COPASAH – ICT Capacity Building Workshop, January 8-10, 2015 – Bhopal
Brief Summary of the capacity building workshop
In the COPASAH South Asia ‘Innovative Use of ICTs for Community Based Monitoring in Health’ capacity building workshop conducted from Jan 8 – 10, 2015, COPASAH groups (social media) in India of community practitioners including that of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh were created. Maharashtra already has a group existing on Community Based Monitoring and Planning (CBMP), which will be linked to COPASAH global network. The creation of the Gujarat group is in the process. The group of practitioners in accountability formed in each state consists of collective of organizations working for social accountability. Created with an aim to facilitate grass root community practitioners to strengthen the community based monitoring work by using technology, these groups on social media (facebook) will be used to share community based monitoring innovative practices, knowledge, information, evidence documentation using Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) techniques and methodologies such as Photo voice, video clippings, photo stories, photos with stories and other methodologies. These groups will be linked to global COPASAH network to facilitate inter- state sharing as well a wider sharing and peer learning amongst practitioners on the global COPASAH platform.
These groups were formed at the COPASAH South Asia -Innovative Use of Technologies (ICTs) for Community Monitoring to Enhance Health Rights of the Community Capacity Building Workshop held from January 8- 10, 2015 at Bhopal in the state of Madhya Pradesh in India. Nearly 30 grass roots practitioners from six states of India including Gujarat, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh participated in the workshop which aimed to enhance the skills and develop innovations, tools, thematic innovations, new constituencies for accountability practice in health using technology. The goal was to facilitate strengthening of the processes of social accountability practices and to strengthen the existing community of practitioners to innovate in community monitoring practices especially with the use of technology, while using Photo- Voice as the primary methodology.
The value addition aimed to the traditional Community Based Monitoring through this three day workshop was capacity building of practitioners, as a move from theory to practice in learning use of technology to document evidences for accountability and social mobilization. The practitioners were facilitated by resource persons in the workshop to engage with audio visual tools and technology such as Photo Voices, cell phones, video cameras, video clippings from cell phones and other media tools such as SMS, website, blogs, face book etc.
The focus in the workshop was on innovation and group (collaborative) work in the workshop. The workshop has been undertaken under the documentation of COPASAH project.
The workshop had also invited proposals from the states on the current work and how the groups would like to use the ICTs for value addition of community monitoring work and generate a photo voice product. Facilitated by a key person to coordinate the work the states groups chose a focus theme in the workshop to work further (January- March, 2015) within which they will use ICT innovation.
Facilitated by a key person to coordinate the work the states groups chose a focus theme in the workshop to work further (January- March, 2015) within which they will use ICT innovation. The theme chosen in states include the following:
- Health rights of Dalit – Manual scavenging and Safai Karmacharis (sanitation workers) community(Karnataka);
- Functioning of committees (Anganwadi committees, Gram Panchayats, and school management committees)-Tamil Nadu;
- Sanitation and hygiene in Primary Health Centres(PHCs),
- Access to ante-post natal care and referrals (Madhya Pradesh) and
- Quality of care in maternal health service (Uttar Pradesh)
- The theme for Gujarat is under process
The groups will primarily use Photovoice methodology for evidence generation on the chosen themes. In addition they will select either a video or audio medium to supplement the same. They will hold engagement with the community as well as health providers using the evidence and media platforms.The photovoice product, AV product will be submitted in its completed form in March 2015 by the groups along with a final report on the process.