Background

Need for the Centre

With intensive field action on the themes of water and microfinance, DHAN Foundation is becoming a resource centre on both these themes. The Foundation strongly believes that community provides a powerful learning opportunity. These programmes, from the very beginning have facilitated learning opportunities for bankers, government officials, NGOs, academicians and researchers through various programmes. The need for setting up mechanisms for documenting and sharing the field experiences was felt in the early nineties. This has paved a way for creating an exclusive Centre for Development Communication in DHAN Foundation.

With the support of field teams, the centre has been taking up a number of initiatives in communicating within and outside DHAN through publishing DHAN Newsletter, vernacular newsletters for Kalanjiam and Vayalagam groups, publication of annual report, audio cassettes for spreading the message of our programmes, short films to showcase our work to the external agencies, interfacing with media, setting up website and so on. Many of the products were mainly prepared to document the experiences of peoples organisations related to water and microfinance.

All these experiences have brought in a lot of insights on the potential of using communication as a tool for development. Also the experience of interaction with the mainstream media and use of different types of audio visual medium have reinforced that media can be used as a means for education, for motivation in the spheres of development action. The Centre views Communication is about the human aspect in development. It gives people a voice, makes them “visible” and enables them to learn and take action. Knowledge and information are essential for people to respond successfully to the opportunities and challenges of social, economic and technological changes. But to be useful, knowledge and information must be communicated to people so that they participate in and direct their own courses of change.

Objectives

The objectives of the Centre are to

• Facilitate documentation and dissemination of field learning within and outside the organisation
• Promote the use of information and communication as a tool for development in selected themes
• Work with print and electronic media to highlight development work

To achieve these objectives the Centre has four functional units namely Audio-Visual Communication Unit, Information and Communication Resource Unit, Community Media Resource Unit and Folklore Resource Unit. These units offer a number of services and products for the programmes and institutions of DHAN Collective and extend need based services to other Development organisations including Peoples’ Institutions.