When I initially joined Collectif Urgence Toxida (CUT) for my internship, I was pretty conscious that the public relations field there was not well defined. But then Nathalie, my supervisor told me that PR was linked more to the harm reduction advocacy in which the organization was mainly involved and that she personally thought the term PR was more associated to the corporate world.
Some NGOs particularly are wary of using this term because of the negative perception associated to PR in profit making companies and also because they are often against big business organizations whereby PR is extensively used.
At some point in time, I felt confused because I could not really situate myself in regard to the PR function at CUT.
Then I realized that in the real world PR was not always an overt practice but instead implemented sometimes unconsciously and subtly in some other forms. At CUT I found that the PR was paradoxically unstructured and cross cutting because it was used for so many purposes! Some of these were the coordination on needle exchange sites, maintaining strong relations with the media, advocacy actions, and project writing to collect funds from donors for activities….
I came to the conclusion that PR at CUT might not be explicitly recognized but nevertheless it was always present in some form or other and it coexisted within a set of functions which in the end was just blatantly .…..PR!
I hope you are all doing great and spending a good time writing your report :-)
Wish you all the best!
Until my last blog post!
Natasha Tylamma
Charles Telfair Institute
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