The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

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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Impact Data - BBC World Service Trust Leprosy Project

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Date
Methodologies
A fully independent evaluation by ORG Centre forSocial Research, one of India's leading market research agencies. Three surveys were carried out in November 1999 (baseline), March 2000 (afterPhase 1) and September 2000 (after Phase 2). Each survey was a random sample of size 1,000, with quotas for males and females in urban and rural areas, to ensure representativeness of different castes and communities. The sampling error is +/- 4% at the 95% confidence level. The sampling error for any individual state is +/- 8%.
Knowledge Shifts
Curability & Communicability -
The % of of the total population who believe leprosy is transmitted by touch fell from 52 to 37 to 27%. The % believing that leprosy patients receiving treatment are infectious fell from 25 to 20 to 12%. The % who regard leprosy as curable rose from 84 to 88 to 91% of the population(99% of those exposed to the campaign regarded leprosy as curable, compared to 79% of people who had not seen the campaign.

Symptoms -
Awareness of loss of sensation as a possible symptom was already high(65%) and rose to 72 then 80%. Awareness of pale reddish patches as a possible symptom remained level at 86%. Awareness of non-itchy patches as a possible symptom rose from 37 to 53 to 55%.

















Practices




Attitudes
The proportion of the total population believing leprosy is hereditary fell from 56% (baseline) to 32% (after Phase 1) to 19% now (after Phase 2). The % who believe that leprosy is caused by bad deeds in a previous life fell from 37 to 29 to 13%. The % believing that leprosy is a curse of God fell from 31 to 29 to 15%.




Access
The radio or TV materials were seen or heard by 59% of the total sample. If representative of the of total population (467 million) of the 5 target states this would mean a total reach of 275 million.

Source
Click here to download a PDF version of this document.

This data was extracted from a results charts provided by the BBC WST to The Communication Initiative - January 7, 2002. A full 96-page report of the research is available on request.