Humbling Indeed ....

SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/unicefpng/photos/a.323478174408449.73460.257935064296094/906810716075189/?type=3&theater

The Essentiality of Communication Planning

SOURCE: http://ba5137420c54bf2d4356-5030201674c729b9ee184c866197d6e1.r57.cf1.rackcdn.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/How-to-Create-a-Project-Communication-Plan1.jpg

Planning, in accordance to Community Tool Box Website (ctb.ku.edu), is a manner to organize behaviours for the fulfilment of specific goal/s. Our goal as development communicators is to raise awareness in line with our initiative's long-term benefits towards our community.

To develop a plan of communication for development, we have to consider some basic questions (Section 1. Developing a Plan for Communication):

• Why do we want to communicate with the community? (What’s our purpose?)
• Whom do we want to communicate it to? (Who’s our audience?)
• What do we want to communicate? (What’s our message?)
• How do we want to communicate it? (What communication channels are we going to use?)
• Whom should we contact and what should we do in order to use those channels? (How will we actually distribute your message?)

The answers to these pertinent inquiries establish our action plan and what are we needed to do in order to communicate strongly with our audience. The rest of our development communication plan involves three steps:

• Implement our action plan. Construct the message and distribute it to the target audience.
• Evaluate our communication efforts, and fine-tune our plan accordingly.
• Keep at it

Communication is continuous activity for development planners like us, which depends upon, serves, or is in some way associated with the community. The audience, purpose, channels, and message may alter, but the commitment to maintain relationships with key people and the media in the community continue. As a result, an essential part of any development communication plan is to continue using and revising our plan, based on our experience, throughout the existence of our development goals.

Goodnight! And thank you for reading.



Reference
Section 1. Developing a Plan for Communication. (n.d.). Retrieved November 5, 2015, from Community Tool Box: http://ctb.ku.edu/

Welcome to Papua New Guinea, David Beckham!!!

SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/Beckham/photos/a.146755971570.121766.84218631570/10153020915931571/?type=3&theater

CHURCH MEDIA AGENCIES to Train DevCom Specialists in PNG

SOURCE: http://www.nhchurch.net/hp_wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/media_ministry.png

According to Ely D. Gomez, in a report written for the Government of Papua New Guinea entitled, Assessment of Communication Training Needs, he proposed the possibility of increasing the use of CHURCH MEDIA AGENCIES as training institutions to assist in providing trained manpower in the field of communication.

He furthered that churches here in Papua New Guinea operate media agencies which have excellent training programs in print media, broadcast media, and audio-visuals. Likewise, church missions have provided substantial training in the use of communication to support development in the provinces. 

It is highly called upon by Gomez that these church media agencies to continue as a training institution as the government embarks on a program of having people with adequate professional training in the field of communication.

In all subjectivity, for a communication plan to be effective and efficient, I accede that “training the trainers” is a nucleus for a favourable developmental advancement. However, it is not every day that we’ve concur stories, that a religious frequented institution can now be accorded to be a training institution. This speaks volume that truly, a genuine passionate communication planner sees no boundaries in conceiving transcendent developmental perspectives. Hence, DevCom.

Anniversary Gifts of My Boys :)

KUYA JETT and JEDD'S anniversary card for us. Thank you boys, I just hope that when you both grow up, you will realize more that "sacrifice" is a beautiful, positive thing that is of great opportunity for parents to show, fuel by their overflowing love to their children. Nevertheless, it is a moving gift to receive from you two. Love you both! :)

How ICT Impacts An Effective Development Communication Plan

SOURCE: http://image.slidesharecdn.com/devcomwriting-141104004245-conversion-gate01/95/devcom-writing-12-638.jpg?cb=1415062565

For those who are not familiar with Papua New Guinea (PNG), where I’ve excogitated my communication plan output, please allow me to share some facts that will clearly reverberate why communication plan is a challenge in this nation. Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a country in the Pacific close to North Australia state of Cairns (an hour plane away) to be categorical, with around 8million people. Essentially, this is a middle income country because of its vast mineral wealth, however, very distant to what is the outstanding economic ascendancy of the Philippines; In a statement made by Australian government, PNG is: 

“Despite positive economic growth rates in recent years, PNG’s social indicators are among the worst in the Asia Pacific. Approximately 85 percent of PNG’s mainly rural population is poor and an estimated 18 percent of people are extremely poor. Many lack access to basic services or transport. Poverty, unemployment and poor governance contribute to serious law and order problems.”

Amongst other things, Papua New Guinea faces unique circumstances associated to remoteness; with a landmass nearly size as massive as California, PNG has 562 airports, with over 800 spoken languages, and the most linguistically diverse country in the world. In addition, literacy rate is less than 60%, and ranks 156th on the Human Development Index (SOURCE: Australian government). Discernibly, not good figures from a perspective of development agents such as ourselves.

With these given difficulties, communication plan is glaring to be a struggle for development planners. Nevertheless, with problems of these sort, information and communication technology in the outside world continues to proliferate by which luckily, is slowly infiltrating the telecommunication industry of Papua New Guinea. Network signal has been reaching the widest coverage plus escalating number of mobile subscribers. Thus, development planners are taking advantage of this advancement, on which they utilise these technologies and came up with a communication plan that will teach the teachers on how they will better equip themselves in teaching phonics and reading to young disenfranchised unable to read grade 1 and 2 students, living in the remotest parts of Papua New Guinea. It is extremely moving and inspiring, how the development planners meticulously devise ways and means in reaching out to the teachers, and ensuring that the communication plans are religiously carried-out on a daily basis. Hence, a technological approach to communication planning.

Attempts have been made to codify a close to perfect communication plan. However, apart from creativity, technology, and highly flexible mindset of the planners, it is worth to mention that longevity must likewise be considered. For a valuable long-term plan results are achieved by the systematic examination of alternative likely futures, based on combinations of identified trends and possible events. In other words, instead of attempting to predict a single unique future, communication planners must analyse uncertain future events to gain an understanding of the implication of a particular circumstance, or set of circumstances. In this way an organization improves its capacity to deal with change by being able to identify new emergencies and opportunities at the time they start to appear on the futures horizon, and plan accordingly. Hence, a futuristic system of communication planning.

My Dad's Surprise Serenade on his 90th Birthday

Surprise serenade (harana) for my Dad's 90th birthday celebration last month, courtesy of Music First Talent Training Center, serenaded by my favorite singer coach, coach Oreo =). Music First Talent Center, was where JEDD honed and developed his dancing talent =). Again, thank you coach Michelle Taytayan Chen for accommodating our request on a favourable rate =). Highly recommended for every occasion to make it a little more special. My Dad was surely flattered by this lovely gift. ‪#‎lateupload‬ ‪#‎ILoveYouDaddy‬ ‪#‎serenade‬ ‪#‎harana‬ ‪#‎singingtelegram‬