A Partnership That Is Saving Lives

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Oct. 2, 2009) — Many would believe that Kentucky and southern Africa are entirely different places, but the two have more in common than one would think. A team from the University of Kentucky and a Zambian media institute has seen these similarities firsthand.

"I’ve been struck repeatedly by how much alike eastern Kentucky and Zambia are," said Beth Barnes, director of the University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications within the College of Communications and Information Studies. "The terrain, the sizes of the communities, the types of media available, and, of course, the health care challenges are remarkably similar."

Barnes, along with a group of other faculty and staff members from the school, began a partnership with the Zambian Institute of Mass Communication (ZAMCOM) in Lusaka, Zambia in 2008. The two organizations were partnered through the American International Health Alliance’s Twinning Program, which was supported by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

"This partnership is quite important for us," said Daniel Nkalamo, director of ZAMCOM.  "We chose to work with UK because we looked at their experiences in journalism training and what was most important for us. We saw that UK had the capacity to help us build our training programs and that we could learn much from what they do."

ZAMCOM offers professional training for journalists in Zambia and southern Africa, placing a special emphasis on enhancing the coverage of HIV/AIDS.  In the past two years, the partnership between ZAMCOM and the university has flourished into an active program that is aggressively working to refresh the ways media covers the AIDS/HIV epidemic in Zambia and southern Africa.

"Sixteen percent of people in Zambia are living with HIV, and it's just as bad throughout southern Africa," said Mwiika Malindima, HIV/AIDS and gender specialist for ZAMCOM. "How the media responds to this is very important. Our journalists are the ones that give the vital information to the people on where they can find treatment and support. The journalists are the ones who must deliver hopeful stories from people who are living with HIV, and have learned how to treat it, to those who think there is no hope."

One of the major focuses the partners are working on is pushing the message via community radio stations. Many of the rural areas in Zambia rely heavily on radio, which is often in different languages from Zambia's official language, English. The goal is to spread the message across all of Zambia and other areas of southern Africa, where there is much confusion about the disease and proper forms of treatment.

Barnes says the AIDS crisis in Africa is similar to the diabetes crisis in eastern Kentucky, an area of the state which has the highest rate of adults with the disease.

"In Zambia, the challenges of convincing people to get tested for HIV in order to take advantage of the treatment available are parallel to those of convincing people to get tested for diabetes in Appalachia."

By examining the ways Kentucky has learned to raise awareness about diabetes, UK is helping the people of ZAMCOM apply these similar methods to reach their own goals, in hopes they too can raise awareness about how AIDS/HIV can be prevented.

The groups from UK and ZAMCOM have made multiple visits between Lexington and Lusaka over the past two years. Nkalamo and Malindima, neither of whom had visited the U.S. prior to the partnership, came to UK in 2008, and met with faculty and staff from the School of Journalism and Telecommunications, students in the Dow Jones Summer High School Journalism Workshop, and members of the Kentucky Press Association and Kentucky Broadcasters Association. A few months later they returned to the states to attend the annual convention of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in Chicago, followed by another visit to Lexington.

Recently, the partnership was extended to include the Botswana chapter of Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). Barnes is also hoping to establish a study program for students in southern Africa as well, as a result of the connections UK has now made in the area.

"From a personal perspective, I think all of us have found that working with our colleagues in Zambia has reinvigorated our teaching and our sense of public service," said Barnes. "We’re taking the same skills we use here and applying them in this different setting, and getting to see the tremendous impact of sharing that knowledge. It’s the most fulfilling project I’ve worked on in all the time I’ve been in the academy."