Bringing people from diverse backgrounds to discuss, share ideas and create something powerful is a great opportunity. Share-Net Ethiopia had a chance to organise a co-creation workshop focused on Abortion, and the experience was worth sharing. Though the event lasted just a few days, the preparation, the collaboration, and the insights we gained made a lasting impact.

Planning and preparations 

The organizing team carefully selected a diverse mix of participants — across age, gender, profession, and lived experience, looked into different research papers and also conducted a desk review on the top priority Sexual and Reproductive health issues for the co-creation preparation, but we wanted to create a participatory space to create not just a productive space, but a safe, inclusive, and brave one. Therefore the team organizes a short pre–creation meeting with the participants to discuss and decide on the topic, Comprehensive Abortion Service comes to the front as a top priority of the participants. The development of a creative brief by the facilitators of the Co-Creation was a necessity to help participants to understand the issue and to help them know more about how to develop on the knowledge products.. The participants divided themselves into four groups –and decided to work on four knowledge products which target four different groups: Youth, Policymakers, The general public and medical practitioners. 

Two Big Days 

Everyone was there not only to create something new but also to learn something new, co-creation was the first experience for all the participants as well as the organizing team, excited to see how these two incredible -will look like. 

Once the storyboard and the creative brief were presented to the wider group, the participants went into their groups and started the initial step in the production of the knowledge products and the selection of the type of knowledge products. After a half-day discussion among them, the groups decided to develop two animation videos, one serial animation videos to be posted on social media and fact sheets and one decided to create a policy brief for the policymakers. At the end of the second day, all the groups had the structure and the draft of all the knowledge products, till that point the energy was incredible. Participants didn’t hold back — they shared personal stories, asked tough questions, and challenged assumptions.

Final Reflections 

Though we were expecting the co-creation to be interesting it was even beyond our expectation at the end of the sessions.  Bringing together people from diverse backgrounds – such as Health professionals, Animation Artists, youth, social media influencers and civil society organizations – for one purpose, Creating a safe space for dialogue and sharing experiences as well as challenging each other, collaborative efforts and incorporating new and innovative formats was among the most interesting part of organizing a co-creation workshop it also makes it impactful and memorable.