KYADDALA (It's Real)

Summary

KYADDALA (It's Real) is a 2019 pan-African TV series that seeks to raise awareness and address key social and health issues impacting adolescents and young people. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that HIV-related deaths have more than tripled since 2000, making it the number 2 cause of mortality among adolescents. The show explores the subjects of HIV, sexual and domestic violence, child marriage, girl child education, teenage pregnancy, bullying, sex for grades (teacher-student relationship), absentee parenting, abortion, amongst others. Addressing the social and behavioral issues impacting adolescent and youth health requires interventions that take a life-course approach to offer continuous and consistent programming to guide young people as they grow to become adults. KYADDALA presents a new and effective way of reaching young people through integration between mass media and non-profit/development organizations. In this showcase, the Executive Directors, Emmanuel Ikubese (Nigeria) and Humphrey Nabimanya (Uganda) will discuss the inspiration for this dynamic cross-sector collaboration to create KYADDALA, present a 90-minute screening (4 episodes) of the show and engage the audience in an interactive discussion on the show's topics. The name of the show "kyaddala" is Ugandan and translates as "It's Real" in the English language, reflecting the realities of the shows content.

Background/Objectives

Kyaddala provides far-reaching, age-appropriate information to facilitate sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) knowledge and skills transfer amongst youths and promote parent-child communication around SRHR and gender equality. The characters embody everyday challenges impacting the lives of young people. Kyaddala dispels myths, imparts life skills, and provides linkage to youth-friendly services through its partners. The overall objective of the series is to promote awareness of SRHR and gender issues in Africa and increase utilization of health services in order to advance the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goals 3, 4 and 5.

Results/Lessons Learned

Since the launch of KYADDALA in September 2019, the show has recorded impressive results that highlight the power of mass media in effectively reaching young people with information. While the M&E team is still collating implementation and evaluation data (to be presented during the SBCC Summit), preliminary feedback reveal increased parent-child communication around the issues highlighted in the series. Because we live in an era whereby people are visually stimulated, the show has been able to ignite real and honest conversations around gender-based violence and SRHR. Using storylines that society can relate with is a great way of making an impact and effecting behavioural change. Through the call to action/viewer engagement feature following each episode, we have seen people speaking up and seeking to be connected to a counselor; young people have also shared that the show has enlightened them on key SRHR information and strategies.

Discussion/Implications For The Field

This pan-African TV series acknowledges the similarity of issues faced by young people in Africa and offers a high impact intervention through mass media that reaches audiences far and wide with high-quality messages to advance healthy sexual and reproductive behaviors. The show utilizes education-entertainment (Edutainment) to disseminate high-quality information on SRHR and gender equality. This mass media methodology is a high impact practice for social and behavior change. Kyaddala is helping advance global health and gender equality and reminds us of the importance of integration amongst diverse sectors to address health challenges facing our world today.

Abstract submitted by:

Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ikubese - KYADDALA

Onyinye Edeh - Strong Enough Girls’ Empowerment Initiative (SEGEI)

Humphrey Nabimanya - Reach A Hand Uganda

Yvonne Mpambara - Reach A Hand Uganda

Paul Waiswa - Reach A Hand Uganda