Using community video to change social norms and behaviors, h2n is engaging groups of community members who learn how to address key issues related to health, nutrition and gender equality by producing short videos from the communities. Randomized controlled trials from India show that community video is 10 times more effective in changing norms and behaviors than most other methods and 7 times more cost effective.
“Community video is a three-step process,” explains Libério Nhantumbo, project specialist in community video, currently working in Angoche and Nampula under the auspices of the USAID-funded Transform Nutrition project. “First, by engaging community members in telling their own stories, we see that they internalize an understanding of the issues they address in the videos. Second, when they present these stories in the form of videos to other members of the community, there is a sense of context, familiarity and recognition.”
After the community members produce the videos, which they do after learning how to film and edit on a smartphone, they present them to their community in large (but socially distanced) groups, where they answer questions and explain what they have learnt to others.
The third step in the process is to cirulate the videos more widely, for example via social media. “We use community video as one of several mutually reinforcing interventions, like radio and television, to make it easier for people to recognize and change a negative behavior or reinforce a positive one,” explains Liberio. Community videos produced under Transform Nutrition focus on nutrition, hygiene and sanitation, but h2n is also using CV in other contexts, for example on initiatives related to gender equality and education.
h2n works with community-based communication, produces television programs and videos, organizes youth centers and pursues a comprehensive gender equality agenda.