Another Option is a partner with TEDMED 2018

The TEDMED conference provides a shared space for leaders in health and medicine to come together and share ideas. At TEDMED 2018, attendees the power of Chaos + Clarity to advance science, global public health, and medical innovation across a wide range of topics.

Events explore the technology, creativity and innovation that contribute to a healthier future. Transformative startups and inspiring entrepreneurs also play an important role in the annual conference, sharing innovations with the TEDMED family.

Since 2013, Another Option has been a partner with TEDMED managing media relations  for TEDMED’s annual meetings. Media coverage has ranged from NPR, Washington Post, BBC, Fast Company, STAT, and professional media for widespread coverage on TV, blogs, and social media.

Another Option staff and projects reach all corners of Nepal

Another Option’s Prabodh Acharya at Annapurna Base Camp.

Over a recent holiday, Another Option’s Prabodh Acharya, project manager of the Nepal Early Grade Reading Program, trekked to the Annapurna Base Camp at the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal.

 During the trek, Prabodh saw something really interesting in a small, isolated village – a poster developed by Another Option from two years ago! The poster was part of a nationwide campaign to promote early grade reading and was found on the front door of a house in a village only reachable by foot.

 The work to promote early grade reading for all children in Nepal continues – and it’s moments like this that motivate us to keep promoting such an important behavior for children and their families across Nepal.

Nepal leaders join in to promote early grade reading

Ms Sita Gyawali, an advocate for people who are blind in Nepal, shared her experiences reading as a child.

The Another Option team in Nepal has recently finished a whirlwind of interviews of leaders and leaders passionate about promoting the importance of reading to children and their families. The radio program  is a continued partnership with the government of Nepal’s Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (Modest) and the USAID-funded Early Grade Reading Program that began in September 2016. The six new radio programs targeted to parents and teachers of students in grades one and two will begin broadcasting in early 2019.  

For this season, the program team interviewed two Nepalese leaders: managing director of Nepal Electricity Authority, Mr. Kul Man Ghising, and community activist for the blind, Ms. Sita Gyawali.

Mr. Ghising has played an instrumental role in the past few years in addressing national challenges with electricity. His work within the Nepal Electricity Authority has contributed to a significant reduction in load shedding across the country.

The second guest, Ms. Gyawali, was the first visually impaired woman in Nepal to complete her Master’s degree. Since returning to her home after her studies in the US through a Fulbright scholarship, she has created a library and community center for the visually impaired.

Mr Kul Man Ghising being interviewed by Another Option consultant Prabodh Acharya

Each guest shared their experiences with reading as a child, emphasizing how it has helped their careers and how parents can help their children learn to read. After each interview,  they each also read a short story provided by curriculum specialists (and project partners) at Nepal’s Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology.

This is the second round of radio based programming coordinated by Another Option in Nepal as part of the Early Grade Reading Program. The first round of programming, broadcast nationally, was found to have had significant reach across Nepal. Overall key findings identified that 57.1% parents and 81.9% teachers had listened to radio PSAs, and 39.1% parents and 50.5% teachers had listened to the radio program "Ramailo Padhai, Digo Sikai" (in English, Reading is Fun). . A study also showed that 24% parents and 34% teachers had listened to the radio drama "Ujjwol Bhawishyako Suruwat" (in English, Beginning of a Bright Future), and 21.9% parents and 49.2% had listened to the 'guest reader' segment of the radio program. Parents from Banke, Saptari and Kanchanpur districts said that they had listened to the radio PSAs in their local languages as well.

 The Early Grade Reading Program is a five-year project to support the Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology to improve the foundational reading skills of Nepali primary school students in grades one through three. Another Option provides technical assistance in social and behavior change communication with an emphasis on mass media, advocacy and public awareness to increase family and community support for early grade reading.

Parent Peer Education Participate Guide published for Early Grade Reading in Liberia

Research shows that barriers to education, parental aspirations, and societal norms are similar across the world and do not change that dramatically—whether you are in West Africa or South Asia. Another Option has been working in early grade reading for four years in Africa and Asia under several USAID-funded awards.

As part of the USAID Read Liberia project, our technical experts have just published two guides for peer educators and lead trainers working across Liberia to promote early grade reading. These guides were vetted through a series of focus groups to ensure that they were relevant to parents and caregivers in urban and rural communities across Liberia. One major component of making the two documents accessible to Liberian parents and caregivers were illustrations by local artist Brima Wolobah which show real life situations that parents can use to talk about reading with their peers or support their child’s learning. 

These materials are available for download and may be adapted for use with attribution, under Creative Commons Attribution. Specific requirements for reuse can be found within each document.

Another Option providing communications services (again) at this year's TEDMED in Palm Springs, CA!

Early Grade Reading Project Public Awareness Report Published

To support Another Option’s ongoing work promoting Early Grade Reading in Nepal, the Social and Behavior Change Technical team for the RTI-managed and USAID-funded project designed a national study to measure awareness of key messages and behaviors related to early grade reading. In partnership with various branches of the Government of Nepal, the study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative methods to interview families about their beliefs and behaviors related towards reading and their children.

