African development action with informed and engaged societies

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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Comics Uniting Nations

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Comics Uniting Nations is a partnership of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), PCI Media Impact, and Reading with Pictures which seeks to communicate information about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS) using comics. The partnership has created a comic series that "leverages the universal visual language and transformative power of comics to educate people in every corner of the globe about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and empower them to create positive and lasting change in their own communities and worldwide. "
Comics were chosen as they were found to be effective teaching tools since they require readers to not only passively receive information, but also interact with the text and images to construct meaning. The series includes both comic stories and a set of comic public service announcements (PSAs).
The series consists of the following comics which can be downloaded:
  • Chakra - Climate Change: The comic book highlights the impacts of climate change in different countries, the causes, how it affects the community and how to prepare your community from flooding in extremely weather.
  • Heroes for Change: The comic book introduces the Goals and invites children to become superheroes themselves by taking action to end poverty, inequality, and climate change.
  • Chakra - Gender Equality: The story teaches parents and youngsters why it's important to treat girls and boys equally, just because somebody's gender is different from another doesn't mean they should be treated any different. In the story Leela and Raju use a gadget from space that switched their minds to experience how it feels to be a different gender.
  • Eco Boys and Girls & The United Nations SDGs: Eco boys and Girls are five animated characters that promote environmental awareness and interconnectedness. Their mission is to engage children and families around the world to be aware of, involved with and connected to each other and the earth and to empower them to take ownership of our planet, learn about the environment and explore creative new ways to live in harmony.
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English, Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, French, Hindi, Japanese, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Welsh, and Montenegrin

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