Module 1: Risk Communication and Community Engagement
To download presentations in .pdf format or to participate in discussions about this training series, visit READY’s discussion forums (free registration required).
Foundational Sessions
These sessions provide an introduction to Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) concepts, building a program model, principles for community engagement, a step-by-step process for engaging a community in an RCCE response, using community feedback mechanisms to track rumors and misinformation, rapid survey design, and using data to adapt program messaging. (7 sessions)
What do we mean by Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) for COVID-19? This video introduces participants to RCCE during COVID-19 and provides a brief overview of social behavior change and risk communication theories, models and key considerations for this pandemic. It sets the stage for the other sessions in this module.
This session describes the components of a pathways model, and how it can be used to inform or adapt risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) programming. It is designed to help agencies consider the context, challenges, enablers and intermediate effects of programming at different levels and plan RCCE accordingly.
This session walks through the challenges of engaging migrants, internally displaced persons, refugees and other vulnerable populations, and basic steps for engaging them during COVID-19 for a community-led response. Content for this session was drawn from two global RCCE interagency guidance documents and implementation experiences from interagency partners in the field, which are referenced in the session.
This video walks participants through a 6-step process for engaging communities for COVID-19, including how to engage government officials and community leaders, partner with community groups and the broader community to identify issues and solutions together, and monitor and share data back with communities.
IFRC’s Community Engagement and Accountabilities Senior Advisor, Sharon Reader, describes the fundamentals of community feedback mechanisms for COVID-19. Processes and tools for collecting and analyzing community feedback, including rumors and misinformation during COVID-19, are explored.
In this interview, Director for Communication Science and Research with Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, Dr. Doug Storey discusses what makes a good survey design—specifically, a useful rapid survey for COVID-19. Doug discusses sampling considerations, digital and safe in-person options, questions to consider, and how data are used.
This video walks participants through a 6-step process for engaging communities for COVID-19, including how to engage government officials and community leaders, partner with community groups and the broader community to identify issues and solutions together, and monitor and share data back with communities.
Communications for Development Officer Manjaree Pant of UNICEF-Rajasthan, India, discusses the roles of youth volunteers, faith leaders, and other actors in influencing community actions around COVID-19. Considerations related to the urban poor were explored. Ms. Pant further explains why youth volunteers are key players in this pandemic. This example was provided to READY courtesy of UNICEF. It is an excerpt from the June 26 webinar titled, UNICEF Lessons Learned Webinar Series: COVID-19 Risk Communication & Community Engagement (RCCE), The India Experience.
GOAL’s Global Health and Social Behavior Change Advisor Geraldine McCrossan discusses implementing a community-led action approach for COVID-19 in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, touching on examples from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda and Sierra Leone. She describes how they combine traditional community engagement with interactive media to support communities in developing action plans to address issues arising during this pandemic.
From the Breakthrough ACTION project, Save the Children’s Head of Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning, Bosco Kasundu, explains how MEAL officers work with community-level staff in Myanmar to track rumors and misinformation, and then how they analyze and use the results. In this engaging interview, Mr. Kasundu walks us through the process, reflecting on lessons learned along the way.
Based in the Philippines, Plan International’s Asia Pacific Hub focuses on girls, young women and their families to recover from the effects of COVID-19. Regional Emergency Preparedness and Response Specialist, Angelo Hernan E. Melencio (Enan), focuses on how they use community feedback data—community-level voices, including from children—to inform their response.
CCP-Pakistan’s Senior Communications Advisor Muhammad Faisal Khalil describes the challenges of encouraging COVID-19 prevention measures in Pakistan. He touches on what went wrong from the early stages of the response and what they are doing to strengthen the response, even using data to advocate to ministry offices for systems-level changes.
With lockdowns impeding face-to-face engagement, many response organizations use technology and radio for two-way, participatory engagement. Co-founder and Senior Advisor with Africa’s Voices Foundation Sharath Srinivasan walks us through his well-honed interactive radio process for incorporating rapid insights from voices of internally displaced persons in Somalia into media content for social behavior change related to COVID-19. This example was provided to READY courtesy of Africa’s Voices Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication programs and the Breakthrough ACTION project.
From the Niger office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Protection Office Zbigniew Paul Dime discusses how they leverage existing networks of vulnerable populations, leaders, host communities, and service providers to address the impacts of COVID-19, such as loss of income, and the importance of leading with community voices.
Tools and Additional Learning Resources
To download presentations in .pdf format or to participate in discussions about this training series, visit READY’s discussion forums (free registration required).
Module 1: Risk Communication and Community Engagement
- Creative brief template for adapting activities using data (on CCP’s Compass for SBC)
- Tools – Step by Step: Engaging Communities during COVID-19: This document contains all of the tools referred to in the Step by Step: Engaging Communities presentation.
- IFRC’s COVD-19 Community Feedback Form and Logsheet
