The Belize Coastal Zone Management Training Room on Princess Margaret Drive in Belize City was today the venue for a workshop which was coordinated by the Belize Wildlife Conservation Society in conjunction with PCI Media Impact, an international company that specializes in entertainment-education and communications for social change.
The purpose of the seminar was to educate the relevant sectors of the Belizean society – media houses, entertainers and producers in particular – on how to successfully create educational entertainment.
Amandala spoke with Jose Sanchez, communications coordinator for the Belize Wildlife Conservation Society, who told us that the workshop, which was being held at the Fisheries Department building, was a collaboration between the Wildlife Conservation Society and PCI Media Impact. He said, “We’ve had over 50 participants who are involved in radio, television, people from schools and different organizations and environmental groups who all came together from all corners of the country to attend the workshop which was about entertainment-education through social marketing. Social marketing involves taking on issues that affect people’s lives, especially in our community. It involves using marketing tools to get people to believe that they can make a difference in their community.”
Sanchez stated that one of the lessons that the participants gained most was that whatever it is that they are writing or producing or whatever their message is, there has to be some sort of informative research involved because an entertainer or producer cannot just assume what his or her audience believes in.
Alleyne Regis, who is PCI Media Impact’s Caribbean Program Manager, told us that some of the topics that were discussed included the education-entertainment methodology, which entails how programs can be developed that specifically reach people whose attitudes and behaviors one aims to change. He mentioned that the topic of his presentation dealt mainly with the part of entertainment-education which analyses how we interpret messages that are sent through the various forms of entertainment.
The Islands Communications Manager for PCI Media Impact, Jessica Robbins, did some presentations as well. She commented that what she was doing in her presentation was to look at a produced Belizean radio drama, and within that drama, she focused on an education-entertainment approach to look at how it is possible to develop sustainably. “So it is about Belizean life; the trials and the tribulations. Also, how entertainment and how the messages that are derived from it play a role in our own development”, Robbins said.
The workshop is scheduled for two days and will conclude on Thursday.