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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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Interventions for promoting the initiation of breastfeeding. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

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Dyson, L., McCormick, F.M., & Renfrew, M.J. (2005) Interventions for promoting the initiation of breastfeeding. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 18(2), CD001688.

Abstract
BACKGROUND:

Despite the widely documented health benefits of breastfeeding, initiation rates remain relatively low in many high-income countries, particularly among women in lower income groups.
OBJECTIVES:

To evaluate the effectiveness of interventions which aim to encourage women to breastfeed in terms of changes in the number of women who start to breastfeed.
SEARCH STRATEGY:

We searched the Cochrane Pregnancy and Childbirth Group trials register (30 May 2004), the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (The Cochrane Library, Issue 1, 2003) and the following databases from inception to October 2002: MEDLINE, CINAHL, ERIC, Applied Social Sciences, PsychLIT, EMBASE, British Nursing Index, BIDS, EPI-centre. We also searched the following in October 2002 for 'grey literature: 'SIGLE, DHSS Data, and Dissertation Abstracts. We handsearched the Journal of Human Lactation, Health Promotion International and Health Education Quarterly from inception to October 1998. We scanned reference lists of all articles obtained.
SELECTION CRITERIA:

Randomised controlled trials, with or without blinding, of any breastfeeding promotion intervention in any population group except women and infants with a specific health problem.
DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

One review author independently extracted data and assessed trial quality for checking by a second author. We contacted investigators to obtain missing information.
MAIN RESULTS:

Seven trials involving 1388 women were included. Five trials involving 582 women on low incomes in the USA showed breastfeeding education had a significant effect on increasing initiation rates compared to routine care (relative risk (RR) 1.53, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.25 to 1.88).
AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS:

Evidence from this review shows that the forms of breastfeeding education evaluated were effective at increasing breastfeeding initiation rates among women on low incomes in the USA.