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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Children and the Media Project

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Launched in 2014 across Southern Africa, the Children and the Media Project is working to provide spaces and opportunities for children to engage with and produce media, as well as to sensitise journalists and media houses about children's rights and how to report fairly and ethically on children's issues. The project is designed to "promote fair, honest and accurate reporting on the experience of childhood," and "provide young people with opportunities to exercise their rights to freedom of expression." Activities of the project include creating opportunities for children to: network with journalists; learn print, radio, and video production; and network with their peers across the Southern Africa region. It also involves activities to build journalist capacity around reporting on children and to encourage more child-focused reporting. The project is led by the Media Institute for Southern African (MISA) in collaboration with Save the Children International.
Communication Strategies

The following are some of the project's activities, which were undertaken with the support of the MISA offices in each respective country:

Child Ambassadors
In each country, the project elects Child Ambassadors who become leaders for awareness and networking opportunities. For example, in September 2014, ten Child Ambassadors from Namibia, Lesotho, Zambia, and South Africa gathered in Namibia for a Child Ambassadors induction retreat. The Ambassadors visited local media houses, learned more about media, and discussed how children can become agents of change. "The aim of this two-day retreat and workshop was to provide the child participants with encouragement and a safe environment for them to express their views, feelings and opinions on issues affecting them in their countries. [The] aim is to help children build the necessary trust, confidence and self-reliance they need to prepare them for the second phase of the project," where children will be more involved in producing their own media.

Journalist Capacity Building and Exchange Programme
MISA also works with local media to build media capacity to report on children's rights and issues through training workshops and by facilitating dialogue between journalists and the participating children. An exchange programme was also implemented that was designed to build the capacity of adult reporters to cover children's issues by providing exchange opportunities to another country. For example, from September 8 to 10 2014, a photo/feature writer from Zambia travelled to Maseru, Lesotho, to cover children's stories for the Informative Newspaper in Maseru. At the same time, a radio journalist at the Catholic Radio service in Maseru travelled to Namibia to conduct interviews on the Child Care & Protection Bill. The pieces are intended to be distributed in both countries.

Regional Children and the Media Summit
The project also provides opportunities for children, journalists, and civil society organisations to network and share ideas. From September 11-12 2014, 36 journalists and civil society organisation representatives from South Africa, Lesotho, Zambia, and Namibia took part in a two-day Regional Media Summit. The main aims of the Summit were to: "achieve a greater understanding of Children's rights and issues; appreciate children as agents of change and enhance advocacy journalism; share developments in children's media in Southern Africa with key players; promote children's participation; raise the status of children's programming; and agree on an action plan on children's reporting and children's media production."

Media Monitoring
In collaboration with Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), MISA Regional secretariat staff received training to be able to monitor and analyse children's coverage in the media for a period of two months (July and August 2014). "The monitoring results can be used to give comparison between different media houses in terms of performance hence one can encourage healthy competition (to perform better). Furthermore the results can be used to unpack and challenge harmful stereotypes, contribute towards forming a basis for developing new policy; and monitoring exposes weaknesses and strengths of media news products and hence it is a vital indicator for the kind of training media professionals might need from time to time."

Child Participation in Media Production
The project is based on the belief that "children are capable of forming their own views and have the capacity, skills and strength, to express those views freely in all matters affecting them, and in so doing to exercise their rights to freedom of expression." As part of the project, children are encouraged to produce their own media and have started on the production of a newsletter called "In the Zone", which contains stories written by children on issues affecting them. Click here for the September 2014 edition. Going forward, there are plans to get children involved in radio and video production.

Children's Reporting Award
The project also held a Children's Reporting Award in September 2014 in order to promote child-focused journalism.

Development Issues

Children, Media, Rights, Freedom of Expression

Partners

Media Institute for Southern African (MISA) in collaboration with Save the Children International

Sources

MISA website, MISA website, and In the Zone newsletter [PDF] on October 24 2014.