Community Reporting Networks

In the last module we talked through the 5Cs – Connectivity, Conviction, Confidence, Capacity and Craft – now is the exciting part of exploring how we try to lower these barriers through establishing community reporter networks.

From recruitment to training, keeping your reporters engaged and incentivized, to mentoring, safeguarding and creative storytelling – in this next mini-series, we’ll talk through the process of setting up a community reporter network and the different building blocks that you can use to ensure the participatory process is sustainable, appropriate, engaging and genuinely co-designed and co-produced.

Make sure to use the comments section to add any comments or send in questions you have as you work through the modules, and we’ll be sure to get back to you as soon possible.

So now for the exciting part – setting up your own community reporter network! First of all, you’re going to need to recruit some participants from the community that you are trying to engage with.  This should not be about hitting a certain number to meet a predefined quota, but getting the right people together, for the right reasons.

Right at the beginning of the course we asked, who can and should be a community reporter? And the answer was anyone and everyone. We still stand by that – as all of us have the right to represent our communities and we all have the potential to make great contributions. That said, when thinking about building a network, it can be useful to think about three important building blocks that can help people to participate with ease.

We refer to these blocks as – willingness, capacity and stability.

Firstly, let’s look at willingness – does the community member genuinely want to be involved, or want to at least try it out to see how it goes? The participants should want to take part, not feel that they have to or should take part because they’ve been asked.  Secondly, do they have the capacity to take part – is there a time commitment, or other requirements as part of the project? These should be made clear from the outset to avoid drop-outs later down the line. Remember, we can build up skills with training so capacity in this instance is not about specific community reporting skills – you can teach them those things! And finally, stability – if taking part in this project could put someone in any danger whatsoever, either physically, mentally or harm their well-being, then they should not be taking part.

There are lots of different ways to recruit. You can work with your own team – or partner organisations – to nominate individuals who they think might like to be involved. You could run an application process inviting individuals to apply – this can be a good way to ensure that those joining the project genuinely want to be part of it. Or you can use peer referrals, starting off with a small group of participants and then asking them to use their own networks to reach more people.

However you do your recruitment it is important to consider it as both an invitation and an ask. Organisations – including us – get this wrong all the time. We should definitely still invite people to take part by making clear the benefits to them and their community, for example we are starting to tell people how much training is being paid for on their behalf. But we should also make clear the benefits to the organisation of having them join the project, for example the deep insight and knowledge they bring which will improve their work. We should frame it as an ask to them too.

Finally, when doing your recruitment try to see beyond the ‘shinies’ – these are people who often put their hands up for things and take up opportunities. There is no problem involving these people – they might even make great peer mentors as part of the project – but we should also be looking to amplify the voices of those who might not be so confident or not often receive opportunities to take part. It might take more work to begin with, but we can guarantee the pay-off will be huge.

Traditionally, it is often the organisation (or funder) leading the project who makes decisions about how the project will be set up and delivered. This can lead to a community feeling even more marginalised before you have even started.

When designing your project, you have an opportunity straight away to break this cycle. 

By opening up the design of a project to the community that you are going to be working with, it will give you a really exciting chance to work together to create a shared mission.

In the previous module we discussed how a lack of conviction was a barrier communities faced when trying to share their stories and ideas. Genuine co-design allows organisations to listen to the community right from the start to better understand the barriers they might be facing. Instead of coming with a preconceived idea of what a community might want and need, we should be flipping that completely and listening to them first.

There are a range of tools and activities that will help keep the co-design process on track. These include resources to address safeguarding, power mapping, risk assessments, exploring a theory of change, and more playful activities to break the ice, promote open discussions, and prompt creative thought.

The most important thing is that the participants in the co-design process feel heard and understand they hold a critical role in guiding the project and holding us to account.

The key is that the participants feel heard and understand that they hold a critical role in guiding the project. There is a spectrum to this: some projects will want to put that control firmly in the hands of the participants, allowing them to guide both the creative direction and the storytelling itself; other projects will carve out clear and genuine moments for participants to input into the design and direction while retaining some central control.

Wherever your project lies on that spectrum it must offer an authentic opportunity for collaboration. Tokenism will be spotted immediately and can further erode conviction in speaking out. If done well, the creative process will emerge as stronger and more authentic, creating essential buy in from all stakeholders.

