title: Women Connect! Strengthening communications to meet sexual and reproductive health challenges.
abstract: Women's nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have significant comparative advantage for addressing sexual and reproductive health challenges facing women and families. This article describes an initiative to assist women's NGOs in developing greater skills using media and information communication technology for communicating women's health messages. Participating women's groups in Africa undertook innovative media projects--radio broadcasts on human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and family planning, an antiviolence campaign, media campaigns on avoiding teen pregnancy--and designed websites, established Internet cafés, and downloaded health information from the Internet. Lessons learned offer guidance for collaboration with women's NGOs everywhere to strengthen communication for addressing critical sexual and reproductive health issues.
authors.affiliation: The Synergy Project, Social & Scientific Systems Inc., Washington, DC, USA.
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pillsbury
authors.forename: Doe
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Mayer
mesh_terms: D000349:Africa; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005260:Female; D006293:Health Promotion / Q000458:organization & administration*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008402:Mass Media; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D009938:Organizations / Q000458:organization & administration; D018456:Reproductive Medicine; D019529:Sexuality; D040241:Social Marketing; D016387:Women's Health