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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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Psychosocial stimulation improves the development of undernourished children in rural Bangladesh

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Hamadani, J.D., Huda, S.N., Khatun, F., and Grantham-McGregor, S.M. (2006).Psychosocial stimulation improves the development of undernourished children in rural Bangladesh. Journal of Nutrition, 136, 2645–52

Abstract

Undernutrition in early childhood is associated with poor mental development and affects 45% of children in Bangladesh. Although limited evidence shows that psychosocial stimulation can reduce the deficits, no such interventions have been reported from Bangladesh. The Bangladesh Integrated Nutrition Program (BINP) has provided nutrition supplementation to undernourished children through community nutrition centers (CNCs). We added psychosocial stimulation to the treatment of undernourished children in a randomized controlled trial to assess the effects on children's development and growth and mothers' knowledge. Twenty CNCs were randomly assigned to intervention or control groups with 107 children in each group. We also studied 107 nonintervened better-nourished children from the same villages. Pre- and postintervention measurements included children's height, weight, development assessed on Bayley Scales, behavior ratings during the test, and a questionnaire on mothers' knowledge of childrearing. The intervention comprised home visits and group meetings with mothers and children for 12 mo. Intervention benefited children's mental development (4.6 +/- 2.0, P = 0.02), vocalization (0.48 +/- 0.23, P = 0.04), cooperation (0.45 +/- 0.16, P = 0.005), response-to-examiner (0.50 +/- 0.15, P = 0.001), emotional tone (0.33 +/- 0.15, P = 0.03), and mothers' knowledge (3.5 +/- 0.49, P < 0.001). At the end, undernourished controls had poorer mental (-4.6 +/- 2.0, P = 0.02) and motor (-6.6 +/- 2.2, P = 0.003) development, were more inhibited (-0.35 +/- 0.16, P = 0.03), fussier (-0.57 +/- 0.16, P < 0.001), less cooperative (-0.48 +/- 0.17, P = 0.005), and less vocal (-0.76 +/- 0.23, P = 0.001) than better-nourished children. Intervened children scored lower only in motor development (-4.4 +/- 2.3, P = 0.049). Neither group of undernourished children improved in nutritional status, indicating that treatment had no effect. In conclusion, adding child development activities to the BINP improved children's development and behavior and their mothers' knowledge; however, the lack of improvement in growth needs to be examined further.