Training and sharing new skills is at the heart of building capacity and it can have enormous benefits – the positive impact of training doesn’t stop at just one participant or the confines of one project. If skills are relevant and transferable – as digital literacy, communication and community engagement skills are – then the benefits can multiply, spreading out from one participant as they share their knowledge with the next, or introduce them to their wider community. 

Community reporting training can of course be delivered in many different ways. Lots of you will actively engaged in community training so this won’t be new but it’s always good to have a re-cap

Workshops, (remember those awesome in-person sessions with coffee and cake?!) will always be great opportunities to bring people together not just to learn but to build relationships and have fun. The use of break-out groups, activities and discussions give participants the chance to put their new skills into action straight away – how many people really thrive when they get to learn next to real life humans as opposed to on screens.

That said, the unprecedented shift to online training this year has revealed that there are people who thrive on remote learning, and removing the stress of having to travel to workshops, often sitting for long hours in an environment that might not have the right amount of breaks or be particular comfortable, has come as a relief to many.

As well as removing the logistical challenges, remote through digital technology and mobile phones, gives people the option of working at their own pace and in their own time, fitting training in around busy lives and other commitments, and you don’t ever have to worry about having a bad hair day!

Despite the lack of cake, Online learning can be really fun, especially when using new tools that let you run quizzes and build games that test and impart learning. It can also be easier to share links and images and people might be more likely to share honest feedback in a chat box than in person.

We are learning all the time about how to make remote training more accessible and part of this project is to incorporate feedback that can make the content more accessible. We are excited this year to have our first set of community modules in easy read formats, as well as producing versions compatible with screen-reader. But we’ve also learnt a lot about people’s attention spans And the diversity of appetites different ways of learning and engaging

So practicalities aside, what should you be training your communities on? Whether you’re working with someone like Radar, or developing your own course There are a few key basics that are critical to cover:

• An introduction to the concept and history of community reporting
• The basics of community interviewing and asking good questions,
• How to tell their own stories and record their own daily lives,
• How to use their mobile tools to capture audio, text or video,
• The risks of reporting and how to keep themselves and other  safe
• How to send in reports as part of the project.
• And finally, what to expect in terms of support.

We always stress that the training is the starting point for the learning and a lot more learning happens when they start reporting and pick up new skills and awareness in action. However, a good community reporting training session should leave a group with the feeling enthusiastic about their role and the possibilities, as well as clear their own risks and boundaries.

Finally, it is important to make sure that all of the project infrastructure is ready for when the training takes place. The days immediately after the training are likely to be when the reporters are most excited about getting started and begin to send in their first stories and ideas – if there is a delay between the training and when they can get going this can lead to a loss of momentum which can be hard to get back.

So to recap, there are more ways than ever to train up a network, and while there are critical learning points to get across, one of the key things is that people feel excited and ready to engage. So much learning happens while out in the community actually doing the reporting that training should be seen as an opportunity to introduce concepts and answer any burning questions. We often return to networks and offer refresher training at different points through the project, it’s amazing to see how much people have learnt and developed as a network between the different training sessions. Many of them have gone on to now become pair trainers, taking their own learning and cascading it out to others in their communities.

Time and time again across all of the projects that we have delivered over the years we have seen that mentoring is one the most important aspects to a successful community reporting project. Building relationships sits at the heart of building confidence in the communities who are speaking out, and the conviction that when they do they are actually being listened to. 

Giving thoughtful feedback, celebrating success, lending an ear, asking insightful questions and spotting opportunities for reporters to develop is all part of the mentoring role. Getting it right is key.

Mentoring can take many different forms and you might not even want to use the word ‘mentor’ if that doesn’t feel right for your project.

Traditionally mentoring is seen as a relationship in which a more experienced person uses their greater knowledge and understanding of the work (or workplace) to support the development of a more inexperienced individual. In some cases this may still be relevant and can be very useful in passing on and developing skills but it doesn’t always have to be like this – sometimes a ‘mentor’ might know half as much as the person they are supporting, but they are there to listen, encourage and make sure that person is safe.

