions, retirement homes, and homeless shelters.



Communication activities:

The communication activities that contributed to Peru’s success in TB control included the following things:

• Advocacy

The NTCP engaged political leaders, community leaders, the medical community, and the public with the slogan

“Treatment of one is prevention for all.”

It invited the press to relevant seminars, public gatherings, and parades to encourage media coverage.


• Mass media.
Like as
1. Television and radio
2. Print materials

The NTCP used mass media, including television, radio, and print, to reach the public with information about TB. Peru’s high literacy rate made print media an important tool for improving knowledge of tuberculosis as well.


• Interpersonal communication and counseling
• and community mobilization.


Intensive Program: The NTCP created several intensive programs to motivate health care workers, patients and communities to become involved to the TB control program.

Impact:

• The Peruvian government’s decision to make TB a priority of the national health program.
• Increased resource allocation for TB control programs.
• An increase, then decline, in the number of new cases.
• TB was designated a national health priority. It was given a line in the MOH budget and increased support from international donors.
• Peru achieved the WHO target of 70 percent case detection.
• Peru achieved the WHO target of 85 percent successful treatment. It also decreased the treatment abandonment rate from 12.1 percent to 2.8 percent between 1991 and 2000.

Project 'Know Yourself" and project "HEART"

know yourself

Project “know youeself”:

The project is about a implementation toolkit which is “know yourself“.

Objectives:

To reduce the pre-martial sexual behavior among young men and to improve in adolescents reproductive health knowledge.

Effect of the project:

1. Premarital sexual behavior among male adolescents decreased significantly between 2004 and 2005 in the intervention areas.

2. Adolescent knowledge of reproductive health increased.


3. Perceived support of abstinence until marriage and other safer sex practices improved.


Included material:
“Know Yourself” program has included radio, TV magazine programs.

At concluding:

The result from the study suggest that community based workshops, implemented using the “Know Yourself” toolkit can effectively address of the psychological factors and behaviors related to the adolescents reproductive health.



HEART Program--Hope for an HIV/AIDS-Free Future

HEART Program:

“Helping Each other Act Responsibly Together” or “HEART” program is designed by youth, for youth and informs the young adults about HIV/AIDS and discuss ways to prevent HIV/AIDS and promotes abstinence and condom use.

Formula and the development:

The programs first three phases focused on promoting abstinence or in the absence of abstinence, correct and consistent condom use and try to dispel some untrue believes.

To achieve broader youth involvement, HEART included a “Youth Advisory Group” consisting of 35-40 young people from 11 youth organizations to advise the design team.

The YAG developed communication objectives and messages for abstinent males, abstinent females, inconsistent male condom user, all ages 13-19 years.

They pre-tested messages through focus group discussion and interviews including Television broadcast and print materials.

64% of the urban and 14% of the rural respondents were aware of the projects.

By 2003, viewers promoted condom use and 53% of the viewers took at least one action prescribed in the campaign

Radio is widely available in rural Zambia and the messages were broadcasts in five regional languages.

In concluding:

The “HEART” program largely met its goals. HEART project successfully increases awareness of AIDS and reduced unsafe sex. The HEART program should be expanded as much as possible; especially in the rural areas where it has been harder to reach so far.

Participatory Communication In Malaria Control

Target Theme: Community level communication can engage the most vulnerable people in strategies to prevent and treat malaria.

In the mission of malaria control the role of participatory communication is very important and this communication must be fullfilled the criteria of proper participatory communication because without genuine community understanding and participation with the malaria the external efforts will be fall down.

With the participation in malaria control in the local community they will be able to know about the causes and consequences of malaria which will help them a lot and by that they will find the possible solutions.

Another very important thing is that the community people heve to treat the malaria like a malaria disease but not like a fever.

And many rural pharmaceuticals people were trained for promoting the participatory communication in malaria control.

Communication around treatment needs to acknowledge the complex social and cultural environment to address these broader influences.

Let"s Have A Little Journey About The Comparison And Contrst Betwwen The Three Paradigm

Foundation Concept:

• In the modernization paradigm the media is the promotioner of the modern attitudes and innovations.
• In the dependency paradigm the media as a means to achieve autonomy.
• And in the participatory paradigm the dialogue is the centre of communication process.

Principle Key:

• In modernization the information is transforming to the large number of audience.
• In dependency the main key is to educate people and forge alliances among developing countries.
• But in participatory the main fact is sharing perceptions, knowledge and experience to achieve an action plan for the change.

Types of model [communication]:

• Modernization is one way communication.
• Dependency is one or two way communication.
• Participatory is two way communication.

PARADIGM AND TYPES OF PARADIGM WITH LITTLE INTRODUCTION

PARADIGM


A paradigm is a typical pattern or an example of something.

The Paradigm can be also defined as the idea of a mental picture and patterns of thought.

The concept of paradigm was initially introduced by Thomas Kuhn (1996).


TYPES OF PARADIGM

There consists three types of paradigm:

Like as-

Modernization paradigm

Dependency Paradigm

Participatory Paradigm

Modernization Paradigm

Modernization theory is the theory used to summarize modern transformations of social life. It’s the theory that assumes that with help, "traditional" countries can develop in the same ways "modern" countries did.

Modernization theory not only stresses the process of change, but also the response to that change.

But some communication experts thinks that it has widen the gap between first and third world countries. The third world countries depend even greater upon first world countries for survival.

In this theory the relation between media structure and content is ignored.
According to modernization theories, internal factors in the countries, such as illiteracy, traditional agrarian structure, the traditional attitude of the population, the low division of labor, the lack of communication and infrastructure, etc., are responsible for underdevelopment.

The poorer countries are only following the footsteps of the richer ones.
The role of communication was to promote the spread of values and attitudes of the developed countries.

Here communication is one-way, top-down process and just follow the traditional Sender-message-receiver model.

Dependency Paradigm

Communication in dependency perspectives was seen as a tool to educate the people and forge alliances among developing countries
The focus was on to mass media, which were expected to be placed under the supervision of the state.

This approach tended to ignore the dynamics within developing countries.
Media under the control of the state did not guarantee a more horizontal and people based flow of information.

Participatory Paradigm:


Participatory paradigm based on peoples participation started to gain ground and its importance of actively involving and accounting for people’s perceptions, opinions and beliefs in the decision making process.

Here the two way communication aiming to analyze and solving key issues.
Development agencies and international organizations are convinced of this approach.

The model of communication:
Decision maker A-Dialogue-Decision maker1


Communication is a process involving two or more parties within situations are addressed:

· Solutions identified
· Strategies designed and
· Agreed upon.
· A horizontal model of communication.
· A two way flow of information.

This model is gaining more and more significance in the developed world and its actually based on dialogue and here listening is as important as talking.