The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative

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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Vojo Brazil: Amplifying Quilombola Voices through Mobile Phones

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In October 2013, a training in Salvador, Brazil, introducing a multimedia technology called Vojo, was presented to 20 youth in a quilombo community (a settlement of people originally of African origin), Ilha de Maré, which has no internet access. The training introduced a means of posting content in the internet with inexpensive mobile phones that have no internet connectivity. The workshop was organised by the Mídia Étnica Institute, in a partnership with the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Center for Civic Media. 

Communication Strategies

According to the Vojo website: Vojo is designed for people to post stories from inexpensive mobile phones via voice calls, SMS (text messaging) , and MMS (multimedia messaging service). It also makes it possible to set up and customise a group where people can post content to the internet from their phones. The aim of introducing this technology in the Ilha de Maré community was to empower young "quilombolas" and help them identify and denounce the violence they witness in their communities. Vojo enables them to reach bloggers and media outlets outside Ilha de Maré.

 

The training included a video with previous similar activities, and trainers led discussion on the future of the Vojo Brazil project. This pilot project is directed to reach communities in remote rural areas, indigenous groups, landless workers, and other disenfranchised groups alienated from the information society.

 

According to Vojo creators and trainers, "Vojo enables everyone to create and update a blog even whether she/he does not have computer or internet access. The tool allows the user to post audio stories from mobile phones and even public telephones. It is also possible to post photos and video from cell phones. The idea is to help the youth to become tech-savvy and connect their communities to a social network that can increase the awareness to their social, cultural and political demands in the Brazilian media ecosystem."

 

A Facebook page was developed on the workshop, showing an example of a message from the community to the Brazilian government.  According to one of the project coordinators: "In addition to Vojo, they [the youth] had talks on sexually transmitted diseases, black identity, media democratization and basic journalism. They must be able to spread the technology to other communities in Salvador and Brazil."

Development Issues

Youth, Rights

Key Points

"Vojo is a hosted version of the VozMob Drupal Distribution, which has been developed by the VozMob (Mobile Voices / Voces Moviles) project through an ongoing collaborative design process with day laborers, household workers, students, and a diverse team from the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California (IDEPSCA). The online version was built by the MIT Center for Civic Media."

 

The Mídia Étnica Institute conducts projects in the fields of communication and diversity, including actions related to community communication and citizen journalism.

Partners

The Mídia Étnica Institute, MIT Center for Civic Media

Sources

MIT Center for Civic Media website, submission by Alexandre Goncalves on October 29 2013, accessed January 26 2015.