The most important thing is that there is someone with a clearly defined role who cares about each of the reporters, and is responsible for making sure they do not feel alone in dealing with any challenges they face and that they feel like they matter. Honest, two-way communication is evidence of a good relationship but when setting up these roles you should be careful to manage expectations on both sides about what is involved and how much support can be provided.

Staying professional is important but remembering someone’s birthday, or checking in when they are having time is all part of being a good mentor. And make sure to celebrate achievements however big or small – whether it is a one sentence text message report, or an award-winning documentary – its key to feeling motivated and appreciated.

Incentives can raise difficult questions and there is a broad range of considerations. Some organisations treat the time spent by communities on reporting as paid work. Others offer airtime credit data or travel refunds to ensure participants can engage without being out of pocket. For some, the free training being offered is proposed as an incentive in its own right, and other groups, particularly those who are marginalised but rights-aware, see the benefit in the participation themselves and the social status earned from being a conduit. Whatever incentives you do put in place, they need to be clearly defined and communicated with your reporter network from the outset.

Sustaining engagement over the lifetime of a project can be tricky and there will be moments of amazing energy and momentum, and times where there are natural lulls in the amount of reports and stories being shared. But there are some useful ways to encourage communities to keep talking.

Feeling part of a wider network and community is key to being invested in a project long term. Setting up a group on a chat-app like Whatsapp, or regular meet-ups (in person or online) are a great way for reporters to chat to each other, learn new things, celebrate successes and give feedback and encouragement. Newsletters or digital updates will help participants feel like part of a wider community and get inspired by the work of others.

You can also set weekly or fortnightly challenges to keep the pace going. These are helpful for stimulating ideas and keeping a beat to a project. And if the network has gone quiet, it can be a good idea to run what we call a focused ‘reporting sprint’ where you might ask them a different question every day for five days to spark conversation and get everyone talking again.

And remember, anything is potentially interesting. If your reporters have ‘reporters’ block’ – which can happen over a longer project – then try and get their creativity flowing by encouraging them to report on something that might be completely unrelated to the project but they are passionate about. This builds up trust and later you can ask more targeted story questions.

To keep individuals excited about the project you can award people with ‘Reporter of the Week’ for their achievements in a group chat or newsletter, and also set out a clear development pathway to promote reporters to ‘lead reporters’ or peer mentors so that they can progress. We call this levelling-up and it is a really important thing to consider. Many reporters start by telling their own stories, then move on to gathering and sharing other people’s stories from their communities, supporting and mentoring new reporters and also developing as lead advocates for the insight they are gathering.

Offering additional training – in multimedia production for example – and linking reporters in with contacts in your wider networks can be a great way to incentivise reporters who want to build up particular skills and experiences for their future careers. Keeping a small amount of budget for micro grants or progression grants that reporters can apply to for a range of things – from paying for a recording studio to record a podcast, or a subscription to an editing software, or run their own workshop – is another way to ensure they are receiving as many development opportunities as possible.

If you remember, in the second module we talked about The opportunities that can arise from mixing professional  ‘Craft’ into community storytelling and in that video we introduced the concept of co-production. 

When done well, This is one of the most creative and exciting aspects of a community reporting project – organisations and communities working together on compelling content that can have real impact. However you do need to be hyper aware of power dynamics as when done badly, introducing professionals editors and producers can risk eclipsing community confidence and voice.

Co-production of course can vary in scale – it might be the translation of a series of text messages into a blog, or it might be a community reporter co-directing a feature documentary for public broadcast. Some of the points below me feel irrelevant, if you’re just considering setting up a community blog, but do consider them as the power dynamic can be the same whether the scale is little or large.

Whatever that scale – professional production skills should compliment community knowledge and access rather than take the lead. It’s relatively really easy to find and hire an audio or video editor, and there are plenty of good producers out there – but the raw insight of each lived experience is unique. finding someone with the specific experience that your report is going to be going through, Who can speak with absolute authenticity and courage about injustices, or with genuine passion about ideas and solutions – now that’s valuable.

Co-production of course is a process – and so let’s not just focus on the output. Bringing communities and producers together can lead to both sides coming away with enhanced knowledge and awareness.

Community Reporters come away from a project gaining new skills and having seen production in action close up. It helps to demystify the media process and bring them closer to something they might have previously been alienated from. Produces have a chance to step outside their often privileged positions and adapt their perception on who is a good storyteller. they often get introduced to community settings that they May not have been able to access alone, but alongside the community member, they are accepted and trusted.

