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.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Project Gemini - Cuba

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Project Gemini emphasises participatory audiovisual and health communication with children in order to increase awareness and understanding of health issues and to encourage individual and social behavioural change.

This programme utilises a methodological approach to develop workshops in Education for Audiovisual Communication for children aged 9-12 years. The purpose of the project is to introduce students to the world of audiovisual creativity and to stimulate their critical capacity beyond the audiovisual phenomenon. The intention is to apply audiovisual language to the exploration of issues such as hygiene, environment, violence, alcohol use, smoking, sexism, and other topics that children identify in their own environment.
Communication Strategies
The project includes the following components: assessment (identification of health and environmental issues that affect children), intervention (implementation of workshops with children, which include sensitisation, training in specific areas, and audiovisual production), evaluation (process, product, and cognitive, affective, and behavioural change), and training (of community members, with the hope that they might replicate the experience in their own communities).

Workshops, which are conducted through a participatory action-research methodology, allow children to identify, prioritise, and analyse specific problems. The workshops focus on four specific objectives:
  • To diagnose felt health needs and demands with regard to audiovisual media in school-age groups
  • To promote active participation of these groups in learning about audiovisual communication
  • To stimulate these groups to produce health messages in concert with their needs and the needs of the community
  • To evaluate results of these interventions at the community level.
Development Issues
Children, Health.
Key Points
Violence, sexism, alcohol consumption, smoking, and stereotypical characterisations of people and situations affect not only what is produced and disseminated but also audience preferences. This programme was motivated by the belief that adults and children alike must be provided with tools to respond to these issues, particularly through media literacy programmes.

Following is a summary of some of the results obtained during the workshops for children:
  • Appropriation of the concept of health in a broader sense and reduction of children´s vulnerability to non-healthy behaviours and life styles are important
  • Attitudes and skills are developed in relation to health issues and to issues of creativity, group cohesion, team work, and punctuality
  • Children develop greater interest in audiovisual communication through a programme such as this one.
At the community level, the project stimulated greater horizontal communication among children.
Sources

"Documenting and Sharing Learning in Health Communication for Development - A Literature Review." Prepared by Rafael Obreg