Pictures can be used for:-
decorating the environment, to make it more aesthetically pleasing
providing information
announcing events
coding and decoding reality
stimulating dialogue and discussion
analysing situations and issues
planning action
art therapy
self-expression
Pictures can be used in many different contexts and situations. These include:-
health education work
environmental education
the classroom and playground
community art and community development projects
political campaigning and advocacy
detraumatisation and therapy sessions
art wortkshops
There are many different types of pictures that can be used for educational and social purposes. Basically, these can be divided into two categories:-
interactive or participatory pictures
non-interactive or stand-alone pictures.
When preparing and using pictures, we need to think about the kind of communication that we are hoping to achieve. It may be useful to ask ourselves which of the various models of communication is most suitable for our purposes.
One-way Communication
In the one-way communication model, information is sent by a transmitter, or sender, to a receiver. An example is the transmission of information from a radio set to the listener.
With images, the picture itself is the transmitter of information, while the receiver is the person who sees the image. An example of this is a poster or pictorial advertisment displayed on a wall.
People who design pictures for one-way communication aim to 'send a message' to other people who make up the 'target audience' for the message. For example, members of the target audience may be intended to receive the message of an advertisment and, as a result, buy the product shown in the image.
This kind of communication is used by people who want to send out propaganda, or announce an event, or sell a product. It is not intended to promote dialogue between the sender and the receiver. It does not stimulate critical thinking on the part of the person who sees the image. It involves monologue rather than dialogue.
Junk e-mail sent to a computer often takes the form of one-way communication. If you try to reply to it, your message cannot be sent to the person who contacted you with their unsolicited and unwanted message.
Charities or large NGOs send out graphical e-mails asking for financial donations. Often it is not possible to reply to these messages. NGO websites are often designed to try to raise funds. On such sites, it is clear how to send money. If you want to contact the NGO for other purposes (i.e. for your purposes), the 'contact' button is often small and hard to find.
Essentially, one-way communication is authoritarian. It is reminiscent of the way orders are issued in an army. The receiver is not meant to question the communication but simply to obey what it tells them to do. One-way communication is characteristically used by organisations which have a strict hierarchical structure. It is also often used in the classrooms or lecture rooms of schools and universities. Mass media also generally rely on one-way comminication.
Two-way Communication
Two-way communication takes place, for example, when two people have a conversation.
In an educational context, it also sometimes occurs between teacher and student. Students may be allowed to ask the teacher questions or to make comments on what the teacher has said. In two-way communication, students speak only to the teacher, not to each other.
In the classroom, the teacher usually stands at the front of the class while the students sit in straight lines. The teacher is the centre of attention, the most important person and the owner of the greatest power in the classroom situation.
Pictures can be used in two-way communication. The teacher may show the students a pictorial teaching aid, for example. Or a community health worker may show a group of people a visual aid and explain to them what the picture means and also, perhaps, what they should learn from the picture.
Two-way communication involves a limited form of dialogue in a group situation. It goes beyond the monologue that characterises one-way, authoritarian communication.
A fuller and more active dialogue between people in a learning group is promoted by a different approach that involves multi-way communication.
Multi-way Communication
Multi-way communication takes place when a group of people discuss an issue with each other. It is a participatory and people-centred way of communicating.
Pictures can be helpful in stimulating multi-way communication. A community health worker can, for example, use a visual aid to encourage discussion among a group of women. Pictures can be used in many different contexts to promote people-centred communication.
Images of this kind are used in group work, where dialogue can take place between everyone in the group. In this situation everybody's knowledge and experience can contribute to the discussion. Multi-way communication is an inclusive process. It is more likely to lead to critical awareness than authoritarian, one-way communication.
.People-centred communication usually involves a different physical configuration of the learning group. The rigid, masculine configuration of one-way communication, with its straight lines of students, is replaced by a circular, feminine configuration. The teacher no longer stands while the students sit. Instead, the facilitator sits at the same level as the learners.
In people-centred work, we do not talk of 'target audiences' or 'messages'. Rather, we speak of 'sharing knowledge and experience'. Facilitators do not follow a pre-determined curriculum. All the learners help to decide on the agenda for the learning session. The facilitator does not try to maximise her own power. On the contrary, she tries to facilitate a more even distribution of power within the group.
Pictures for Critical Awareness
Critical awareness results from ways of thinking that are analytical and evidence-based. It enables us to see the relationship between causes and effects in our lives and environments.
Critical awareness results from rational thought processes. It is distinct from magic thinking in that it helps us to understand our reality in useful ways. Rational thought processes exclude ideas drawn from superstition and religion. It is consistent with humanist principles.
Some types of pictures can help learners to develop critical awareness. Such pictures can be used in a group-learning situation. Learners together analyse what is shown in the picture. Pictures like this are interactive and participatory. They involve multi-way communication.
