Development action with 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. 

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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A360 Open Source

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"...we're here with a true-telling of our youth-powered journey..."

Adolescents 360 (A360) is a 4.5-year (January 2016-June 2020) project that fuses adolescent and youth sexual and reproductive health (AYSRH) with adolescent developmental science, cultural anthropology, social marketing, and human-centred design (HCD). The goal is to increase demand for and voluntary uptake of modern contraceptives among 15- to 19-year-old adolescent girls across Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia. A360 is the product of a consortium including Population Services International (PSI), IDEO.org, Society for Family Health Nigeria, Center on the Developing Adolescent, and Triggerise; it is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).

In May 2019, these collaborators created an online resource repository intended to make the design and implementation process of the A360 project open to all in order to support larger collective and ongoing dialogue about meaningful youth engagement for SRH programming. It shares A360's applicable resources, as well as stories of some of the project's trials and successes that others can use to enrich youth programming.

The resources, which can be searched and/or filtered, are organised according to A360's 4-phase, HCD-focused approach:

  1. Inquiry - What did the findings of 280+ young researchers scientists, designers, and public health experts reveal?
  2. Insight Synthesis - Transdisciplinary experts and young analysts translate insights into new opportunities for design.
  3. Prototyping - What worked and what didn't? Learn from A360's rapid mini-experiments.
  4. Adaptive Implementation - See how adaptation has formed the foundation of A360's implementation and scale-up.

The resources on this repository illustrate how A360 brings science to the creative design process and eventual solutions through:

  • Placing adolescents, and their key influencers, at the centre of the design process.
  • Fostering meaningful and lasting youth-adult partnerships.
  • Embedding HCD within a disciplined marketing process.
  • Employing anthropological and consumer marketing lenses to better understand adolescent audience segments and transform that understanding into insights.
  • Engaging the private sector to develop a model for filling gaps in the market.
  • Addressing the social, developmental and normative factors that lead to early and unintended pregnancy, and improve the culture of acceptance of contraception.
Source

Posting from Claire Cole to the IBP Knowledge Gateway, May 29 2019; email from Emma Beck to The Communication Initiative on October 25 2019; and A360 Open Source and A360 project brief [PDF], both accessed on October 25 2019. Image credit: A360 via Facebook