The Drum Beat 136 - World Association of Christian Communication

1. The World Association of Christian Communication (WACC) supports "the democratization of communication, communication for human dignity and the right to communicate in situations of censorship and oppression." A global organisation, with members in 120 countries, WACC supports communication projects worldwide that "lead to the empowerment of people, especially marginalized groups, indigenous peoples, refugees, migrants and women - regardless of faith." WACC's main work guideline is the short document 'the Christian Principles of Communication.'

2. WACC publishes 3 regular magasines on communication:
Media Development Media Action - available in English & Spanish Media and Gender Monitor

3. WACC's Email bulletin service provides occasional updates on news, articles and publications. The Emails link straight to the online versions of Media Development, Action bulletin, Media and Gender Monitor and other pages of the WACC website. Subscribe by visiting the WACC website.

4. WACC's Global Study Programme is engaged in advocacy projects and studies for Communication Rights.

NEWS, ARTICLES, and PUBLICATIONS

5. Highlights of Global Media Monitoring Project (GMMP) results. On 1st February [2000] hundreds of volunteers in 70 countries took part in the Global Media Monitoring Project 2000, a one day study of the portrayal and representation of women in the news on radio, TV and in newspapers....

6. Women's Words Unveiled - Review of the workshop series on women and censorship in India.
"Are women censored in specifically gendered ways? Do family and community influence their choice of language, style, subject and do they face problems in getting published and receiving critical literary attention? A hundred women writers in 6 languages at 6 workshops, organised by Asmita and Women's World in India, explored the answers to these questions. In the process they discovered that before they are silenced by the state or community, women censor themselves. They even destroy their own work..."

7. Grameen Telecom: Can mobile phones improve the lives of the rural poor?, by Sean Hawkey.
"...Without a telephone in a village it's impossible to call emergency services for fires, for police to deal with crimes or for doctors to attend accidents and other health emergencies. It may mean the difference between life and death to be able to make or receive a call in an area prone to floods, cyclones or tidal waves, and with a population so vulnerable to their effects..."

8. US Coverage of Iraq: Breaking the Sanctions on Truth, by Rania Masri.
"US media coverage of Iraq still overwhelmingly ignore[s] the devastating effect of UN sanctions and bombing on civilians, provide[s] skewed reporting of major issues such as weapons inspections, and focuse[s] on the opinions of those aligned with United States policy...."

9. Communicating Reconciliation: In Pursuit of Humanity, by Charles Villa-Vicencio.
"...The reconciling process needs honest, blow by blow reporting, which conveys the emotion, the atmosphere and the angst of the moment. It is important not to underestimate the will and the ability of the reader or viewer to make intelligent and informed decisions about what the next step may be in the pursuit of reconciliation. The question...is whether there is not room for more sensitivity in the media for 'good news' stories that keep alive the possibility of reconciliation - that interruption and quest for human wholeness..."

10. Media Coverage of the Congo: In the Footsteps of Western Interests?, by Antoine Roger.
"...explores the media's deafness and blindness to an ongoing and escalating conflict..."

11. The Platform for Communication Rights & the World Summit on the Information Society. WACC hosted a Platform meeting early in Nov 2001. The main objectives were to review the status of the Platform and to work out a strategy related to Platform and NGO involvement in the planning of the World Summit for the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in 2003 and 2005.

12. WACC members receive award from President of Peru, for contribution to democracy. Coordinadora Nacional de Radio (CNR), a corporate member of WACC, was founded in Sicuani (Cusco) on the 31st of August 1978. In 1992 the CNR set up the first decentralised news agency in the country to produce and distribute journalistic information from all over the national territory to a variety of media on a national and international level. In 1998, concerned about providing a better service to its clients, it created the satellite communication system ALRED. More than 200 educational broadcasters across Peru and Latin America use the network, producing and broadcasting programmes of national and Latin American interest....

13. "Communication: from Confrontation to Reconciliation" an issue of ACTION magazine covering WACC's worldwide conference.

14. Cartoon Rights Network, by Robert Russell.
"The human spirit is so resilient. Nobody embodies this more than editorial and social cartoonists in the midst of hardship... I just returned from a four day week workshop in Romania hosted by the Cartoonists Rights Network/Romania and sponsored by the Soros Foundation, Romania.... The workshop hosted about 15 Yugoslavian and 15 Romanian cartoonists..."

15. Solar Radios: A wind up?, by Sean Hawkey.
"Many poor rural areas depend on radio for information. Distance-learning, primary health care, farming advice, and electoral information in many areas are only available from the radio.... Radio ownership and control in a household or community is often a reflection of social status.... Having made a capital investment in a radio, often with the income from a harvest, people often cannot afford to buy batteries regularly to power the radio.... So, when Trevor Bayliss, a British inventor, designed a wind-up, battery-free radio he thought he had made communications accessible for the world's poor..."

16. Targeting Men for Change - on the Women's Mediawatch project in Jamaica
"The shift in focus from 'women' to 'gender' over the last decade has...for Women's Media Watch (WMW) in Jamaica... meant a change in their activities to include men as well as women as part of a process which seeks to change the social relations of gender. 'Youth, Gender-Based Violence and Communication', a WMW project recently supported by WACC, included a series of workshops and seminars with male adolescents..."

17. Preparing for Constitutional Reform - on the video work of Africa Women Filmmakers' Trust, Zimbabwe.
"Any Constitution that totally neglects the basic rights of women is deplorable. But equally deplorable is a situation where lives are lost because women are denied information about rights that are, in fact, available to them. Such is the situation across Zimbabwe, according to Chido Matewa of the African Women Filmmakers Trust, which will be addressing this problem in their next film Women and the Constitution...."

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Many thanks to Sean Hawkey, WACC, for his assistance with this issue.

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