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The power of pictures – a response to the HIV epidemic in Kenya

Photo: Benjamin Kiplagat/Internews Sylvia Chebet, a journalist from Citizen TV, completed the first television training program of Internews' Local Voices project in Kenya.

(June 22, 2007) “I have learned how to make my stories powerful – letting the pictures speak,” says Sylvia Chebet, a journalist for Kenya’s Citizen TV. Sylvia completed the first Internews Local Voices training in covering HIV/AIDS for television reporters at the end of May in Nairobi. “We also learned how to explain very complex issues in very simple terms,” she says.
In Kenya, where government figures show that at least 300 people die of HIV-related illnesses every day, no one is untouched by the impact of AIDS. Yet Kenyan television coverage is ineffective in conveying new information on the epidemic, according to a recent report. 

To address this problem, Internews Network has expanded its Local Voices project to train and mentor Kenyan television reporters, camera people and video editors in how to cover HIV/AIDS accurately and effectively. The Local Voices project was launched in Kenya in 2003; to date more than 100 radio journalists, deejays and talk show hosts have been intensively trained and mentored.

Sylvia and her fellow television trainees have already finished and aired their first TV stories, three touching accounts of people on antiretroviral drugs who are embracing life. In one of the stories, Alice, a street vendor, is shown taking her morning dose in the bustle of a busy fruit and vegetable market. "The mouth chews food all day, but you have to take these tablets only twice a day," says Alice, who has been HIV positive for 19 years.

The story, "Alice’s Determination," (view above) was produced by Internews trainee Anne Soy of KTN, one of Kenya’s largest television networks. 

The extraordinary stories of ordinary people have struck a chord with the journalists’ editors, who have been looking for fresh angles to covering HIV.

A 2006 baseline study on the status of TV coverage of HIV/AIDS issues in Kenya by the Kenyan monitoring and evaluation company Q and M shows that television’s response to the epidemic is inadequate; there are few locally produced stories on HIV, and the same dated story angles are often repeated.

The Local Voices team in Kenya has provided the TV journalists with intensive training on HIV science and broadcast production skills, guiding them to make it all come together through stories with a human face.

The journalist’s answers to pre- and post training questionnaires show a 50% – 75% increase in their knowledge of HIV and television production.

“This (training) I feel came to me just at the right time. There is a connection between story idea, scripting and editing, that makes it all so much simpler,” says Sylvia.

All of the trainees have free access to Internews television production facilities in Nairobi, including a studio with state-of-the art equipment, a video editor, cameraperson and the mentoring services of Internews Kenya staff.   

Internews has four years of experience helping radio and print professionals in Africa, India, and Southeast Asia to expand and improve their coverage of HIV/AIDS, so that it is both accurate and compelling, while reducing stigma around the epidemic. The Local Voices project is funded by grants to Internews from the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief.