The dangers of speaking on behalf of communities

I recently watched what was supposed to be an empowering movie about a policewoman who had recently been promoted to be the county sheriff and despite being the lead character, her role in the entire movie was to support the male characters.

In every dialogue, she was depicted as a shallow and catty woman. I mean they leaned on every stereotype with every chance they got.

She even wore heels to physically chase after criminals in a mountainous area — hiking in 9-inch heels must be an extreme sport!

I laughed in disbelief, shock and anger because this was a movie produced in 2022 — watching the movie got me thinking about the mistakes we are making in the Communication for Development sector.

Who is producing the content and who is the targetted audience?

Organisations are tasked with the mandate of amplifying the voices of the communities and groups that they are working with but many times we are falling short. The language, tone and delivery has become rigid, cold and academic.

The communities have become subjects and the lived realities, experiences and voices have become lost in our communication.

The community is no longer the source nor consumer of the content being created by the very organisations that claim to represent the communities.

Every community has its own language, tone and delivery and we are no longer listening.

Unless we go back to the drawing board, we are going to produce newsletters that are losing subscribers and pamphlets that continue to pollute the environment because without the intended audience in mind, we are talking to ourselves.

If the 9-inch heels whilst hiking didn’t convince me that the movie was supposed to celebrate women, tell me why the content we are producing is meant to convince the community that they are being heard.