Social Change Communication

Register now: IV Annual Conference: What Works? Social and Behavioral Approaches to Boost Children’s Well-Being (Zurich, Switzerland)

February 18, 2019

Based on their research and development projects across the world, experts from different fields will present new insights into behavioral and social change, focusing on community engagement and empowerment to improve child development.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outline an ambitious agenda for the global development community over the next decade. Achievement of these goals are critical to improving the lives of millions of communities, families and children across the world, particularly among marginalized population groups.

The Center for Child Well-being and Development (CCWD) and UNICEF are working together to advance in the Sustainable Development Goals by undertaking high quality research and generating rigorous evidence on effective social and behavioral change; and is also working in the implementation of community-based strategies and interventions to support national and local governments. The annual conference 2019 aims to contribute to these efforts.

Click here to register and for full details.

Engaging Community Members to Adopt Effective WASH Practices for Nutrition (SPRING brief, 2017)

February 18, 2019

The first 1,000 days, the period from pregnancy to two years of age, are critical for early childhood development. During this time, children are especially vulnerable to stunting, an irreversible condition that can result in lifelong cognitive and physical deficits. In 2011, stunting, or low height-for-age, affected more than 165 million children worldwide (Black et al. 2013). Mounting evidence indicates that poor water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices contribute significantly to stunting. Improving WASH practices reduces diarrheal disease, environmental enteric
dysfunction, and soil-transmitted helminth (parasitic worm) infections. Combined, these reductions contribute to decreases in stunting.

In Ghana, stunting is a particularly serious challenge. According to the 2014 Ghana Demographic and Health Survey (GDHS), 19 percent of Ghanaian children under the age of 5 are stunted. Among the regions with the highest rates of stunting is the Northern Region, where the prevalence is 33 percent (GDHS 2014). WASH practices in many parts of the country contribute to this problem. The majority of households (93 percent) do not treat their drinking water by any method (GDHS 2014), while only 14 percent use an improved toilet facility that is not shared with other
households (GDHS 2014). In the two weeks preceding the 2014 GDHS survey, the overall rate of diarrhea reported among children under five was 12 percent, a figure which tends to vary seasonally.

The SPRING project is a seven-year USAID-funded cooperative agreement to strengthen global and country efforts to scale up high-impact nutrition practices and policies and improve maternal and child nutrition outcomes. SPRING has worked for three years in Ghana, where USAID has tasked it with helping to prevent stunting and reduce anemia in the Feed the Future Zone of Influence in 15 districts in the Upper East and Northern Regions.

SPRING’s “WASH 1,000” strategy promotes focused, evidence-based WASH behaviors to eliminate common fecal-oral contamination pathways in children during the first 1,000 days. The strategy takes an integrated, multi-sectoral approach, simultaneously delivering products, services, and information to households with pregnant and lactating women and those with children under two (i.e., 1,000-day households).

Click here for full brief.

UNICEF C4D for Education paper series (2016)

February 12, 2019

A Global Evidence Review of Communication for Development (C4D) in support of inclusive and quality education demonstrated the contribution C4D to education outcomes, specifically in the areas of inclusion, equity and gender. The three briefs presented here summarize key findings of the evidence review, discuss key principles in applying and strengthening C4D for Education, and provide recommendations for policy and programming in support of education outcomes, while emphasising regional context and priorities.

Programme brief: Addressing social norms and gender in support of equity in education [PDF]

Programme brief: A social and behaviour change agenda for inclusion and equity in education [PDF]

Programme brief: Investing in Communication for Development to enhance quality education and learning outcomes [PDF]

Source: https://www.unicef.org/esaro/5481_c4d-education-briefs.html

Redesigning an education project for child friendly radio: a multisectoral collaboration to promote children’s health, education, and human rights after a humanitarian crisis in Sierra Leone (BMJ 2018; 363 :k4667)

February 11, 2019

In this paper the authors describe how an educational project was rapidly adapted into a radio education programme after the 2014 Ebola epidemic in Sierra Leone.

In May 2014, Sierra Leone reported its first case of Ebola in Kailahun, a remote, marginalised, and impoverished district bordering Liberia. The district had one of the highest concentrations of Ebola infections during this outbreak. After this, over 1600 children were orphaned and gender inequalities were exacerbated . Public health control measures put in place by the government of Sierra Leone included closing all schools and prohibiting public congregation.

The educational programme “Getting Ready for School”, funded by the UK charity Comic Relief, had been operating since its launch in 2011 within 21 schools in Kailahun. While many other educational services stopped entirely in Kailahun, the Getting Ready for School programme was redesigned as a radio education programme called Pikin to Pikin Tok (PtPT), meaning Child to Child Talk, in Krio. The lead consortium partner was Child to Child, a UK based international child rights non-governmental organisation (NGO) (www.childtochild.org.uk), and the lead implementing partner was Pikin-To-Pikin (www.pikintopikin.org), a local NGO. The goals and objectives of the project changed in response to the circumstances in Sierra Leone; this required a substantially different approach by the redesigned scheme than in the original project. The entire effort, from starting the school project to the end of the radio project, ran from 2011 to 2016.

Click here for full paper.

How Is Radio Helping to Improve Girls’ Education in South Sudan (BBC Media Action Research, 2017)

February 11, 2019

South Sudan, the newest country in the world, has some of the lowest educational indicators globally. Girls particularly struggle to achieve educational milestones, with very few of those who complete primary school continuing onto secondary education. In 2016, 128,000 girls started primary education, but only 2,700 completed secondary.

The project: The Girls Education South Sudan (GESS) project – funded by the UK’s Department for International Development – aims to change this, so that all girls can go to, stay in, and achieve at school. A consortium-based five-year-long initiative (2013-2018) of the Government of the Republic of South Sudan, GESS aims to transform the lives of a generation of children in the country – especially girls – through education.

Midline research found that listeners of the radio programme Our School – which seeks to raise awareness of the benefits of education and tackle associated barriers – had more knowledge of South Sudan’s education system, had been more involved in education, and had budgeted for and discussed education with girls or daughters more than non-listeners.

Click here for full paper.