Our Core Activities

The Consortium will develop, implement or promote:

• Master's-level curricula among universities in the North and South. Academic leaders within the CFSC network have developed a master's course outline that the Consortium is testing in several universities in industrialized and developing countries.
• Practitioners' short course available through regional centers of excellence. Consultants and academics working with the Consortium are available to train communication practitioners by delivering this 3-week course.
• Decision makers/influentials awareness session for key professionals including those in schools of public health, social work and aid agencies. This one-day course is designed for leaders who are not communication professionals but who do have a heightened need to understand and make decisions about communication resources.
  
• Integrated multi-disciplinary training, valuing and uncovering indigenous knowledge of communication, at the local and regional levels.
  
• CFSC community audits and communication environmental index undertaken in regions of Africa, Asia and Latin America designed to capture and monitor participatory development impact and essential communication elements needed for social change.
  
• CFSC Fellows. With small stipends from the Consortium, CFSC Fellows from universities in the South are given time and space to explore innovation in communication as it is used to accelerate development.
  
• CFSC Network for Practitioners. The Consortium - working closely with the Communication Initiative - will become the central repository and essential source of information for practitioners dedicated to CFSC methods, helping them update their skills and experience base.
  
• Global consulting resources. The Consortium has developed affiliations with some of the best CFSC practitioners worldwide, helping them apply their skills and test new methods "on the ground" in poor and marginalized communities. Key focus will be on providing service to poor communities or those agencies serving such communities.
  
• Compilation of best practice. In partnership with the Communication Initiative, the Consortium will continue to find the best work, analyze it, develop case studies and distribute them widely.
  
• Resource production. Developing and distributing to poor communities CFSC resources such as an anthology of CFSC thought, body of knowledge, best practices and training materials.
  
• Right of control. Promoting rights of excluded people for access and control of communication channels traditionally controlled by the powerful.
  
• Local Capacity Building. Strengthening communication institutions within poorer communities, including empowering people to access mainstream media as well as to help make community and alternative media more effective.
  

These activities should lead to:

• More effective development action whereby the desired values, opinions and outputs are embraced by affected communities because they are integral to the success rather than "targets" to be reached.
  
• Expanded critical thinking among communication professionals leading to better communication scholarship.
  
• Expanded course offerings in communication for development and communication for social change.
  
• Increased use of communication for social change by nonprofit, multilateral and bilateral agencies.
  
• Wiser use of aid dollars and budgets for communication.