{"id":47922,"date":"2014-05-19T08:58:36","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T12:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=47922"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:34:06","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:34:06","slug":"pamojatogether-telling-the-stories-of-foreign-aid","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2014\/pamojatogether-telling-the-stories-of-foreign-aid\/","title":{"rendered":"PamojaTogether: Telling the Stories of Foreign Aid"},"content":{"rendered":"\t
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May 19, 2014<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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PamojaTogether is a student-powered global news network funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that tells the stories of foreign aid from the perspective of the recipient.<\/h3>\n

Pamoja, the Kiswahili word for together, connects students from countries that receive aid with peers from donor countries in a student-to-student learning process.\u00a0PamojaTogether<\/a>\u00a0is a partnership between Boston University,\u00a0Jaramogi Oginiga Odinga University of Science and Technology<\/a>, and\u00a0Great Lakes University of Kisumu<\/a>. This global health reporting project sent eight BU students from the\u00a0BU School of Public Health<\/a>,\u00a0BU College of Communication<\/a>, and\u00a0BU College of Arts and Sciences<\/a>\u00a0to western Kenya where they teamed up with 10 Kenyan students to identify and report on these global health stories.<\/p>\n

The goal: to nurture the conversation about aid; tell raw, authentic, and inspiring stories from the field; and engage a worldwide audience in re-imagining aid by telling it like it is.<\/p>\n

This is the second of four installments exploring various facets of the way foreign aid is applied on the ground.<\/em><\/p>\n

Part 2: Leveraging knowledge to fight disease and disability<\/h2>\n

Illness, injury and disability can devastate a country\u2019s people and resources as ruthlessly as any war.<\/p>\n

Aid organizations often appear during a crisis to combat disease outbreaks and — if time and money allow — to teach people in affected communities how to prevent future flare ups. However, fundamental public health principles hold that prevention is far more cost-effective than treatment.<\/p>\n

Outreach programs that promote prevention take many forms and fight many foes, but it’s the large-scale government programs that often generate the lion\u2019s share of attention. Massive media campaigns designed to spread health messages as widely as possible are a proven tactic of multinational efforts from various UN-sponsored groups, US aid agencies, and an array of non-governmental organizations.<\/p>\n

But how many radio ads promoting condom use can someone listen to before tuning them out? How many signs reminding people to use mosquito nets are too many? As these messages saturate all the readily available audiences, perhaps the greatest gains from program outreach efforts may be found in targeted interventions that identify and serve specific niche populations.<\/p>\n

PamojaTogether correspondents documented the efforts of sex workers who are trained to act as peer educators in their city to help encourage condom use and HIV\/AIDS testing. Reporters interviewed rural community health workers who use musical skits to spread accessible messages about HIV, malaria, water sanitation, and the importance of staying in school.<\/p>\n

Finally, with so much attention paid to major public-health issues such as HIV\/AIDS, malnutrition and malaria, the needs of a nation\u2019s disabled community can be easily \u2014 and often \u2014 overlooked. Foreign aid directed to schools and training programs for the disabled can give them an economic lifeline, and provide a path to self-sufficiency for their students.<\/p>\n

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Playing for Change<\/h3>\n

A novel program uses music and skits to convey relevant health messages in rural villages, reports Kasha Patel and Faith Chesire.<\/h5>\n

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