Of course when reporters see their voice and stories turned into something that looks compelling and powerful – perhaps something that looks more like what they used to seeing in magazines, on websites, or on the news – this can really boost confidence, and refresh levels of trust. They should have something they are proud of to share.

At the start I mention power dynamics, and these can go horribly wrong, partly due to this false assumption that professional skills outweigh lift experience. Of course as I’ve also said journalistic skills are vocational and can be critical, particularly if a news report involves great risk or the subject requires a level of specialist knowledge. But in community storytelling the communities are the experts, and anybody involved in the co-production process needs to remember that. Making creative suggestions as one thing but taking over the directorship, editing someone’s voice so it doesn’t represent what was said, sensationalising, or glossing over difficult truths, these can all disempower communities and make them feel like they’re being used.

We sometimes talk about ourselves as curators rather than editors, much like someone who is given the privilege of putting together art for a gallery, curates the artwork for public viewing. Whilst we might need to edit some grammar or encourage an additional point to make something more clear, much of the work we do with community stories is around giving them the most powerful framing possible, through audio and visual techniques retain the community is voice with absolute clarity and often bringing stories together for collective reports. If we shoot a community story using a professional camera person, then they understand that they are the facilitator not the lead.

So what does community leadership look like in this relationship? Community members may take the lead in voicing their own experiences, developing initial stories, researching leads within their networks. They can introduce the project to their community and build trust around the work, they can set up and negotiate access in the appropriate spaces such as community centres or people’s homes. They can set the tone and angle of the story, making sure their points are clear. They can lead on the interview process, being the interviewer rather than the interview. We often make sure that communities are at the centre of the creative edit, in some cases sitting in on the editing process in front of the computer with us, in other instances seeing regular versions and giving feedback and suggesting changes.  And as we mentioned, of course, they can lead the feedback loop, and stay in touch with interviewees as the project goes towards and beyond production.

Comms teams or Professional producers may help to guide the development of the story arc so each feature tells a clear and compelling story – and we can share some examples of this with you in the comments below. They may work on the visual style and the look and feel of the final product to make sure it stays on brand and has impact. They will certainly be able to help ensure that the appropriate privacy, safeguarding and consent protocols are upheld throughout the production.

So to recap – The key in co-production is to build a genuine collaborative creative space that balances the desire for communities to tell their own stories and framing them in a way that captures the audience’s attention and passion. I watching the power dynamics carefully, agreeing a code of conduct perhaps between the producer in the storyteller, and ensuring that everyone remains involved as much as possible, can really help to make this a magical partnership.

If conversation is queen in community journalism, then trust is king and a huge part of both sustaining both conversation and trust with the communities you are working with, is closing what is often called ‘the feedback loop’. Which to be honest is simply jargon for being a decent human being and letting people know the outcome of their engagement.   

It goes without saying that every participant has a right to be kept informed about what is happening to the information they are submitting, where it is being seen and shared, and what’s happening as a result. Not all reports will end up being published or shared and so the feedback loop also means sharing your own reaction to their reports, coaching and supporting them to improve the depth and quality of their journalism. All feedback is good feedback if it’s constructive and responsive and relevant. When people feel like they’re not getting any feedback from you or external organisations, they can quite quickly become demotivated. Once again that looming loss of conviction offers in the shadows.

The feedback loop actually starts well before anybody creates any content. As journalists we always have a duty of care to make sure that participants and contributors know and understand where future content might be shown – and so you also need to share as much as you can ahead of time about whether a community report might be sent to the media, or included in a policy report at a conference, or hosted as a quote on your website. Part of that can be getting them excited but it’s also important that they can prepare and make an informed decision about what to share. Particularly if there is any risk of backlash or safeguarding concerns.

Of course once published, they may want to share their reports themselves on their own channels and in their one communities so part of a good feedback loop is making sure they’ve got accessible ways to do so, a nice neat link to their report online, a copy of their file, or even a print out in an accessible format that they can show to their community. We try to make sure that each reporter has a portfolio of work to take away at the end of each project cycle.