Overall key findings identified that 57.1% parents and 81.9% teachers had listened to radio PSAs published by Another Option, and 39.1% parents and 50.5% teachers had listened to the radio program “Ramailo Padhai, Digo Sikai” (in English, Reading is Fun). Significant numbers of parents and teachers could recall key messages from the materials as well.

The full report is available here for download.

Adapting intervetions to local cultural contexts

Another Option has been working in early grade reading for four years in Africa and Asia under several USAID-funded awards. Research shows that barriers to education, parental aspirations, and societal norms are similar across the world and do not change that dramatically—whether you are in West Africa or South Asia.

As part of the USAID Early Grade Reading Program (EGRP) in Nepal, we’ve provided technical support in early grade reading Social and Behavior Change. We’ve worked closely with the Government of Nepal stakeholders including the Department of Education and the National Center for Education Development to design and develop numerous training materials for parents and caretakers, teachers, and education officers to support early grade reading. Developed resources including a peer education module for parents, and an interpersonal communication toolkit for teachers to bridge communication gaps with students’ parents.

In Nepal, we worked very closely with the government of Nepal to design and create all of our materials. And, we’re really pleased that the teacher training guide has been accepted by the government of Nepal as part of its national teacher training curriculum.

Because the social mobilization and interpersonal communication have shown results in Nepal, we wanted to test these materials in Liberia to see if they could be adapted to the Liberian setting and its needs for our USAID Read Liberia.

With permission from the Liberian Ministry of Education to pre-test the peer education materials, we set out to answer three critical questions: do parents understand the content (particularly the graphics and illustrations); was the guide culturally sensitive; and would it resonate with Liberian parents of young readers.

We conducted an assessment with twenty-one parents-twelve women and nine men-in two communities – one urban and one rural—at Slipway Public School and King’s Farm Public School. We found that the barriers to education and aspirations were similar to parents and teachers in our Nepal-based early reading program. Parents we interviewed in both places cited factors related to economics, social norms, existing education infrastructure, and gender as real challenges in their attempts to ensure their children received a decent education.

Illustration from Another Option's Peer Guide created for parents and caregivers in Nepal.

The Liberian parents overall did relate to the illustrations that were developed for Nepali parents, and that the tools were able to generate insightful discussions about the roles of parents in the reading lives of their children both in and out of school. Parents at both of our focus groups said they could see themselves and their challenges reflected in the illustrations.

Parents also provided feedback on specific visual details that Another Option could do to make the resources more relatable to the Liberian context. For example, participants indicated that some of the hand gestures used in the Nepali context varied in their interpretation in Liberia and could confuse the user. They also asked for more illustrations bridging into the community and not just in the school setting to allow parents to see their roles as educators throughout their daily interactions with their children. Additionally, much discussion was held around the differences of the education setting in rural areas versus urban areas and how these could be better portrayed.

An illustration from the Liberia edition of our Peer Guide.

Based on these responses, we worked with local illustrators to improve the cultural resonance of the illustrations in efforts to make it more relevant to parents and caregivers in urban and rural communities in Liberia. Additional materials like flyers and posters will be developed for social mobilizers to use during community engagement activities promoting early grade reading. The final Liberian version has been shared with the Ministry of Education and we have received the go ahead to test it in the field across several counties.

With these changes, parents will have specific examples on what they can do to help their children learn to read. These include children reading aloud for ten minutes a day, children having a quiet place to read, and regularly going to school.

In both Nepal and in Liberia the support and guidance from the Ministries of Education were invaluable. The Nepal version is endorsed and carries the seal of the Ministry of Education, and we hope that the Liberian ministry also adds its endorsement to this early grade reading tool.

New Training for Peer Educators in Nepal

June kicked-off with the expansion of USAID’s Early Grade Reading Program in Nepal into ten new districts in the country. Another Option brought together 94 recently designated regional mobilization officers and representatives from ten community-based organizations for a ten-day training on promoting key behaviors for peer networks of parents to promote early grade reading.

Prabodh Acharya and Sangeeta Lama, Another Option’s technical leads in Nepal, conducted the orientation using the Peer Education Interpersonal Communication Module. The training guide, created previously by Another Option for this project, orients parents to key behaviors they can adapt in their home and community to promote early grade reading. These behaviors range from setting aside ten minutes a day for a child to read out loud, to preparing a special place for the child to study in the home. The training also encourages parents to strengthen their relationships with their children’s teachers through active participation in parent-teacher meetings and dialogues.

Previous graduates of the Another Option peer training attended this workshop to share their experiences implementing lessons learned and to encourage the newest trainees to utilize the training in their daily interactions not only with community members, but also within their own children’s lives.

At the end of the workshop, each newly trained organization received a copy of the Peer Education Interpersonal Communication Guide, a poster with key behaviors and prompt cards to initiate dialogues with parents around early grade reading.

More community leaders trained in peer education in Liberia

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