Development action with informed and engaged societies

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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Civic Education, Information and Computer Technology (CivICT)

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The Civic Education, Information and Computer Technology (CivICT) is an activity-bound project, which uses information communication technology (ICTs), and project-based learning for civic education in Nigeria. It was designed to help raise governance and civics awareness amongst secondary school students.
Communication Strategies
SchoolNet Nigeria contacted schools with the Diginet facilities to participate in the project. It selected teachers from the schools that worked with the students during the project. The teachers were required to facilitate students in collaboration and aid them in ICTs. The project activities included:
  • The students were registered in a common listserve and, in this activity they exchanged cultural ideas and knowledge, introducing themselves to other students on the listserve.
  • Participating students discused and brainstormed on the government services and the various reasons for their importance.
  • An online discussion. The students in all participating countries share ideas and discuss the different procedures taken in various CivICT activities.
  • Students visited the government services of their choice. Arrangements were made by SchoolNet Nigeria and government service stakeholders for students in this activity.
  • A web training workshop was conducted for students. Students were required to learn to build websites where they will make available all the information about their schools, the civic project and the government service they visited.
  • Students built a website to share information with colleagues. Some of the sites were:
    Model Secondary School Maitama website
    Government Secondary School Wuse website
    Government Science-Technical College website
    Government Secondary School Garki website
The project involved 70 students from the four DigiNet schools.
Development Issues
Political Development, Youth, Technology.
Key Points
The objectives of the project are to:
  • expose young Nigerians (of secondary school age) to government and governance structure at an early age).
  • enable youth to collaborate and carry out discussions on government and governance- comparing and contrasting the different systems being employed.
  • empower youth to contribute in improving the quality of governance in their communities.
  • stimulate dialogue on government issues.
  • learn about government services.
  • expose them to qualities that make for a good or bad government.
  • teach them how to design and build websites for their individual schools.
  • teach them how to make available the information they learnt during the programme on websites.
  • unifying youth in these countries as agents of transformation and encouraging them to participate in development.
Sources