Micky Hingorani
Forum Replies Created
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Many colleagues have talked about social media. I believe that social media is very important and this is a instrument without financial investment. Tools like facebook, blogs can reach the community. But to people who live in remote locations that don’t have Internet access, these media do not reach. I think the CAB identify key people from NGOs, schools, religious centers, LGBT groups, is very important.
Reading the responses from colleagues managed to identify many good and which can be replicated ideas.
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I think for me I would seek out the individual(s) that is respected and has a voice of the community. So how would I find this stakeholder you might ask? Well I would go to the faith based leaders and ask if they could point out this perspective stakeholder. Another avenue I would use for an MSM focused research is to ask Nashville CARES’ Director MSM Prevention & Education who personally knows these stakeholders. His work in HIV spans over 25 years.
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The team should be able to invite people to the conversation by having open conversation in certain demographic areas they need to recruit.
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Approaching one stakeholder rather than the other happens by common perspectives. The type of partnership is important to get into the community and listen to the needs and concerns. Some stakeholders have more expertise and work experience with a certain population. Identifying meaningful stakeholder foster community and research partnerships through strategic location and national engagement activities.
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Understanding who and where the stakeholders are in the areas where research is to be conducted is key important step. The research team in collaboration with members of the community advisory board will have to conduct a scan to map the stakeholders and scrutinize their interests in the research process. Not all stakeholders have positive contribution to the research process. Stakeholders’ contributions vary and there is need for a scrutiny of each stakeholder efforts towards the research agenda. Engagement emphasis needs to focus on those stakeholders who contribute positively for they realize benefits extracted from research. Civil society is all about give and take, hence the need to engage all those who are concerned and willing to contribute positively and who will in turn benefit from prevention research.
Interviews and focus group discussions could help determine the importance of involving one stakeholder versus another for the approaches will allow stakeholders to share their opinion and views towards a research intervention. with the team. The quadrant tool can then be used to categorize the stakeholders according to their interest and strength towards research. -
Stakeholder maping is critical to identify the type of relationship you determine with different stakeholder. Catergorisation of stakehlders will enable one to know the role and mandate the stakeholder plays, and ultimately determine what the relationship should be established.
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In Botswana, there is a well know process of engaging communities. The study team has therefore built the community engagement strategies around this. There is a Kgotla system, which is overseen by the village chief. This is usually the entry point; liaising with the Chief to inform him/her about your purpose. The Chielf will then call his people to a Kgotla meeting. The Chief usually works with the structure called the Village Development Committee, the committe which is responsible for developement and community issues. This large meeting is then followed by specific smaller, focussed meetings with specific groups depending on the issues at hand.
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Relationships can be based upon a variety of factors – ranging from what one stakeholder can get from the other, what they can give to the other or how they can partner to realize a benefit. There will be different tiers – policy, implementation, and results management etc. The objectives of the stakeholder education plan can determine the type of relationships formed.
The issue of stakeholder selection remains an area with unanswered questions. Stakeholders involved in previous successful work, stakeholders with a genuine interest in the work and reputable stakeholders are all considered when stakeholder selection is necessary. It is key to also engage the critical eye stakeholder to ensure checks and balances just by having that particular stakeholder on the team.
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When resources are insufficient to support formal formative research activities, we have being making contact with community leaders and faith based leaders to reach the wider community. Through this way, we have being making meetings with community leaders and religious leaders and give them information of what we expect to do in the community. Then from that point as community and religious leaders, they have being carrying the message to people they lead; and sometimes they have prepared meetings for us to meet their people and talk to them about research activities ahead.
But also we have being using the media as a way of engaging stakeholders and sensitizing them for participating in the coming research, so through the media we have being receiving information as feedback about what we are planning to do with the community.
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I think you can facilitate participation by identifying key community structures within communities and link up with such organisations and groups of people to participate and give you leads in terms of getting more stakeholders who can participate in your initial activities. When community based structures are clear about the benefits of your activities to the community they are willing to help and participate. You can also offer your research expertise to such communities to help contribute to their own program goals (something that most community based organisations in resource limited settings are lacking in and can benefit a great deal from. I think forming strategic partnerships at different levels based on skills, knowledge and skills exchange can help in this regard.
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I believe one of the best ways to circumvent such problem is to use online resources, such as social media (as mentioned by Luciana and Natalia), web groups and forums, mobile applications and so on. The cost can be close to nothing and, at least in the context from which I speak (São Paulo – Brazil), such channels have an enormous penetration in target populations such as MSM and TGW. It’s a cheap and effective way to ensure their participation.
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One of the approaches that you use with low resource is identifying community stakeholders that can participate in a variety of ways, identifying needs, generating solutions, recognize diversity, identify any potential barriers and design the process to minimize barriers without exclusion. Community mapping is a useful and adequate with low resource. More than this, is integrated to the Community needs. I agree with Nkiru, using community forums aggregate public who are interested in HIV prevention and research and you can learn and listen to the community concerns. Using social media is a great channel to disseminate the information. Partnership and CAB involvement legitimize the initial outreach work.
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When resources are limited or insufficient to support the formal formative research activities we use the music dance and drama clubs to deliver research messages. These can be acted in terms of plays, or poems packaged in the local languages.We also use different religious of different sects they normally fix us after weekly church announcements.
At community level we organize football and netball competitions to attract the youth. We use the opportunity of such gatherings to offer health topics especially on participants rights etc.In case of limited resources , the study staff can contribute towards the refreshments and snacks for such meetings but this is not common. -
When resources are insufficient to support formal research activities we will first inform the community stakeholders about such limitations and request them to help in identifying other other from the community that could participate and also identifying local people who would help us to conduct our research at no cost. For example we can use local media and approach spiritual/religious leaders to obtaintime slots at their chu
rches in oder to give presentations about our research and to recruit members. It is also important for us to sometimes go to an extent of using our own resources for the benefit of the study. I.e if it means using our own cars to transport participants or to go to the outreach sites then so be it -
Since 1994 when research work started at this site, resources have really never been sufficient and the way we have facilitated the participation of the community stakeholders in initial out reach and information gathering is by identifying some stake holders who from the very beginning understood the benefits of research and voluntary nature of their participation as stakeholders.These are very influential in their catchment areas,they then work in conjunction with the Health neighborhood committees from the government clinics, the churches and other social gatherings who in turn fit our programmed information gatherings in their daily outreach activities.A member of staff accompanies them too, just in case there is some clarification sort at that meeting, then the answer is given there and then.The stake holders feel empowered and feel the program need to go on with or without resources, and with this strategy, we have been able to facilitate the participation of community stake holders in initial out reach and information gatherings.