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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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Training traditional birth attendants on the WHO Essential Newborn Care reduces perinatal mortality

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Garcés, A., E. M. McClure, et al. (2012). "Training traditional birth attendants on the WHO Essential Newborn Care reduces perinatal mortality." Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica 91(5): 593-597.

Objectives: To evaluate the impact of birth attendant training using the World Health Organization Essential Newborn Care (ENC) course among traditional birth attendants, with a particular emphasis on the effect of acquisition of skills on perinatal outcomes.

Design: Population-based, prospective, interventional pre-post design study.

Setting: 11 rural clusters in Chimaltenango, Guatemala.

Population: Health care providers.

Methods: This study analyzed the effect of training and implementation of the ENC health care provider training course between September 2005 and December 2006.

Outcome measures: The primary outcome measure was the rate of death from all causes in the first seven days after birth in fetuses/infants ≥1500g. Secondary outcome measures were overall rate of stillbirth, rate of perinatal death, which included stillbirths plus neonatal deaths in the first seven days in fetuses/infants ≥1500g.

Results: Perinatal mortality decreased from 39.5/1000 pre-ENC to 26.4 post-ENC (RR 0.72; 95%CI 0.54-0.97). This reduction was attributable almost entirely to a decrease in the stillbirth rate of 21.4/1000 pre-Essential Newborn Care to 7.9/1000 post-ENC (RR 0.40; 95%CI 0.25-0.64). Seven-day neonatal mortality did not decrease (18.3/1000 to 18.6/1000; RR 1.05; 95%CI 0.70-1.57).

Conclusion: Essential Newborn Care training reduced stillbirths in a population-based controlled study with deliveries conducted almost exclusively by traditional birth attendants. Scale-up of this intervention in other settings might help assess reproducibility and sustainability.