INNOVATION SPOTLIGHT
“Positive Disruptions:” Shifting Attitudes in Support for Sexuality Education at the Community Level in Madagascar
Trust-building strategies CSE Educators use to build community support for sexuality education in Madagascar, captured through Collaborative Filmmaking
December 2023
The Starting Point
Comprehensive sexuality education is inherently sensitive — it means teaching young people about sex and relationships, a topic that can trigger resistance. Building public support is essential to delivering CSE at all, yet little evidence exists on how to actually shift community attitudes toward it.
In Brief
This interactive results brief shares new insights on how Projet Jeune Leader's CSE educators build community trust and support. Drawing on a research project where educators used collaborative filmmaking to document their own strategies, the brief identifies the specific approaches that shift attitudes towards support for CSE at the local level.
Key Takeaways
→ Educators build trust through two pathways: technical (demonstrating knowledge and reliability) and relational (deepening connection and reciprocity with community members).
→ Technical strategies include legitimizing their expertise and reinforcing the purpose of their work to local stakeholders.
→ Relational strategies involve closing the distance between educators and communities — integrating into local life until they become invested, trusted community members.
→ The right personal qualities matter as much as training the CSE Educators. In particular, open-mindedness, adaptability, confidence, and humility are core to earning community trust.
Discover Other Resources
“When I finished my film, I realized that people really needed me there”: the transformative power of Collaborative Filmmaking
A qualitative study, published in Springer Nature's Research Involvement and Engagement, examining how the process of Collaborative Filmmaking shaped CSE educators’ motivation, self-reflection, and use of film as an advocacy tool.
“Empowerment—Fulfilled, Free, and Strong”: Conceptualizing Youth Empowerment in Madagascar Using an Arts-Based Methodology
This study, published in Health Promotion Practice, shares results from our participatory research on what youth empowerment means in the Malagasy context, using the Visual Voices methodology.
“My life would not be the same”: A qualitative, retrospective evaluation of the post-programme outcomes of an in-school comprehensive sexuality education programme in Madagascar
A retrospective study, published in Sex Education, into how PJL's CSE program shaped former learners’ lives a few years after they participated in the program