If a report is published, it’s good practice to update participants how many views the piece has and what kinds of comments or responses and overall impact it has had, and that’s particularly true if they’re off-line and can’t see that engagement themselves.

We always find that it’s an enormous boost for people to see their reports published, or find out more about the impact they’ve had, no matter how minor – hearing that an audio report was played to a crowded room of policy makers is a boost, but knowing that three people you’ve never met have shared your blog is also a boost, and hearing some positive helpful suggestions from a mentor or a network lead can also leave people feeling invested in and engaged.

Closing the feedback loop can often be forgotten as it too often it’s considered right at the end of a project when budgets and attention spans are running low and new projects are beginning to take up precedent. But this is not good enough. It is vital to build in time and budget through the project to ensure participants are given a chance to see work have impact, develop and grow. If you manage to foster a lovely talkative community which is based on trust co production and conversation, then the feedback loops close themselves week in week out.

Sometimes you may need to really go the extra mile to close the loop! Over the years we have travelled for hours in some of the most remote parts of the world to do so. Whether that is to give photo print-outs to communities, project films onto tarpaulins in community centres, print online news pieces and post them on village notice boards so more remote communities can see the impact of their stories, or host gathering so communities can take their time to  reflect on shared implant and give each other kudos. . We also give committee reporters additional support and sometimes resources to help them feedback themselves to their communities, these can be wonderful opportunities for them to step beyond that report a role and help to facilitate a sense of ownership and pride amongst their wider community

This is all so important and can have such huge pay-offs further down the line in remaining connected – when new opportunities for collaboration emerge in one, two, five, ten years down the line – these communities will remember how they were included and kept in the loop and they will be far more likely to put their trust in you again and again.

Safeguarding should be at the centre of all considerations during a community collaboration. That said it’s not always easy and community reporting always carries an element of risk. 

Readers developed risk assessments that are specific to community reporting and will always be happy to share this with you, but for the next couple of minutes we just run through some of the ones that might be useful to consider.

Telling your own story carries a risk, particularly of over sharing and leaving yourself feel vulnerable or exposing information about a loved one. That’s particularly true if that person is involved in a welfare or legal case, when sharing their own story might open them up to particular risk and vulnerabilities.

Gathering information from others can inherently involve a risk. The act of being curious within a community and asking questions can make someone conspicuous, particularly if they’re asking questions that people don’t want to answer or holding people to account. If they are out and about then people should remember that they might be more distracted than usual and therefore to pay extra attention to their physical health when out and about, whether that might be staying out too long, rushing around a crowded urban space, or waiting for transportation.

If they are gathering sensitive or health information from people then that can be risky too. And so we pay a lot of attention to the role of Informed consent.  It is vital that every reporter understands how to capture consent properly in paper or as a verbal record to ensure the project is carried out safely and with dignity. We also have templates for this which can help you may be able to use or adapt your own.

Someone who shares a story, particularly one that is deeply personal, will expect that to be used only for the purpose that they consented to. As an organisation, you have a particular duty to think carefully about where reports and other information is stored. These may have crucial details about people’s personal lives, about their health, families or emotional experiences that have happened to them that we may not want to share with a wide audience. They may even have asked for their identities to be kept private. So it’s crucial that everyone in the project, from the manager to the reporter,  all handle this information safely and securely, from the point it’s captured to the point it’s shared

As we mentioned before, mental health is also a big consideration, particularly for those who are on the receiving end of difficult disclosures or reports as part of their engagement. It’s good practice for each reporter to have a mental or focal point who they can speak to if they do feel like they need to discuss anything they’ve heard or seen. . once again those informal regular chickens come into their own alongside more structured protocols. Often you can catch issues as they emerge through staying in contact with your reporter day in day out

We also make it clear that reporters should be reporting on their own community, and that travelling to a community where they’re not known defeats the point of the project and can put them at extended risk. In addition there may be space in their own communities that might seem compelling but where they might be considering an outsider or where there might be additional risks.  In one project a community member became aware of a squat where drug users were in a particular vulnerable situation, and he went to that squat after dark to try and find out more about that community. Whilst the intention was so positive, that reporter put themselves at significant risk in an area and a setting that they were known and without any backup or support. Checking in with reporters before they embark on a story can help but it is also important just reminding reporters to stay within their local areas or in discussion with their community groups online.

