Follow Toskin on Twitter: [ @2weta ]
1. What qualities do you look for in the people you hang out with?
I realised over time that I am the average of the five people I hang out with. So outside of my colleagues at work (when time permits) I hang out with people who push me to be a better me, who challenge me to my elastic limit while expanding my capabilities.
2. What do you do?
I communicate behaviour change while mainstreaming gender. I am a social and behaviour change communication specialist who picked up gender programming along the way and merged both together.
3. Why do you do what you do?
Communication is life. Equity makes life easy. So working to achieve both gives me boundless joy and satisfaction.
4. Is this where you thought you would end up?
Ending up sounds fatalistic to me. I chose this path because it translates to being paid for loving your job.
5. What values are you committed to?
Resilience, determination, impossible does not exist.
6. How many hours do you work in a typical week?
None! Except when I am not working which amounts to the rest of the week. Ok on a serious note, 40 hours a week minus overtime.
7. What skills are required in your position on a day-to-day basis?
Deftness, open mindedness, positivity, probing mind, keen eyes, wicked sense of humour.
8. Are there any negatives to your job?
Communication being interpreted as information dissemination only.
9. What do you wish you knew at our stage? (IE: Entry-level SBCC practitioners)
The tipping point of change is the most critical point of behaviour change and is the fulcrum of your work. Never overlook or ignore it.
10. What is the best piece of professional advice you've ever received -- and used or implemented?
When you get your participants right and you involve them every step of the way, everything else is settled.
11. If you could do it all over again, what would you do differently?
Nothing… everything that happened were ingredients required to make this broth called “experience”.
12. What should keep entry-level SBCC enthusiasts up at night?
How do I use communication to make smokers stop smoking!
13. What one thing do you still struggle with?
To see people adopt the desired change in behaviour now…as in now.
14. What traits impress you the most in a working professional, irrespective of their area of expertise?
Dedication.
15. What are the top 7 technical skills that entry-level SBCC enthusiasts should strive to horn?
- Be sensitive to the dynamics of your context.
- Never assume you know the situation, nothing is ever as it seems.
- Be open minded… non –verbal communication is also communication and might be used as a BCC material someday.
- Audience segmentation is everything.
- Don’t stop asking ‘why’, ‘why’, ‘why’.
- Listen to the participants, listen, listen.
- A communication strategy only becomes one when you understand the situation, segment your audience, focus and design, create, monitor and evaluate.
16. Considering all the people you have met in your line of work, what personal attributes are essential for success?
Passion!
17. What has been your most rewarding accomplishment?
That moment when you get feedback from the participants on how your intervention helped them make informed and sustainable decisions.
18. Which other SBCC maven would you recommend for this interview?
Auwal Kawu
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