Pictures for critical awareness include Discussion Starters and various kinds of Picture Cards.
In general, pictures for critical awareness have some or all of the following characteristics:-
They deal with locally important themes
They show situations that are familiar to the people who use them
The theme of the picture is chosen by members of the local community where the picture will be used
They contain several interacting pictorial elements in one picture; or they can consist of several separate but related pictures
They encourage learners to make causal connections between the different elements or pictures
They do not usually show 'solutions', only 'problems', so that learners arrive at their own solutions through discussion and analysis
They are 'open-ended' to allow learners to analyse them in different ways
They do not usually contain words
They are not so simple that they suggest a pre-determined 'correct' response
They are not so complex that they are difficult for learners to understand
They are made locally, often by women
Discussion Starters
A discussion starter is a picture that is used in a group-learning situation to stimulate discussion and to promote the exchange of ideas about an issue or a set of issues. Discussion starters are good for helping people to analyse the causes of problems. They show learners that a problem often has several different causes that are related to each other. They help learners to clarify the relationships between the different factors that cause the problem.
Discussion starters can be very effective in helping people to develop some of the logical, analytical thinking skills necessary for the growth of critical awareness. Also, the process of using a discussion starter in a community can provide a very useful example of a practical, problem-solving approach which can be applied to many local issues.
Like other pictures for critical awareness, discussion starters do not show solutions to local issues. Rather, they show images which illustrate problems in local communities. Learners, or community members, discuss and analyse the problems shown in the picture and come to suggest solutions to some of the issues that arise during discussion.
The term ‘discussion starter’ can be confusing, because field workers sometimes speak as if a discussion starter is any picture that is used to promote discussion. Here, however, we are using the term in a stricter sense - a discussion starter shows the characteristics typical of pictures for critical awareness and it is used in a particular way, as described below.
A discussion starter is very similar to a ‘picture code’, a type of picture used originally by Paulo Freire to help people develop literacy skills. Such pictures ‘encode’ some aspects of local reality. During use, learners ‘de-code’ the images shown on the picture in order to better understand local reality.
How to make Discussion Starters
A discussion starter is usually made on a single sheet of paper. The picture is drawn or painted or photographs can also be used.
Once the theme for your discussion starter has been chosen, you will need to start thinking about what elements need to be included in your design. It may help to write down a list of these elements. Ask yourselves ‘What are the various factors that are causing the problem we are addressing?’ and make a note of your answers. You can later use your notes to tell you what you need to represent in your picture.
How to use discussion starters
When you come to use your discussion starter in a group setting, you will need to carefully guide the discussion through six distinct stages. In this way you will get the most out of your picture, rather than simply allowing an unstructured discussion to take place. The six stages are as follows:-
1. Describe the picture
2. Relate the picture to real life
3. Identify problems
4. Look for causes
5. Look for solutions
6. Plan action
Let’s look at these stages in more detail.
1. Describe the picture
To begin with, ask the people in your learning group to describe what they see in the picture. You can ask questions like “What do you see in the picture?” or “What is happening in this picture?”.
At this stage, you can help learners who have difficulty in recognising or understanding what is shown in the picture. Make sure that everyone in the group knows what the picture is meant to show. This is an important step which can help learners to improve their visual literacy skills.
2. Relate the picture to real life
In the next stage, the facilitator can help the learners to relate what is shown in the picture to their own lives. The picture should show, of course, situations and activities that are familiar to the learners. Referring to the picture, you can ask questions like “Does this happen in our village?” or “Do the people in the picture remind you of people in our community?” In their answers to questions like these, learners begin to relate the theme of the discussion starter to themselves. They begin to see how the image may be relevant to their own community. Thus, learners talk first about the picture and then about how the picture’s theme relates to their own experiences.
3. Identify problems
Next, the group should try to identify what problems are shown in the picture. The facilitator should continue to encourage learners to relate things to their own lives. To explore some of the consequences of the problems shown in the picture, the group can discuss questions such as “What effect is this likely to have in our community?” or “Do our children suffer as a result of the sort of situation shown in the picture?”, and so on. At the end of this stage in the discussion, the group should be clear about the main problem(s) and should have had time to think about and discuss the various implications of the situation shown in the picture.
4. Look for causes
Up to this point in the discussion, the group has prepared the ground so that learners are ready to examine the situation in an analytical way. At this stage, you look for causes of the problems you have discussed earlier. This is an exciting stage and one which is most important in the development of critical awareness.
The group considers questions like “What causes these problems in our community?” and “Why does this happen?”. Learners are encouraged to think quite deeply about the various causes of the issues under discussion. It is this attempt to analyse the local situation that will help people to develop a more critical awareness. The facilitator should allow plenty of time for the group to make this analysis. It is not enough for learners to accept the first and most obvious cause of the problem(s) and to look no further. Almost certainly there are deeper causes. The facilitator should help learners to look for these deeper, underlying causes.
