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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Pneumonia Communication Kits

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Author

Affiliation

Demand Generation

Date
Summary

"Pneumonia kills more children than any other disease."

According to this presentation, at the booth of Diarrhoea and Pneumonia Working Group, for the International SBCC Summit 2016, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February 8-10, "[m]ore is needed to improve careseeking and correct diagnosis among health providers and care givers" for this disease that is, as stated here, the leading killer of children under 5 and is preventable trough early recognition and prompt diagnosis and care.

For frontline healthworkers and caregivers, kits are available through the Diarrhea & Pneumonia Working Group, co-chaired by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI). The kits are described here as bringing "highly visual" information to caregivers so that they can recognise the signs of pneumonia and feel compelled to seek prompt care. They also are intended for frontline healthworkers to offer them the know how to assess a child for fast breathing and chest in-drawing and know what steps to take.

The kits include the pneumonia recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO)/UNICEF Integrated Community Case Management (ICCM) guidelines. They are free and open source; and the kits can be adapted to local context (language, images, etc.) "The materials have been researched and/or field tested via 40 focus group discussions and 195 individual interviews across nine different countries and have been reviewed by an expert panel..." and are available in 3 regional variations: African, African Muslim, and South Asian with a focus on the 10 high-burden countries: Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, India,    Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Uganda.   

They are:
1. Caregiver education kit - poster, illustrated story, and flier of key messages.
2. Frontline healthworker kit - training presentation on diagnosis and treatment, 2 videos (fast breathing and chest in-drawing); post training take-away sheet, pre/post training test, post training text messages, FAQ document.

The kits are available for download here.

Web link
Click here to access this presentation.
Source

Email from Melinda Stanley to The Communication Initiative on February 4 2016.