A great use of community media!!

In doing my readings for another class, I ran across the Twa Zanmi (Three Friends) Project.  The project is directed by Susan Foley, Senior Research Associate with The University of Massachusetts at Boston’s Institute for Community Inclusion.

The Twa Zanmi Project is using community-directed television to bring together the Haitian immigrant community in Boston for the purpose of addressing mental health issues associated with immigration.

The project is creating a telenovella program about three recent Haitian immigrants.  The project description states “It will show feelings of isolation, separation from friends and family, and the struggle to develop a new identity in a new community.”

Mental health issues are a taboo issue in the Haitian immigrant community.  This project is designed to open a dialogue within the community about this subject.  The creators want the telenovella to be relateable for the people in the community.  They want people to see that this could be anyone in their community.  With the stigma about this issue, they wanted a medium that would be able to reach the audience without their having to identify themselves as having these mental health issues.

The show will be aired in Creole on the radio, the web, and on CD/DVD.

Issues such as Depression are never talked about in the community.  It is expected that people will have “problems in their head” that they need to deal with.  This attitude precludes the identification of the symptoms of things like depression.  By creating a dialogue about the subject within the community, the program can help to reduce the stigma and help the people suffering with mental health issues to live happier more fulfilled lives.

Links:

One of the groups working on this project is the Haitian American Public Health Initiative

Here’s a video where some people working on the project talk about it: http://newroutes.org/node/10014

Some information about the project: http://newroutes.org/projects/twazanmi

More information about the project: http://www.communityinclusion.org/project.php?project_id=53