Empower Communities to Adapt to Climate Change

Our work with USAID, Tetra Tech, and 5 other partners in West Africa aimed to improve conservation and climate-resilient, low-emissions growth across the region. The program worked to increase coastal communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change, reduce deforestation and forest degradation, and reduce wildlife trafficking. PCI Media led the social and behavior change communications activities, a key strategy of the program.  

WHY RADIO?
Our research found that radio was the dominant form of mass media consumed by our key audience groups (local communities living in coastal areas and around/in forest landscapes).   

WHAT DID WE DO?
PCI Media produced two 24-episode radio dramas; this entailed organizing and facilitating radio drama workshops that included a diversity of stakeholders, from community leaders to regional policymakers, in the identification of priority themes, reviewing of the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors matrix, developing characters and storylines that reflect the local context, and providing other important information for the successful broadcast and uptake of the radio drama. We also managed the relationship with radio hosts and provided discussion guides to facilitate discussions during the call-in show.  

Aside from the radio dramas, PCI facilitated and advised the crafting of key messages and developed appropriate communication strategy materials for important key audiences. To ensure the programs' effectiveness, we monitored activities through data collected by radio stations, focused on group discussions and key informant interviews with target audiences. 

We look forward to continuing our climate work in West Africa.

NEW PROGRAM ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE

We're excited about a new program that addresses climate-related disaster risks in the Caribbean. 

PCI will be working with the French Red Cross’ READY Together Programme to design and implement a regional public awareness campaign on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The campaign will be implemented across six countries: St Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, Guadeloupe, and Martinique. The campaign’s objectives are to: 

• Increase public awareness of climate-related disaster risks and the importance of preparing for natural disasters;  
• Increase the general public’s, and small and medium businesses' inclination to actively prepare for natural disasters by appealing to their values and concerns; and  
• Increase interpersonal communication/social dialogue around natural disaster preparedness, particularly as it relates to climate change. This is critical in normalizing new behaviors, knowledge, and attitudes.

Your support makes changing knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors around climate action possible. Thank you for supporting media that makes change!

Check out an interview with Felix Dodds, Sustainability Development Expert and PCI Media President, Meesha Brown!

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Links:

• Interview with Felix Dodds, Sustainability Expert

• Our Climate Change Work (PDF)
  

 “The only way Liberia's forest [becomes a valuable resource] is when we, the community members, get to know the importance of our forest...so we want more education on the radio for the people.”-Alice G. (Farmer and "Forest Blessings" listener), Grand Gedeh County, Liberia.

Links:

• Read the comic: Into the Jungle: A Rescue Missions in Kabiti
• Learn more about why communications drives change