Behaviour Change Communication

Background: During the duration of the project Kenya's national HIV/AIDS strategy considered youth aged between 15 and 24 "most-at-risk" of contracting HIV, particularly young women had an HIV prevalence of 6.1% - four times higher than their male counterparts. Studies showed that, although knowledge of HIV/AIDS among youth was high, many young people continued to engage in risky behaviours, such as multiple sexual partners and inconsistent condom use. Developed by Virtual Heroes for Warner Bros Entertainment in partnership with the United States (US) President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Pamoja Mtaani video game was launched in December 2008 in four centres around Nairobi. The goal of the project was to reach young people aged 15-19 years old with HIV behaviour-change messages through the use of a fun and innovative video game. What did the programme involve? The game was designed for young people between 15 and 19 and focused on five key HIV prevention behaviours: delaying first sexual intercourse, abstinence, avoiding multiple partners, correct and consistent condom use, and uptake of voluntary counselling and testing (VCT). Players assumed the identity of one of five characters - a 22-year-old female musician, an 18-year-old male footballer, a 19-year-old male “techie”, a ...
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Background: Youth living with HIV in Zimbabwe face a number of challenges in accessing HIV/AIDS information and services due to a number of factors that range from affordability, inadequate information to stigma and discrimination. Zimbabwe Network for People living with HIV and Aids (ZNNP+) has been facing challenges in encouraging youths to join support groups mainly because of stigma and discrimination. ZNNP+ identified social media as a platform to improve access and availability of Youth friendly and comprehensive SRHR/HIV information and for virtual peer to peer psychosocial support. The platform provides education on sexuality to young affected populations as well as addressing social norms that fuel risk behaviors among young people. What did the programme involve? ZNNP+ trained 10 youths one from each of the ten provinces on the use of technological innovations as advocacy tools. The training was centered on the use of social media. After the training ZNNP+ provided smart phones and periodically provided them with airtime. The youths cascaded the trainings to district representatives in their provinces. Social Whatsapp group platforms were formed in all the districts linking with provinces and feeding to the national social Whatsapp group managed by the Advocacy Officer. The platforms are being used ...
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Background: ‘Learning about Living’ (LaL) was designed to empower young people in Nigeria to make well-informed decisions about their personal lives and relationships by utilising ICTs to provide accurate and non-judgemental information about sexual health.  Its objectives included a measurable positive change in adolescent knowledge, attitudes and practices relating to sexual health. It was initiated in 2006 by OneWorld UK and Butterfly Works, Netherlands, working with key stakeholders’ in the youth sexual and reproductive health field in Nigeria.  A two-year pilot ran from 2007 - 2009, followed by a three-year scale-up stage which ran from 2009-2011.  In 2012 the programme was passed onto local partners and stakeholders to run and manage. What did the programme involve? An interactive e-Learning programme in the form of an electronic version of the Family Life and HIV/Aids Education (FLHE) national curriculum was created in order to teach adolescents about all aspects of reproductive health, including HIV prevention. This was based on the curriculum developed by the National Agency for Curriculum Development in the Nigerian educational sector. The programme was rolled out across over 500 schools and wider reach was later provided by a national mobile phone helpline. Teachers from each school involved received training ...
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With a small group of our C4D Network members currently engaged on a project to design a package for Community Education in Tanzania, network members in Dar es Salaam proved a rich mine of information and source for lively discussion at our recent meet-up there. As a key element of this package will be building synergies between organisations working in the country, this C4D meet-up was a great example of how sectoral collaborations can work best. Members represented C4D from all angles : film production, publishing, consultancy, radio production, UN agency work and quantitative research (and from the Network's own Secretariat and Global Members' Executive Committee). To kick-off, 6 key behaviour-change priorities were proposed - including the promotion of financial capability, family planning and child-respectful discipline. Debate involved the extensive re-shuffling of paper-slip 'priorities', and concluded with many more than 6 ideas! We nonetheless reflected on the importance of keeping messaging concise for it to be effective, and on the particular difficulty, therefore, of prioritising. The recent outbreak of cholera in Tanzania was a prominent consideration in this exercise. Beyond this paper-shuffling collaboration (participatory communication in action!), which sparked many ideas for our members' Community Education project, we also reflected on the potential for reviving forgotten C4D interventions and ...
