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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Love Games Television Drama

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Love Games is a Zambian television drama series that follows the lives and relationships of five women related either through blood or friendship. Part of Communication Support for Health’s Safe Love programme, the drama is intended to encourage viewers to think more about HIV and personal risks, talk more openly about the disease and why it continues to spread, and act to change behaviours to protect themselves and others from HIV. The show started broadcasting in January 2013 and is a collaboration with the Ministry of Health, National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Council, with support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Communication Strategies

The Safe Love campaign and Love Games television show is intended for men and women in both rural and urban areas between the ages of 15 and 49. The Love Games stories follow a group of urban middle class women as one of them begins the journey to marriage. Carol is a young hardworking woman, recently graduated and about to begin her employment at a development agency. She’s engaged to her sweetheart from secondary school, Charlie Lucky. Her upbringing with her parents on the Copperbelt have lead to high expectations for marital bliss.

Tamara, Carol's aunty is married with three children. She is a traditional God-fearing woman who believes that an affair does not break a marriage. She doesn’t get the love or respect that she deserves from her husband, but she will stand by her marriage, because that's what she believes she is supposed to. Womba, Tamara’s best friend almost seems like Tamara’s opposite. She is a high flying successful lawyer on her way to making partner at her law firm. Men are a distraction for her, especially as she doesn’t think they can be trusted. Then there is Carol's cousin Tasheni, who arrives from the United Kingdom with a western mentality that makes her a strong willed, fun-loving, empowered woman. She believes in condoms because her motto is ‘no condom, no sex’. Her long-term boyfriend TJ is an arrogant, high society guy, and her mother loves him because of the name he bears.

According to the producers, when episode one was aired on TV it raised a lot of questions, the main one stemming from a discussion the ladies had – can and should you use condoms in a marriage? Tamara's response was that suggesting condom use brings up a whole host of questions and ends up looking like you don’t trust your husband. To which Tasheni’s response was "Well what if you don’t trust him?"

This discussion continued on the Safe Love facebook page with heated debate.


Watch the Love Games trailer on the Safe Love Zambia website.


Click here to watch individual episodes on Youtube.

Development Issues

HIV/AIDS

Partners

Ministry of Health, National HIV/AIDS/STI/TB Council, United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Sources

Safe Love Zambia website on March 10 2013.