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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Mobilising Communities on Young People's Health and Rights: An Advocacy Training Guide

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This 123-page training guide, published by Family Care International, is designed to help programme managers strengthen the advocacy skills of youth groups and other community-based partners in planning and implementing strong and effective advocacy campaigns. The practical training curriculum provides an introduction to advocacy and takes participants through the steps involved in defining goals and objectives, developing effective messages and activities, and monitoring and evaluating an advocacy campaign. The guide is a companion piece to Family Care International's Advocacy Toolkit for Programme Managers.

The toolkit outlines a 5-day training course that contains the following modules:
  • Module 1: Introduction - introduces the training objective and schedule and gives participants an opportunity to set ground rules.
  • Module 2: Introducing Advocacy and Young People's Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) and Rights - provides an introduction to advocacy and SRH rights. In this module, participants decide which SRH issue will be the focus of their advocacy.
  • Module 3: Analysing Policies - introduces policy analysis and reviews national youth and SRH policies. Participants identify policy commitments related to their advocacy issue that are not effectively implemented in their communities.
  • Module 4: Planning an Advocacy Campaign - outlines the steps in planning campaigns, as well as in developing advocacy objectives and goals.
  • Module 5: Identifying Target Audiences and Advocacy Activities - looks at identifying audiences and choosing appropriate materials and activities.
  • Module 6: Developing Advocacy Messages - reviews and defines effective messaging and guides participants in developing their advocacy messages.
  • Module 7: Developing an Implementation and a Monitoring and Evaluation Plan - reviews the steps in planning advocacy campaigns and guides participants in developing implementation and monitoring and evaluation plans.
Publication Date
Number of Pages

123

Source

Email from Janayna Albino to Soul Beat Africa on July 1 2008; and Family Care International website on October 8 2008.