Gathering in person to advance informed and engaged societies
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.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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#SBCC Summit - Drones, Brands, Quality and Mist

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Dear Colleagues,

If all goes well would you join me and my colleagues at the SBCC Summit (#SBCCSummit) - Shifting Norms, Changing Behaviour, Amplifying Voice: What Works? - where we will be talking and presenting on the following accepted abstracts:

1.     Oral Presentation: When the Drone Flies, Models Mutate: In 2016, UNICEF launched an innovative study to use drones to transport laboratory samples from a peri-urban health facility to a central laboratory. This presentation postulates that while innovations proliferate in the field of development, SBCC/C4D must equally innovate to better respond; and particularly to leap-frog new technologies. This requires rethinking our models and approaches. 

2.     Poster Presentation: Rebranding Culture for Social Accountability; the Case of Bwalo Forums in Malawi: The poster demonstrates the power of using indigenous modes of community dialogue to increase citizen voice for social accountability in health. The overarching idea that emerges is that using cultural forms expression as citizen voice can improve service provision and promote positive behaviors.

3.     Comm-Talk: Whose Quality Anyway? - An account of personal experiences in implementing entertainment-education: One of the concepts that the communication expert in both development and marketing is obsessed with is quality. In this talk I claim that as communication experts we need to be ready to sacrifice our models of appreciation (deliberately putting at bay our preconceptions of what defines quality) to accommodate those of our ‘audiences’. 

4.     Comm-Talk: Mist in the Backstage- An account of personal experiences of working with secret forces in community mobilization: Participation of secret societies tends to overwhelm ideologies and standards of expert practitioners to an extent that participation itself becomes questionable. This Talk experientially explores the importance of involving indigenous knowledge and skills with no expert interference. However, it raises questions of the extent to which participation needs to be accepted; especially when we don’t know what happens in the background when secret societies participate.

2018 INTERNATIONAL SBCC SUMMIT: Shifting Norms, Changing Behavior, Amplifying Voices-What Works. #SBCCSummit