Entertainment-Education to Promote Safe Motherhood: In the Context of Bangladesh/EDUCATION DIVERTISSANTE POUR PROMOUVOIR LA SECURITE MATERNELLE : DANS LE CONTEXTE DU BANGLADESH

Abstract: We are now in the era of technological miracles, including in the field of communication. Satellite television brings us news and information across national boundaries. The media have a strong influence of people's knowledge, attitudes, and practices. The power of media can be used very effectively to make people healthier. Systematic communication strategies can improve health behavior. Communication shapes how people conduct their daily lives, even their sexual behavior. Mass media techniques that combine entertainment with health education are particularly effective in producing behavior changes. The entertainment education approach are based on assumption that the power of mainstream popular culture is great enough to generate models for over all social behavior. This article is attempt to analyze that how entertainment education could be an important tool to promote safe motherhood in the context of Bangladesh. Key words: Entertainment education, Communication, Safe motherhood, Health promotion, Maternal health, Behavior Change Resume: Nous sommes maintenant dans l'ere de miracles technologiques, y compris dans le domaine de la communication. La television par satellite nous apporte des actualites et des informations a travers les frontieres nationales. Le media a une influence importante sur les connaissances des gens, sur leurs attitudes et pratiques. Le pouvoir de media peut etre utilise d'une facon efficace pour rendre la population plus saine. Les strategies de communication systematique peut ameliorer les habitudes hygieniques des gens. La communicaion faconne leur conduite dans la vie quotidienne, voire leur comportements sexuels. Les techniques de media combinant les divertissements et l'education de sante sont particulierement efficaces pour changer les comportements. L'approche de l'education divertissante est basee sur l'hypothese que le pouvoir de la culture de tendance generale est assez puissant pour engendrer des modeles pour tous les comportements sociaux. Cet article tente d'analyser comment l'education divertissante peut devenir un outil important pour promouvoir une maternite saine au Bangladesh. Mots-Cles: education divertissante, communication, maternite saine, promotion de la sante, sante maternelle, changements de comportement 1. INTRODUCTION "Entertainment-Education" is a promising strategy for improving health in many countries. This approach relies on specially crafted media messages to entertain and to educate audiences about an educational issue, to create favorable attitude and to change behavior. Radio and television soap operas, popular music, street theater and comic books have all been used to educate the public about such health issues as family planning, HIV/ AIDS prevention, environmental health, female equality, improved sanitation, female genital mutilation (Singhal, Arvind and Rogers, Everett M. 1999). This article is an attempt to analyze the role of entertainment education in the context of Bangladesh to promote safe motherhood. In this article authors try to review some studies from global context. Then there is a brief description of the situation of maternal health condition in Bangladesh and finally some examples of effectiveness of entertainment education from Bangladesh context are discussed. In the conclusion some recommendations are included for future researchers and policy makers. Systematic communication strategies can improve health behavior. The power of communication today stems from two recent developments: the rapid growth of communication media and the notable increase in our understanding of communication processes (Pitro P.T. et.al. 1997). Communication shapes how people conduct their daily lives, even their sexual behavior. People want to know more about health; people want to talk more about health to friends and family, hear about it through mass media, and discuss it with competent, caring service providers; people are willing to change their health behavior. …