Women and Girls with Disabilities and Media Communications: Ways of Bringing about Social Changes
Engendering Disability-Inclusive Development: Vietnam Case Study – EDID 2024
The EDID Vietnam team organized its third local fieldwork in Hanoi from June 1st to June 4th,2024. This year’s fieldwork focused on women and girls with disabilities and media communications to enact social changes. Prior to the fieldwork, the women and girls were invited to participate in an online consultative meeting to identify what issues or topics they would consider significant for sharing and learning from one another. This served as a community-engaged opportunity to advise the project team members in our project design and direction.
Interestingly, most participants agreed that media communications have played an important role in their social activism because the media can bring their knowledge and concerns to the public and foster more inclusive communities. Accordingly, this fieldwork aims to empower women and girls with disabilities in media communications to foster social change. We do so by creating an activist space for the participants to: 1) Share their knowledge about the role and impact of media communications for the disability community in general, and for women and girls with disabilities, in particular; 2) To understand their experiences, knowledges, and skills pertaining to media communications; and 3) To identify how they can use the media communication tools to foster social changes.
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Women and girls with disabilities created their art-based products as a means of communication
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Women and girls with disabilities created their art-based products
During this four-day fieldwork, we organized discussions and presentations on the participants’ experiences with media communications; followed by two arts-based workshops that aim to create communication products, including participatory video-making and collage-making. Creating their art-based communication products also manifested women and girls with disabilities’ political voices using the power of communication. We continued to foster the participants’ reflections on their engagement throughout the project through various reflective activities and discussions.
A young woman presented their own products and communication experiences
A key highlight of this fieldwork is that by engaging in building and organizing the agenda, as well as in sharing their knowledge and creating the media products, the women and girls with disabilities have gradually sharpened their knowledges about the impacts of media and strengthening their leadership skills.
A young woman presented their own products and communication experiences