Summits - SBCC and C4D
Gathering in person to advance informed and engaged societies
Summits - SBCC and C4D

After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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Using Edutainment in addressing Family planning to Factories workers workshop at #SBCCsummit

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Egypt’s 2014 Survey on Young People documented an increase in desired fertility among married and never married youth between 2009 and 2014. Peer education is a widely used strategy for raising awareness of  young people. The factory environment offers a good venue for communicating messages about family planning / reproductive health (FP/RH) to factory workers who are likely to be young people, however, there is very little documentation of interventions that used this approach. In a project implemented by the Population Council/ Evidence project with funds from USAID, 140 workers were trained as family planning peer facilitators to raise awareness and generate demand for family planning services among their coworkers.

The workshop will introduce  participants  to opportunities that the factory environment offers for peer education, challenges that peer facilitators might face in communicating messages to their coworkers, help participants identify opportune moments  to reach the workers, as well as strategies to  engage the factory  nurses and management in order to take  ownership of this initiative and ensure its sustainability. . 

Learning Objectives:

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Increase participants’ awareness of the opportunities and challenges that the factory environment poses to for peer education about FP/RH;

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Understand the power dynamics in the factories environment between nurses, peer facilitators and management.

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Enhance the participants’ skills in communicating messages to co-workers in the factory setting.

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Identify the potential role of social media in raising factory workers’ awareness of FP/RH.