Mapping guidelines

What is your organisation doing to document learning in its health communication activities? Who are you working with and why? Are you evaluating your work and do you want support?

What is Mapping?

The Mapping exercise is looking at ways organisations are documenting learning, showing its impact on their own work in health communication and sharing it with others. It is also gathering examples of learning approaches used by different organisations to improve their work.

Learning lessons means paying attention to all the factors that affect our work, inside and outside of any particular project. This means moving beyond the traditionally narrow focus of evaluation, which many have experienced as a punitive management tool, to consider the different social, cultural and institutional factors impinging on our work.

Why Mapping?

The mapping exercise is a networking tool to encourage a greater awareness of organisations working in related areas, and foster dialogue and exchange to ensure health communication activities are more effective in the future. Though our main focus is on health communication, we want to identify where links can be made and lessons shared across different sectors, contexts and places, as well as identifying any gaps in health communication work which need support or development.

Exchange aims to support organisations in developing countries which are interested in developing regional or local health communication maps and to document more fully their own organisational learning, evaluation experience and the impact of this on their work.

Sharing the Map

Exchange are building on the existing Source contacts database to add information on communication and learning approaches and resources for a growing number of organisations. Please fill in our mapping questionnaire to give us details of your organisation and the lessons learned in your work.

You may already be 'mapping' an area of health: if you are please let us know so that we can signpost people your work. There are many organisations working on the ground that are not connected electronically, and whose valuable experience is not being tapped. Please let us know of other organisations whose work may hold some important lessons for the rest of us.

You may want to adapt the Exchange mapping questionnaire for approaching others - the questionnaire is short enough to be sent by post to achieve maximum coverage, although experience shows that direct contact is by far the most effective. Please let us know of any ways you are using to capture the learning in your networks.

Contact
Rob Vincent
Deputy Director, Exchange
E-mail: vincent.r@healthlink.org.uk
56-64 Leonard Street
London EC2A 4JX
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7549 0240
Fax: +44 20 7549 0241