Anne Hope and Sally Timmel, authors of the book ‘Training for Transformation’, write that “Problems are like weeds. If we only cut off their heads they will soon be back, but if we dig deep and get out the roots, they will not grow again.”
Generally, it is best not to make this deeper analysis in a way that sees the issues only in the context of one sector (e.g health, agriculture, water and sanitation, etc.). Your discussion starter has been designed in a way that is open-ended enough to allow group members to make their own, possibly varied, interpretations. Simply because you, as facilitator, may be, say, a community health worker does not mean that the issues can be perceived only in terms of health. It is very likely that factors relating to water and sanitation, agriculture, labour relations, etc., will also play a part.
The process of analysing the theme of your visual aid can generate much varied discussion. The knowledge and experience of all the learners can contribute to the explanations of causes. This may be quite a long process. The facilitator should try to allow enough time for everyone in the group to be actively and thoughtfully involved. More than one group meeting may be needed to permit a sufficiently detailed analysis.
At the end of this important stage, the group can make a list of the different causes that they have suggested and discussed. By this time, group members will have seen more clearly that any problem can have a number of different causes.
5. Look for solutions
The next stage of the discussion is about looking for solutions which correspond to the causes identified by the group. Each cause can be discussed in turn. The group can then decide what they think is the most appropriate or best solution(s) corresponding to that particular cause. Learners may find it useful to make a list of their solutions next to their list of causes.
Sometimes, the solutions will be such that the group feels the need for information or technical knowledge which they themselves do not posess. This will, perhaps, need to come from outside their own community. It may mean that they want to contact some other people who are more knowledgeable about the technical or other aspects of their solutions. It may also mean that they feel that they could benefit from having additional information-giving visual aids such as posters, leaflets and manuals.
Often, too, the discussion may lead to the feeling that the issue(s) and the possible solution(s) need to be talked about more widely, with other people in the community.
6. Plan action
Next, your discussion will need to focus on some practical questions. The group needs to plan action so that the solutions identified by group members can actually be brought about in practise. Group members can try to think about ways in which they themselves, together with their friends and neighbours, can solve the problems. In other words, they can try to plan self-reliant action
To help do this, the facilitator encourages people to think again about the causes and solutions they have identified. If you have made a list of causes and solutions, you can refer to it again at this stage.
In order to make each solution actually happen, you have to specifically determine what action needs to be taken. When the group has decided on this, you can write another list - this time a list of actions to be taken. This could be called the group’s ‘Action Plan’.
Next, you will need to be clear about exactly who is going to do what and when and how they will do it. Some of the work can be done by group members themselves. Often, other people will need to be involved also. It is essential to get people to agree to actually carry out the actions they have planned! Yet another list - of names next to relevant actions - may help.
The action plans that result from using discussion starters are, of course, very varied and will depend on local circumstances. Your action plan could involve individual action (i.e. one person volunteers to carry out a particular task) and/or group action.
Quite often, the process of analysis leads the group to realise that some form of community meeting may be needed. This happens when the proposed action to solve a part of the problem cannot simply be taken by one or a few individuals. The wider community may need to be involved. Learners and others then begin to understand the importance of community organisation. People see that, although they are relatively powerless as individuals, by working together they may be able to bring about social change in their community.
The action plan can also involve further visual aids. The group may have decided that they need information from outside their community. This might take the form of information-giving pictures. Group members may also feel the need to discuss, in greater depth, some other issues or related themes. This, in turn, could mean that they will want to make further discussion starters or other types of visual aids. For example, if community meetings are to be held, the need may arise for the production of posters that announce where and when the meeting is to take place.
Finally, you may want to make other types of pictures about the same theme and about related issues. For example, learners may be interested to make their own discussion starters and picture cards for use with other groups or individuals in their community.
An example from Brasil
This picture is a discussion starter made by Maria de Lourdes de Conceicao, a community health worker from the Caranguejo favela (slum) in Recife, north - east Brasil. It deals with issues about health and environmental sanitation.
Lourdes and her colleagues recognise that many of the health problems in their community stem from the fact that the favela contains a network of open drainage canals or ditches. These ditches act as reservoirs for diseases such as cholera. Another concern of the community health agents at Caranguejo is the large quantity of rubbish (garbage) scattered around in their community.
The picture shows several aspects of life in the favela. There are local houses; drainage canals; a child playing in a drainage canal; some piles of rubbish; a person defecating in open space; animals; a group of people sitting together.
