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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Nuestra Casa Exhibition Project

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Nuestra Casa is a communication initiative revolving around a traveling exhibit: a full-size, 3-dimensional house that is designed to make real the life and stories of people in Mexico and the United States (US)-Mexico borderlands who are affected by tuberculosis (TB). Starting in December 2010, it was created as a tool for advocacy, communication, and social mobilisation promoting awareness among decision makers, health care providers, and the public in general to get involved in concrete action to prevent the spread of TB, reducing the number of cases and deaths caused by it.

Communication Strategies

This project uses art in an effort to humanise TB - raising awareness about how it affects individuals' lives and, hopefully, generating action. It began as a conversation between University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) Centennial Museum Director Dr. Bill Wood and Dr. Eva Moya about how to reengage the community of the Paso del Norte Region in Texas, US, in the social and public health issues of TB and HIV/AIDS. They then collaborated with Damien Schumann, a photojournalist and social activist who had constructed "The TB/HIV Shack" in the style of a typical South African, low-income dwelling to raise awareness about one of the settings where TB and HIV/AIDS coexist. During several months of planning and field work, Schumann - with help from persons affected by TB and TB Photovoice participants (a photo documentation methodology), health providers from health authorities, and community-based organisations - visited first one US city and then four Mexican border cities: El Paso, Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana, Reynosa, and Matamoros. The purpose was for Schumann to live at these sites and experience the TB situation and its psychosocial context and to be able to capture and bring this reality to life.

 

The results of these visits, interviews, testimonies, photographs, and personal items from individuals affected by TB were incorporated into Nuestra Casa and became part of a mobile exhibit that was launched from the UTEP campus in 2009. The tour continued through Mexico in partnership with the National TB Program in Mexico and the support of the State TB Programs in Quintana Roo, Oaxaca, Tamaulipas, and Tijuana, ending at the Global Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, US, in 2010. Visitors to the exhibitions were invited to compose inspirational messages and reflections on the exhibition on "trapitos" (small pieces of fabric) as a record of the impact of the exhibition. Moya brought faculty members, staff, and students across campus to the initiative; together, they worked to analyse the trapitos as a window into how people think and feel about TB and how their perceptions were impacted by the exhibit. The work of these students has become an integral component of Nuestra Casa, The Exhibition, which is on display at the UTEP Centennial Museum from January 17 - December 6 2012. It includes 5 major components:

  1. "Tendederos" (clothes lines) of trapitos - Each of the floor to ceiling pieces of draped cloth (the tendederos) contain between 8 and 10 small, napkin-size pieces of cloth (the trapitos) with the impressions, thoughts, reactions, blessings, and sometimes well-wishes of those who visited the exhibit during its 2009-10 tour written on them.
  2. The Casa, which - among other features - includes a viewing station for an approximately 20-minute video documenting the history and tour of the Nuestra Casa Project.
  3. A tour photo-collage - Short quotes from student analysis of the messages written on the trapitos provide insights into how visitors to the exhibition responded in different cities on the tour. A corresponding QR (Quick Response) code enables visitors to use their mobile devices to access the complete student analyses of the trapitos (Student Trapito Analyses or STAs) on the Nuestra Casa website.
  4. 10 photo-stories - A glimpse into the lives and struggles of ten people who have been touched by TB or who know someone or have a loved one with the disease. The photos have no label, only a QR code.
  5. An in-gallery computer station where museum visitors may access and contribute their own online exhibition content. The station is designed to create a seamless connection between the gallery installation and the online material and social media such as Facebook where anyone may contribute their perspectives or comment on, "like", or share the content contributed by others.

In addition, over the course of 2012, the Nuestra Casa team has led the development of a schedule of workshops, events, presentations, and other events in an effort to refocus the Paso del Norte community on TB.

 

Additional links for more information:

Development Issues

TB, HIV

Partners

UTEP, the Mexican Consulate, the City of El Paso Health Department, the Alliance of Border Collaborative (ABC), and TB Photovoice, with funding from Project Concern International (PCI) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Sources

University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) website; and the Nuestra Casa website - both accessed August 10 2012; and emails from Damien Schumann and Eva M. Moya to The Communication Initiative on August 11 2012 and August 12 2012, respectively.