Technology itself can pose risks to safety. Private access to a mobile phone is still a challenge for many people in vulnerable situations around the world, particularly for women and girls. Many people have to share advice or have a partner or parent who expects to read their messages. therefore it’s important to really consider whether someone is in a secure position to participate in a report, particularly if we think their device might be compromised. And that is true of both the reporter and those they speak to in their community.

There can be a particular risk in handing out technology and that’s why around the world,  Radar tends to work with what people come to the project with, even if that’s a very very simple phone. Giving a new phone, camera or laptop to someone can make them a target or they may come under pressure to give it up or sell it, or resources are scarce. It may not be as exciting to let people know that they will need to use the tech they already have but it is often safer and far more sustainable.

Involving reporters in assessing their own risk and thinking of ways to mitigate it is a brilliant way to make sure that nothing is missed. In this way safeguarding can become a part of the codesign process. It can be good to draw up a code of conduct together and even give reporters a card or print out that can help them refer back to it. Make it clear in the training that no story is ever more important than their own safety and well-being, or that of others in their community.

Within your organisation, Reporters should always know how they can report problems, concerns and safety issues should they arise. There should be a designated project lead that they can contact.

Finally, it should be made absolutely clear that the reporting lines are not emergency helplines and there should be clear signposting for anyone who needs urgent care.

Malaria eradication will take a monumental combined effort, and nowhere more so than in Sierra Leone. Civil society organisations are working intensively to control the disease and advocate for solutions but many are under-resourced and working beyond capacity. While Sierra Leone has one of the highest burdens of malaria in the world, the infrastructure for gathering and sharing health information is poor and the majority of the population remains offline.

As part of our Beyond the Bite project in Sierra Leone we have trained up and supported a national network of over 70 community reporters across the country to cover life with malaria. Using SMS, voicemail and chat-apps, they are reporting their community experiences and solutions directly into a communications portal. This virtual dashboard is accessible to a broad consortium of national and international health organisations, who can draw on the insight for their work. The reporters are being supported by community mentors, many of whom trained with On Our Radar back in 2012 and gained reporting experience while covering the Ebola outbreak.

The portal is a practical tool for centralising community stories, data and insight and turning them into a resource for shared action. With poor road infrastructure hindering mobility, it also connects communities that might be a few days journey from the capital city and ensures that their experiences are reflected in the national story.

With Covid-19 interrupting health care and increasing community hesitancy to seek treatment, now is a critical moment to encourage a national conversation around malaria. Since the project began, one of the reporters has given birth during an attack of malaria to a malaria-positive child and two other reporters have lost their young children to the disease. Putting communities at the heart of reporting efforts has the potential to generate a deeper understanding and the evidence needed to push for systems-change.

Reports and insight from the network has been used by partners in a number of different ways. BBC Media Action have used reports to hold government officials to account, from the distributions of medical supplies to the quality of care in remote communitie. We worked with Concern Worldwide to create a brand new 10-part drama series busting myths and misconceptions around Covid-19 when the pandemic first started, and also with Speak Up Africa and the National Malaria Control Programme to co-produce a 5-episode pilot national radio drama show ‘Malaria e don wan dae mi han’ raising awareness about malaria control and prevention measures.

Reporters were trained up in visual storytelling and received mobile journalism kits in March 2020. Having had no previous experience, the network has now shot, edited and produced a set of films which are being screened in seven locations as part of a touring community film festival around the country highlighting the challenges – but most importantly the solutions – to improving the health system in Sierra Leone. These recommendations are also being put to the Ministry of Health and other key stakeholders in the form of a People’s Healthcare Manifesto that sets out the changes that Sierra Leoneans would like to see made to the healthcare system, with the overall aim to improve primary and tertiary care across the country.

The films and manifesto are also being hosted as part of an interactive web-documentary called The Road to Recovery aimed at an international audience, to push for malaria to remain high on the agenda of funders and partners working in the sector

The reporters themselves also now have the tools and confidence to act as strong malaria advocates within their own communities, doing sensitization workshops and holding local officials accountable by appearing on local radio. Reporters could apply for mini-grants to pursue particular areas of interest, from recording songs in music studios, to writing and performing drama sketches, and many are now applying the skills they have learned in new jobs and projects all over the country.