Some of the causes of environmental health issues are :-
1. Children play in dirty drainage canals;
2. People defecate in open places;
3. Drainage canals are used for waste disposal;
4. Piles of rubbish are lying around the favela;
5. Rats and other animals spread disease;
6. There is no proper sewage system.
Some solutions are:-
1. Discourage children from playing in drainage canals;
2. Build latrines;
3. Cover small drainage canals;
4a. Clean up rubbish;
4b. Improve rubbish disposal by provision of adequate waste containers;
5. Keep environment cleaner;
6. Get a proper sewage system built.
Some of the corresponding actions that people in the favela could take are:-
1. Help parents and children learn about the health risks of playing in the drainage canals;
2. Approach outside organisations to supply materials and technical information about how to construct latrines;
3. Organise a community meeting to plan how to enclose drainage canals;
4a. Organise teams of volunteers to clean up rubbish in the favela;
4b. Lobby the municipal corporation to provide more waste containers and to collect rubbish more frequently;
5. Organise community meeting to discuss how to keep the favela cleaner; undertake communication activities to help community members learn about health risks associated with a dirty environment;
6. Approach outside organisations re. funding and construction of a sewage system; lobby local government.
These are some of the ideas that came up when Lourdes used her discussion starter with her community at Caranguejo. The suggested solutions and action to be taken are not easy. This may mean that not all the suggested ideas and action can be put into practise. People may not have enough time or energy to do this work. However, changes were made at Caranguejo as a result of Lourdes using her discussion starter. Some drainage canals were covered, some educational activities were undertaken, some outside organisations were contacted.
This sort of process will not necessarily produce immediate results but it is going in the right direction. Using the discussion starter at least helped to clarify what the community can do to change the situation.There are rarely quick solutions but, for people as poor and oppressed as the inhabitants of Caranguejo, beginning to see that their own actions can bring about some changes is a real step forward. Your discussion starter will not solve all the problems straightaway but it will help to start the process of reflection and action necessary to bring about social change.
Picture Cards
Picture cards are, like discussion starters, interactive visual aids that help people to talk about and analyse local issues and to plan action. Picture cards are sets of separate but related pictures which can be used in several different ways. Picture cards are usually made on paper, often backed with stiff material such as cardboard for durability. They can also be made on cloth. Normally the pictures are approximately A4 in size.
During use, picture cards can tell a story or learners can arrange the pictures into categories or sequences. Picture cards are very flexible and open-ended. They lend themselves to being used and handled by the learners. Consequently, they are particularly good at promoting active involvement by the learners.
You can make picture cards by drawing or painting onto paper or cloth. If the technology is available to you, you can also use photographs and computer-generated images.
Picture Cards for Telling stories
One possibility is to make a set of picture cards which tell a story. A group of learners could sit together and think of an important issue in their local community. Pictures can be made to show different scenes in the story.
In order to make full use of the flexible and open-ended nature of picture cards, it can be good to make the pictures in such a way that there is not a single, fixed storyline. Often the same set of pictures can be used by different people to tell different stories.
There are also different ways of using the picture cards. For example, the facilitator can show each picture to the learning group, in turn, to illustrate the story as it proceeds. After the story has been presented in this way, the learners discuss what it means to them. The facilitator can guide the discussion to help learners identify and analyse the issues raised by the story. They can then look for solutions to these problems and plan action accordingly (see the section on Discussion Starters).
A second way of using your picture cards is to give the set of cards to one or two members of the group and ask them to arrange the images in a sequence that tells a story. These learners then present the story to the group. The presentation is then followed by a discussion which should always aim to help learners to analyse their reality, develop critical awareness and plan action.
An example
This example again comes out of work in favela communities in Recife, north-eastern Brasil. This set of cards contains only 4 picures - usually it is better to have more images (12-20 images is common) but it serves to illustrate how people can make images to illustrate their own lives and the issues which concern them.
The four pictures are intended to tell a story on the theme of drugs, unemployment and crime. They were made by Monica Hollanda of the Coelhos favela in Recife.
The first picture shows a woman shouting at her unemployed husband, who has failed to find work and has been taking drugs.
The second picture shows the woman lying on the floor of her house, with tears falling down her cheeks. Plates for food are laid on the table but they remain empty.
In the third picture, the husband is thinking about using a gun to solve their problems. Is he going to commit a robbery? Is he thinking of shooting himself or his family members?
In the fourth image, the man is shown coming out of a prison cell into a courtroom. Above the judge is the Brasilian flag, with its motto “Order and Progress”.
Although this is an unusually small set of pictures, it is easy to make up one or more stories from these dramatic images. Also, you can make the story even more interesting if you give the characters names.
After telling the story, the group can discuss the issues raised in the story. They can share their experiences of issues like the effects of drug-taking, in their families and community, the difficulty of finding employment, the problems associated with widespread ownership of guns, the role of the police, and so on. They can try to find some solutions to the problems in their favela and help each other to think of any practical ways that life can be improved.
