Community people benefit more by receiving interesting and effective information, education and communication (IEC) activities that are flexible and creative, and tailored to the their actual demands in project areas.

From 4th to 19th December 2006, JOICFP dispatched Tadahiro Sakurada, Deputy Executive Director, Japan Family Planning Association, and Yukio Homma, Director, China Program, JOICFP, to China to conduct training workshops on producing educational materials for family health. This was under the "People's Participatory Poverty Reduction Model Project" in Daozhen and Leishan Counties, Guizhou Province, entrusted to JOICFP by JICA.

Workshops were conducted for project personnel and community people.

The project personnel workshops were attended by more than twenty participants in each project county, including those from the county family planning service center, maternal & child health center, center of disease control, project township medical institutions and the villages.

Discussing the production of educational materials
in Daozhen

A national expert in sociology and provincial experts in reproductive health also attended to give lectures and guidance in producing educational materials. Several art experts from the counties and the townships were invited to the workshops to assist in making illustrations for educational materials.

Sakurada gives advice in drawing a chart

The Japanese experts explained that hand-made wall charts, for example, are better than printed or audio-visual educational materials as they are more flexible and a more creative content can be produced to meet the actual demands of the community people. Also, they are easily portable and require no electricity or equipment.

The experts gave guidance in producing educational materials with easily understandable pictures and practical contents from the viewpoints of villagers, especially for those who are illiterate. In group-work, the participants produced a series of wall charts and manuals for lectures on reproductive health, children's health, parasite control, people's life improvement and eco-farming, which are the base of the project's components.

After the lectures, discussion and practice sessions for producing IEC materials, seminars for community people were held in the four model project villages in Daozhen and two model project villages in Leishan. Project personnel used the wall charts that they had produced, and many villagers interestedly listened to them.

Lecture in village in Daozhen using the chart ...

...and in a village in Leishan

For most villagers, this was the first time to experience an IEC seminar in which hand-made wall charts were used, and they eagerly explained their appreciation of and interest in such easily understandable educational activities.

Villagers in Leishan listen to the lecture

The experts again stressed the need to amend and add educational materials more fitting to the actual demands of the people, and also proposed to train more project personnel in townships and villages in order to conduct many kinds of trainings for more villagers.

One of the charts produced explaining signs of pregnancy

One of the charts produced explaining prevention
of women's diseases

This poster explains the benefits of a biogas toilet