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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ChildHope

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Based in the United Kingdom (UK), ChildHope is an international non-government organisation (NGO) that provides resources, information, support, and training to organisations working in 10 countries in Africa, Asia, and South America that challenge the many forms of violence suffered by children and young people. The children in question are: living or working on the streets or in slums, in prison or in conflict with the law, exposed to abuse at home or in schools, orphaned or alone, at risk of HIV or denied treatment for AIDS, and/or engaged in the worst forms of child labour or sexual exploitation.
Communication Strategies

ChildHope aims to increase the capacity of each of its partner organisations to respond directly to the needs of vulnerable children from their communities and to strengthen these communities. Through the projects that ChildHope supports, children receive basic assistance in terms of food, shelter, and clothing - and, in addition, long-term support through educational services, legal advice and protection, family reunification, skills training and rights training.

Details about the specific projects ChildHope supports - by country - are available on the ChildHope website, but, in general, its focus areas include:

  1. Child protection
    • Providing access to appropriate justice for all children in contact with the law/reform of the juvenile justice system
    • Implementing child protection policies and procedures for organisations working with children
    • Preventing violence towards children in the home, schools, and community
    • Protecting children who are HIV-positive from discrimination
  2. HIV/AIDS and child rights

    Promoting children's rights (particularly those who are orphans and vulnerable) at the local, community, and national levels by developing sustainable systems and political changes that address children's rights to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, and to information, support, and treatment.

  3. Child Rights in the Community

    ChildHope works with partners in a number of communities around the world touched by poverty, conflict, and disease to: build mechanisms with young people in those communities to promote and support access to child rights; and advocate for the political framework to ensure that governments are held accountable.
Development Issues

Children, Rights

Key Points

ChildHope's vision is to realise the rights and opportunities of children and young people around the world and to strengthen the capacity of partner NGOs to defend and promote the rights of those children.

"In 2008, ChildHope transformed the lives of 31,696 girls and boys around the world."

Partners

Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation, Guernsey Overseas Aid, OAK Foundation ChildHope, Children Aid Ethiopia (CHAD-ET).

Sources

ChildHope website on August 25 2004 and October 21 2010.

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