Children
Child rights action with informed and engaged societies
Children

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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The Fred Rogers Center Early Learning Environment™ (Ele)

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"The development of literacy skills must begin at birth, and talking with children is a great way to promote language and literacy development."

Launched on March 28 2012 by the United States (US)-based Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College, this website provides digital media resources for early learning teachers, family child care providers, and families of young children birth to age five. It was developed with input from families, early learning teachers, family/home-based care providers, and other early childhood and literacy experts.

Visitors to the online resource first meet "Ele" (pronounced "El-Lee"), an avatar that serves as the site's friendly "guide" to orient them to:

  • Activities: A library of more than 150 ebooks, digital games, videos, music, mobile apps, and other activities selected as quality resources that are designed to support learning and literacy development. Some activities help adults support children's language and literacy skills; others are designed for use by adults with children. Activities are searchable by age, educational setting, and media type; each activity includes accompanying user tips.
  • Let's Talk: An online community where teachers, families, and others can ask questions and connect and share with others who care about issues affecting young children. For example, one group ("Media, Education, and Child Development") provides a place for discussion about developmentally appropriate uses of media to support children's language, literacy, or other skills.
  • My Ele: By signing up for a free Ele account, users can organise the site's resources around their own needs and interests and then share them by creating Play!Lists and/or posting videos and pictures.

All resources include research-based suggestions and information on how and why to use Ele's activities, under the headings, "Talk About It" and "Why This Is Important".

Michael Robb, PhD, Director of Education and Research at the Fred Rogers Center and one of the site's developers, says: "Ele encourages caregivers to treat media like they would treat a book. The videos, songs, games, and other resources on Ele promote adult-child interaction, an essential component of healthy media use and literacy development."

Publishers

Languages

English

Source

Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media at Saint Vincent College website, May 7 2012; and emails from Michael Robb to The Communication Initiative on May 9 2012 and January 10 2013.