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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The Child Security Index (CSI)

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The Child Security Index (CSI), developed in Brazil by the Igarapé Institute, is an open source smart phone app that maps out children’s voices and their perceptions of everyday violence. In 2014, it is being tested in Recife, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo. It is focused on collecting data on the security or insecurity of 8-12 year-old children and their 13-17 year-old "proxy informant" adolescents, as well as adult caregivers and educators.

Communication Strategies

The CSI is a tool intended to generate new data, analysis, and visual representations of "real and perceived security in violent low-income settings of Brazil and the US [United States]." It is being piloted in the US by Cure Violence in the cities of Chicago, New York, New Orleans by trained "enumerators" who take mini-surveys through questioning children and youth and enter the data in mobile phones. Though currently a fieldworker-led app, it is designed for ownership and application by communities for notification and information collection on outbreaks of violence.

 

The CSI is an app based on open data kit (ODK) that tracks the experience of children and youth in violence-affected areas. Through a "basket of ...selected indicators," the psychological, emotional, and physical impacts of insecurity on children are translated into 30 perception-based statements with which children can indicate agreement or disagreement, allowing a score to be tallied, along with a geo-location, for a mobile digital survey. Thus, it allows for the documentation of spatial and temporal trends in the home, school, and community. Data generated by the app is uploaded to an interactive administrative dashboard.

 

By highlighting the children's specific experiences and feeding them into national and global campaigns to raise awareness about violence against children, the tool can increase the evidence base for advocacy and planning for children's safety.

Development Issues

Children

Key Points

The CSI prototype is being tested in cities across Brazil as part of multi-year project supported by the Bernard Van Leer Foundation (2013-2016).

Partners

Bernard Van Leer Foundation, Promundo (Rio de Janeiro), Shine-a-Light and the Federal University of Pernambuco (Recife), NECA (Associação dos Pesquisadores de Nucleos de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Criança e o Adolescente)/UNICEF (The United Nations Children's Fund)/Instituto Indica, and Cure Violence (US), among others.

Sources

The Bernard van Leer Foundation website, May 14 2014, and email from Alice Watson to The Communication Initiative on May 16 2014.