Enhancing Community Voices (ECV)

The voices of the previously marginalised commanding attention.

About Us

About Enhancing Community Voices (ECV)

Enhancing Community Voices enables the previously silenced and excluded to articulate, analyse and resolve issues of concern. Through community publishing, girls and boys, young women and young men, including those with disabilities, and supportive adults in their communities, amplify their voices to influence public life positively for sustainable development.

Vision

A culture of peace and constitutionalism in which articulate, well-informed girls and boys, young women and young men, supported by the older generation, participate meaningfully in sustainable development and decision making.

Mission

Our mission is to enhance voices, especially the voices of young people, through community-based research, capacity enhancement, access to relevant information, publishing and advocacy.

THE CONCEPT

Community publishing is an internally driven process of change, rooted in community wisdom, creativity and solidarity. It combines community-based research, publishing, education and organising. In community publishing the process is as important as the products, the publications, and both are used for capacity enhancement and advocacy.

Community publishing enables impoverished and traumatised people, including children and youth, to develop confidence, articulate their experiences, concerns and aspirations, communicate and use the constructive power of persuasion and organisation to participate effectively in public affairs and engage in local development initiatives.

Community publishing has been described by participants as the “voice of the previously marginalised commanding attention”. The phrase “Even the smallest bird can sing from the tallest tree” (which is also the title of book) expresses the essence of community publishing. Each person, at any age, no matter how difficult the circumstances, has something special to contribute to the world. Once given recognition, encouragement and support, the smallest,those whom society has forgotten or excluded, including children, can become creative, influential, and significant in transforming their situation.

The community publishing methodology has been developed over many years in diverse publications. It was initially used in developing training materials with 7000 Village Community Workers across Zimbabwe. Over the years, the organisational base has adapted to the times, but the process has deepened. The core business of ECV is reflected in its name: Enhancing Community Voices.

The community publishing process is significant because the production and distribution of publications are rooted in community voices and wisdom, blended with relevant information. This enables participants to develop confidence, critical consciousness and organisational skills, to influence public life positively and to explore practical democratic alternatives.

Values

  • - Teamwork and shared leadership.
  • - Respect, inclusion, participation.
  • - Children’s protection and participation.
  • - Humility.
  • - Non-partisan.
  • - Transparency and accountability.
  • - Courage and perseverance.
  • - Dedication and commitment.
  • - Gender equality and equity.
  • - Innovation and dynamism.
  • - Responding positively to opportunities and challenges.

Principles

  • - Build on what is there, promote local creativity and wisdom.
  • - Freedom of expression and access to information.
  • - Build constructive communication and relationships.
  • - Work across agencies, sectors, levels.
  • - Work with whole communities in an integrated way.
  • - The process is as important as the product; method should re-enforce content.
  • - Decentralisation and coordination of local initiatives.

Strategic Objectives

1. Empowering female and male citizens, young and old, including people living with disability, to express themselves freely, document, analyse and resolve issues of concern in order to make a difference in public affairs.

2. Practising constructive communication and relationships and an inclusive, constitutional culture for sustainable development, gender equality and peace.

3. Empowering, supporting and encouraging girls and boys, young women and men, including those with disabilities, to become well-informed citizens who know their rights and responsibilities and to fully participate in the decisions that affect them, in families, schools, government and civil society.

4. Increasing access to information for communities on generative themes through the widespread distribution of publications through trained facilitators, online media, visual and performing arts.

Services

Below are some of the services we offer at Enhancing Community Voices (ECV) Trust

Creative training, facilitation and Facilitation Guides. Participatory community-based research.

Enhancing community voices on sustainable development.

Making complex and technical information, especially legal information, accessible and reader-friendly.

Developing children and youth participation and leadership.

Publishing female & young voices, including voices of children with disabilities.

Capacity building, raising awareness and advocacy related to children’s rights, gender equality, peace-building and sustainable development.

Publications

Some of the books we have published.

Publications by Category

    • Even the smallest bird can sing from the tallest tree: Community Publishing for Transformation, 2006.

  • Children and young voices are included in all books. However, these books focus specifically on children and youth.

    • Inside Our Mining World: The untold story of children and women in Zimbabwe Mining Communities, for UNICEF, 1996.
    • We are also human beings: A guide to Children’s Rights in Zimbabwe for UNICEF 2000.
    • What About Us?: Children’s Participation in Constitution-making, for UNICEF and MJPLA 2010.
    • Let the smallest speak from the tallest peak: A People’s Guide to Children’s Rights, for UNICEF 2010.
    • Caring for us takes care of tomorrow: Protecting children from gender- based violence and abuse. With posters and a board game, for UNICEF 2012.
    • Changing Skies, Changing Lives: Young poets on Children’s Rights, present, past and future, for TROCAIRE, 2013.
    • Singing to the Lions: Enhancing children’s voices, participation and protection, for UNICEF and GDF 2013.
    • Beyond the yonder: Poetry from Matobo by the Lion Singers, 2014.
    • Discovering the Children’s Rights Rainbow: Children’s rights in the Constitution (A game, pocket book and guide in three languages, posters and a board game.) for UNICEF and MJLPA, 2015.
    • Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Young Offenders: A training manual and handbook for Childline and Zimbabwe Prison and Correctional Services, 2017-18.
    • IGATE Modules and Facilitator’s Guide: Literacy for out-of-school children for SNV, 2018.
    • Flourishing Spring: Enhancing children and youth participation and leadership, 2018.
    • Melting Stone Hearts: Children’s Views on Child Protection, 2019.
    • Child Friendly Justice: A Series of publications for Justice for Children, 2019.
    • Helpline Training Manual for Childline Zimbabwe, 2019.
    • Children’s Constitutional Literacy: A set of materials for PACT, 2020.
    • With the Future in Mind: The Environmental Rights of Children in Mining, ZELA.
    • Voices of Children with Disabilities A book, Braille version, Posters, 3 Bulletins, Video and Audio, and a Facilitators Guide, 2021-22.
    • Building Whole Communities (got the NOMA special commendation for publishing in Africa).
    • Soft Strength: Peace-building for development, 2011, many editions.
    • Togetherness: A People’s Guide to Family Wellbeing, 2012.
    • Connecting and Protecting: Building constructive communication and relationships between women, men and security services, 2014.
    • Raising Hopes, Raising Lives: The Rights of Women in the Constitution and the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, 2015.
    • Unlocking Boyhood and Manhood, 2016. , 2016.
    • From Fragmentation to Integration , 2016.
    • Integrity and Well-being: A Peace building and Conflict Transformation Manual for the Churches Convergence on Peace, 2018.
    • Our Wealth, Our Future: Building democracy through participatory resource management and culture, 2015.
    • The Informal Economy Matters: advocacy materials for the Informal Economy Coalition, 2022.

Contact

Get in touch with us, one of our professionals will get in touch with you.

Location:

Dzidzo House, Corner Londonderry/ Enterprise Road, Eastlea, Harare

Call:

+263 773 492 921