Workshop report: participatory communications for orphans and vulnerable children in Malawi

This paper reflects the details of a workshop built around a Participatory Rural Appraisal approach to support communities to conceptualise their health concerns about orphans and vulnerable children.

The workshop set out a number of key messages to be communicated, the target audiences and the most appropriate medium for communications. Nevertheless, the workshop did not restrict the participants to identifying only health problems, but encouraged them to think broadly; thus the key problems identified were: food and hunger, school fees, crime and drug use, and sexuality-related issues.

Some of the suggestions concluded by various groups of the participants can be summarised as follows:

• it is necessary for community based organisations to become involved in the irrigation and food growing scheme set up by the Evangelical Church; a campaign to encourage volunteers would be appropriate
• it would be most useful to tackle the government and the Ministry of Education, by developing a campaign for free education (no school fees) for orphans and vulnerable children
• a campaign to reach girl orphans and vulnerable children and advise them of services available if they are facing sexual harassment is advisable.