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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.
 
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 cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Agriculture Analogy Series

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From 1974 to 1976, the Filipino Agricultural Analogy Series utilised agricultural parallels to reach rural people about family planning. The principal followed in the development of this project was that in education, it is easiest to go from the known to the unknown, from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Therefore in bringing family planning information to rural audiences, the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR) sought to demystify potentially technical information by using parallels elicited from the audience itself.

For example, in communicating what family planning is, the following analogy was used: Mango farmers limit the number of fruits on a tree by plucking defective flowers, as too many fruits with break the branch.

On the "how" of family planning: The tassel of corn is covered with a plastic bag to prevent the pollen from dropping on the ears of corn below (like the action of a condom). For a copy of the full report, contact the US hotline at 800-656-4533 or email webmaster@kff.org
Communication Strategies

This campaign used 12 comics, with 50,000 copies of each published and distributed. Accompanying flipcharts were used in group settings.

Development Issues

Family Planning.

Key Points

Group interviews were conducted with 70 mothers and individual interviews were conducted with 285 mothers in their own homes in three phases: 1) after distribution of the first two comic books; 2) following distribution of the seventh comic book; and 3) after the women had received all 12 of the comic books.

Note: according to the researchers, the findings of the evaluation are perhaps more of an evaluation of the effectiveness of using agricultural analogies than an evaluation of the comic books' effectiveness. In the evaluation of the flip charts (done independently), the researchers note that the 'traditional' approach was more successful than the agricultural analogy one, leading one to believe that the following results might have been quite different with a more traditional approach.

The comic books were successful in communicating new information to the audience, although the topics treated in some of the booklets were more readily understood than in others. In the first set of interviews, for example, less than half the women scored high to very high on the knowledge test, while in the third test, there was a significant increase in knowledge registered for all the women.

Partners

International Institute of Rural Reconstruction (IIRR), Philippines Social Communications Center Development and Research Foundation, J. Walter Thompson (evaluation).

Sources

The Use of Mainstream Media to Encourage Social Responsibility: The International Experience - The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation - Prepared by: Jennifer Daves and Liza Nickerson - The Media Project