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This publication aims to to build the skills of community-level workers, such as community development agents, community health workers, and agriculture extension agents, so that they can be more effective behavior change promoters in their communities. The lessons are generic rather than sector specific and cover skills such as communication and storytelling with the aim of  helping development workers become more effective as an agent of behavior change ...
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Les autorités religieuses, très influentes au niveau des communautés, ont un rôle capital à jouer dans la couverture vaccinale, en particulier parce qu’elles peuvent apporter leur appui aux programmes de vaccination. Conçu à l’intention des chargés de communication, des responsables des programmes et de leurs partenaires dans le secteur de la vaccination, cet ouvrage présente les grands principes directeurs de la création d’alliances avec les chefs et groupes religieux sur les questions de vaccination. Il donne également des conseils sur les mesures à prendre lorsque les programmes de vaccination se heurtent à une certaine résistance et il présente des succès enregistrés dans trois pays (Sierra Leone, Angola et Inde) ...
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The guidelines presented in this workbook were created for communication and programme officers and their immunization partners seeking to develop and maintain strong working relationships with religious leaders and groups. They also suggest what actions might be taken when a religious leader or group organizes resistance to immunization. While the guidelines provide an overall framework, they do not offer specific health messages based on religious texts. The guidelines also suggest ways to reinforce a group’s own organizational structure so that leaders and their followers stay actively engaged in supporting immunization and other health programmes. Three case studies illustrate how alliances were built in Sierra Leone, Angola and India to overcome resistance against routine immunization and polio eradication. The studies are intended to illustrate processes that have worked, rather than models to follow when working with religious groups ...
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Keeping the Faith, a joint report by CAFOD, Christian Aid, Tearfund and Islamic Relief, shows that Christian and Muslim leaders were able to deliver health messages in parts of the two countries - Liberia and Sierra Leone - that governments and NGOs could not reach. As trusted sources of information, they quashed rumours about the disease - such as that the disease was man-made and being spread deliberately - and encouraged communities to accept life-saving advice from health workers. They also played a crucial role in counselling survivors and challenging stigma. Click here for full report ...
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Updated for 2015, this social media toolkit has sample messages, blog ideas, and resources to help celebrants and handwashing champions spread the word about the annual Global Handwashing Day (15 October) ...
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This Ebola Communication Preparedness Implementation Kit (I-Kit) provides national and local stakeholders, as well as program managers, with key considerations and a roadmap for instituting and implementing critical, relevant, practical and timely communication for responding to the threat of an Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak. The I-Kit guides countries in social and behaviourr change communication (SBCC) and risk communication activity planning, including communication plan development for every stage of an Ebola response ...
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Participatory Theatre Gains Momentum, New Vision and Renewed Focus Workshop Charts a Path for Strengthening Participatory Theatre as a cross-cutting Communication for Development Platform LUSAKA, Zambia, 16 July 2015 (UNICEF) – More than 70 participants from 18 countries -- across six continents -- gathered here last week to share, learn, and sharpen strategies on how participatory theatre can engage communities to claim their rights and address specific development and humanitarian challenges. The seven-day workshop closed over the weekend in a ceremony with representation from Zambia’s Deputy Minister of Tourism and Arts, Hon. Esther Banda, MP, Chairman of the National Arts Council, Mulenga Kwepepe and senior UNICEF officials. Throughout the week, workshop participants deliberated on principles and standards for raising the quality of practice. These were captured in a Lusaka Declaration outlining detailed commitments of theatre practitioners for using participatory theatre as an approach for community engagement, behaviour change and social transformation. “Participatory Theatre can be a potent medium to address power imbalances in communities which prevent them from fulfilling their basic rights. It can be applied in conflict-affected settings to address underlying causes of tensions and build social cohesion; in post emergency situations to help reduce trauma and in development ...
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