Planning for Tomorrow Youth Organisation (P4T) was contacted by Intercultural Development Agency (IDA) to become a partner in the ongoing development of IEC materials to be used in Minembwe Community of DRC. The IEC materials contain messages in different languages to communicate about peace in the target community.

P4T is a refugee founded community based organisation that is striving to create a healthy and self-reliant community with knowledge and skills in Kyangwali Refugee Settlement, Kikuube District, Uganda. IDA is a non-profit, non-governmental community based organisation registered under Ngora District Local Government in Uganda to conserve and exploit local natural resources, cultural resources and the environment towards sustainable development. The IEC material production and distribution is an activity under the project entitled “Edutainment and psychosocial support of the 04 conflict affected minority groups in Minembwe of the DRC”, an initiative of Alex Mahoro, a Congolese Munyamulenge based in Rwanda.

P4T mobilised 10 Congolese refugees who originally came from the Minembwe Community. They were shown the graphics and messages for IECs, and asked to give their feedback in terms of 1. What messages they get from the graphics, and the relevance of the different graphic features, 2. How they understand the messages (02 statements) in the IEC, 3. The quality of the different translations, and 4. What should change from the graphics so as to match the IEC messages?

Conclusion

The consultation was fruitful as participants were very interested in providing feedback. This was a result of good mobilisation and the provision of clear background of purpose for the consultation. The messages that they derived from the picture (before reading the message) can tell what the community will perceive at first sight as some community members do not know how to read. The translations were adjusted to match the common phrases used in the community, away from the perfect Kiswahili (Swahili Sanifu). While not all the feedback can be considered, we feel that the imformation obtained can be very useful in designing the final IEC materials.

Challenges

Politics – Minembwe is a highly divided community and having the different tribes in the same room was not easy as other participants did not want to over disclose their thoughts and one participant actually refused our request to take a photo.