Project for Social Communication - Peru

The project's activities will focus on such rights as safe motherhood, early childhood development, and basic education. These activities are also structured to promote the development of communications that give priority to the issues of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and child labour among institutions, communities, and families.Specific strategies include:

• Advocacy and social mobilisation at the local and national levels to increase the support and use of social communications as a means to convey social messages.
• Technical assistance and capacity building among community members and the media to strengthen their abilities and knowledge related to social communication and children's and women's rights.
• Development of skills within the families and the communities by creating, from a human rights perspective, interventions and communication materials that are culturally appropriate and adapted to the needs of the population.

These strategies are incorporated into the following activities:

• Formulating culturally relevant messages based on the informational and learning needs of women and children regarding issues related to education, health, justice, and other basic services.
• Providing technical assistance to counterparts, local media, and different community-based organisations, including community child rights defence centres, teachers, and basic health providers, for the development of preventive plans and communication messages that have been validated by the population.
• Identifying local and national media allies and securing their commmitment to incorporating children's and women's rights and issues into their programming.
• Identifying the existing supply of media networks and settings for communication at the local level, and the value they are given.
• Supporting the incorporation of messages into communication outlets to ensure children's rights to health, nutrition, and basic education.

Development Issues
Rights, Children, Youth, Women.

Currently, almost 70% of Peruvian homes have a television set and 94% of the population have access to the radio. The country has eight national TV channels, over 120 local television channels, and 1,165 local radio stations. Although local media disseminate messages that respond to local needs and values, coverage is limited. For instance, remote communities of the Andes and Amazon have no access at all to any kind of media. In these areas, the settings for communication and access to new information, for instance, are community-based social organisations.

The Project for Social Communication is part of the five-year Promotion and Monitoring of Rights Programme implemented by UNICEF-Peru in 2001. This programme operates at the national level in an effort to increase access to information about, knowledge of, and commitment to, the adoption and implementation of children's and women's rights. The programme includes two national projects in addition to this one: Promotion of the Rights of Children, Adolescents, and Women and The Information and Social Monitoring Project.