On Christmas day, my family decided to drive to the village to spend the day with the old people (grannies). Very cheerful lads there who are counting nine(9) children to themselves and all alive including my sweet mother. Church time: At church, half of the holy place was filled with children aged between 1 - 14 years, all lively and happy running up and down shouting. One thing that amazed me, very few or none of these kids looked sick or malnourished. With the a few friends I gone with, an argument about small and bigger families with many children started. So many issues were put into perspective including the GeNext campaign on TV, Radio and Social Media. After church, I logged onto Twitter and what do I find, a debate about GeNext. I missed that debate.
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| The GeNext Uganda Campaign advocates for smaller families |
Very well thought program but I must say there are major bases that are not covered in this campaign namely; targeted audience, communication medium and culture.
The audience targeted in this campaign is young adults and these seem to be people in a semi-urban or urban place based on the medium of communication being used. It should be noted that actually big families are in the rural areas and these big families are as a result of ignorance about family planning measures and lack of accessibility to family planning and birth control facilities. The people in urban places have access and capacity to acquire birth control and family planning facilitation and on top of that, they face a challenge of the cost of living in urban areas. Due to the mentioned reasons above, urban people would be compelled to have the small families GeNext is advocating for. There is no need to campaign for that here.
I see fancy adverts on giant billboards, social media and TV with healthy looking youth acting to be in frustration for lack of jobs. Let me get something clear here, I do not think advocating for a small family will find me the job that I need urgently unless we want to assert that being a GeNext advocate is the job itself and on top of that, having small families does not necessarily mean the children shall have enough food, good education etc when the facilities to provide the good things are not even there. Where would they come from anyway if you do not have the people (population) to work and avail the facilities? We also have to keep it in mind that Uganda has not reached the level having technology to provide the good facilities in question.
Thirdly it should be noted that Uganda has got a history of one of the strongest cultures in Africa or even in the world. From the African tradition, having a big family was held with a lot of pride and some families actually perceived it to be some sort of “security”. A big population, could also be passed as national resource because that way the country will be assured of available and cheap labour to enhance development. China today is the best example I can give. The only challenge should be to avail measures of finding enough resource for the growing population but not entirely controlling it. The rural Ugandans have the strongest cultural attachments and for as long as they are not a target in this campaign then I find it a waste of resource.
UHMG argues that in the GeNext campaign, they are primarily targeting young adults because they are adaptive to change. I get the point but all of us need to remember that UHMG is a “Health Marketing Group.” I hope all of us understand what this means. On top of having health campaigns, UHMG also has a range of products on sale majorly aiming at family planning, STI/STD and HIV infection prevention. I do not think I would be wrong if I passed the GeNext campaign as a marketing strategy. Here is how I connected the dots.
Based on the medium of communication, I have come to notice that this campaign targets urban youth and majorly youth in schools and those out of school looking for jobs. This is because they are the working class of tomorrow and they are the ones with or shall be the ones with the capacity to buy the range of products they sell. Someone who has been educated automatically understands that a small family is the way to go because of the increasing cost of living in Uganda. So this shall compel the person to have prevention measures of controlling birth which leads to a big family. How does one do that? Simply use condoms, contraceptives, moon beads, etc the very products being distributed/sold by UHMG. The campaign is not targeting rural people because they do not have capacity to buy “O” condom or Injectaplan and that is understandable because like any other marketing or sales person, why would I go to a trade area where I have no mileage.
I want to conclude saying that if this campaign is genuinely about advocacy for smaller families then it should have started from my home village.
Til next time!
The audience targeted in this campaign is young adults and these seem to be people in a semi-urban or urban place based on the medium of communication being used. It should be noted that actually big families are in the rural areas and these big families are as a result of ignorance about family planning measures and lack of accessibility to family planning and birth control facilities. The people in urban places have access and capacity to acquire birth control and family planning facilitation and on top of that, they face a challenge of the cost of living in urban areas. Due to the mentioned reasons above, urban people would be compelled to have the small families GeNext is advocating for. There is no need to campaign for that here.
I see fancy adverts on giant billboards, social media and TV with healthy looking youth acting to be in frustration for lack of jobs. Let me get something clear here, I do not think advocating for a small family will find me the job that I need urgently unless we want to assert that being a GeNext advocate is the job itself and on top of that, having small families does not necessarily mean the children shall have enough food, good education etc when the facilities to provide the good things are not even there. Where would they come from anyway if you do not have the people (population) to work and avail the facilities? We also have to keep it in mind that Uganda has not reached the level having technology to provide the good facilities in question.
Thirdly it should be noted that Uganda has got a history of one of the strongest cultures in Africa or even in the world. From the African tradition, having a big family was held with a lot of pride and some families actually perceived it to be some sort of “security”. A big population, could also be passed as national resource because that way the country will be assured of available and cheap labour to enhance development. China today is the best example I can give. The only challenge should be to avail measures of finding enough resource for the growing population but not entirely controlling it. The rural Ugandans have the strongest cultural attachments and for as long as they are not a target in this campaign then I find it a waste of resource.
UHMG argues that in the GeNext campaign, they are primarily targeting young adults because they are adaptive to change. I get the point but all of us need to remember that UHMG is a “Health Marketing Group.” I hope all of us understand what this means. On top of having health campaigns, UHMG also has a range of products on sale majorly aiming at family planning, STI/STD and HIV infection prevention. I do not think I would be wrong if I passed the GeNext campaign as a marketing strategy. Here is how I connected the dots.
Based on the medium of communication, I have come to notice that this campaign targets urban youth and majorly youth in schools and those out of school looking for jobs. This is because they are the working class of tomorrow and they are the ones with or shall be the ones with the capacity to buy the range of products they sell. Someone who has been educated automatically understands that a small family is the way to go because of the increasing cost of living in Uganda. So this shall compel the person to have prevention measures of controlling birth which leads to a big family. How does one do that? Simply use condoms, contraceptives, moon beads, etc the very products being distributed/sold by UHMG. The campaign is not targeting rural people because they do not have capacity to buy “O” condom or Injectaplan and that is understandable because like any other marketing or sales person, why would I go to a trade area where I have no mileage.
I want to conclude saying that if this campaign is genuinely about advocacy for smaller families then it should have started from my home village.
Til next time!
