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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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Friend Exchange - China

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Friend Exchange is a bimonthly AIDS awareness magazine that seeks to help gay men in China avoid contracting HIV/AIDS.
Communication Strategies
Each issue of the magazine includes at least ten pages devoted to the topic of HIV/AIDS and a guide to safe sex for male readers. The information about preventing HIV is, by design, very basic.
Development Issues
HIV/AIDS, Gender.
Key Points
Chinese health officials have predicted that about ten million individuals in China will contract HIV or AIDS by 2010, but some claim that they have said little about the impact of AIDS on gay men in China, where there is a taboo against talking about sex in general and homosexuality in particular. This failure to communicate, the critics claim, has hindered public health efforts aimed at providing information to those who could benefit from it. According to a Western researcher who administers a foreign-funded AIDS program in Beijing, gay men account for one-third of the AIDS patients at two hospitals in the city.
Partners

Ford Foundation.

Sources

Letter to sea-aids@healthdev.net (copyright SEA-AIDS 2002) accessed by The Communication Initiative on April 11, 2002.