Malaria Prevention

C-Change is working with country programs on malaria prevention as well as more broadly with the Roll Back Malaria Partnership to build the strategic framework for malaria SBCC. The range of technical assistance extends from the development of national malaria communication strategies to capacity strengthening and direct support for community-level NGOs engaged in malaria prevention and control.At country levels, with support from the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative (PMI), C-Change is working in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mozambique to develop and strengthen SBCC programs that result in increased, consistent use of insecticide-treated nets, particularly for children under 5 and pregnant women, support for indoor residual spraying, prompt visits to a clinic at first sign of a fever; intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, and completed courses of malaria treatment.

C-Change's Work in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Mozambique

• In the Oromia region of Ethiopia, C-Change is engaging families to take ownership of malaria prevention activities. Tools to support this effort include a flipchart of essential actions a household must take to prevent malaria and scorecards that help families chart how well they are protecting themselves from this endemic and dangerous disease. The tools were field-tested with families in rural villages and won wide acceptance. 
•  In Kenya’s Western and Nyanza provinces, C-Change has been providing technical support to three NGOs—Merlin, PATH, and World Vision—to build the capacity of community health workers to be "behavior-change agents" and implement integrated, community-level, SBCC activities in malaria prevention. This work closely aligns with strategies and objectives of the PMI and Kenya’s National BCC Malaria Strategy.  Read the Success Story.
• In Mozambique, C-Change is assisting the Ministry of Health to develop a national branding strategy for malaria prevention, one tailored to local culture and traditions.

 SBCC Is Integral Part of the Malaria Strategic Framework

A group of social and behavior change communication (SBCC)-implementing partners met in Nairobi, Kenya on July 26-27, 2011 for the 2nd Consultative Meeting on Development of a 5-Year Global Strategic Framework for Malaria SBCC at Country Level. This meeting is part of a series of consultations that seek to develop guidelines on what constitutes best practice in SBCC at country-level and charts out the future research, implementation and evaluation agenda for SBCC in malaria control and prevention.

When completed the Strategic Framework will provide: 1) a long-term strategic vision, goals and objectives for SBCC; 2) guidance on what constitutes SBCC best practice; 3) a research agenda; and 4) resource needs over the next five years to RBM partners, donor organizations and National Malaria Control Programs. Results of this meeting will inform the draft of the Framework to be finalized and distributed by the Roll Back Malaria Partnership in the Fall 2011.

The group of more than 40 people from 12 countries included representatives from National Malaria Control Programs, PSI, Malaria No More, JHU-CCP, Roll Back Malaria Partnership Secretariat, ALMA, Mentor, regional/country-based NGO's Health Partners and Equip-Liberia and the President’s Malaria Initiative.

Soul Beat Africa: Malaria

C-Change, in partnership with The Communication Initiative Network, launched Soul Beat Africa: Malaria, a knowledge-sharing system supported by PMI and its partners that focuses on SBCC for malaria prevention, control, and treatment in Africa. The site provides a regional platform around which SBCC practitioners working in malaria can build community of practice and share and critique, via online forums. The site and a bi-monthly e-magazine.feature examples of quality, effective SBCC information, including research findings, strategies, implementation reports,  tools, multimedia products, and training opportunities.  Those registering will join over 16,000 communications professionals throughout Africa, particularly in the 17 PMI-focused countries.

Strengthening Capacity in São Tomé and Principe

C-cCange recently completed its multi-year implementation in Sao Tome and Principe to strengthen the capacity of Ministry of Health staff and NGO malaria partners to carry out social and behavior change communication (SBCC) more effectively on malaria control and prevention. The project provided training on developing and pretesting communication and media materials, creating public service announcements, and conducing formative research on barriers to facilliatators of malaria prevention and treatment.

The assistance contributed to the development, design, pretesting and revision of brochures and posters targeted to the public and to health workers. They included a poster about newly formulated malaria medication for health workers and several posters for the general publics with information about theimportance of indoor residual spraying, sleeping under a treated bednet every night, and getting a free  malaria test at the first sign of fever.

Training and Webinars 

Webinar on best practices for community-based malaria programs

C-Change and others provide technical assistance to MCP grantees, who all implement SBCC programming at community and household levels. Though the grantees are achieving measureable results in malaria prevention, they have limited opportunities to showcase their work and interact with each other and global stakeholders. The webinar was an opportunitiy to promote cross-fertilization of promising approaches and methodologies. Participants included Save the Children, USAID, CDC, and International Forum for Public Health (IFPH).

Training for potential grantees of the Malaria Communities Program

Designing for Behavior Change—that was the title of a C-Change training workshop held in Kenya in October 2009 for community-based organizations eligible for grants from the PMI’s Malaria Communities Program (MCP). The workshop’s goal was to orient participants to the tools and knowledge needed to use an evidence-based social and behavior change communication (SBCC) approach when developing communication strategies and interventions for malaria prevention.

The experiential training drew from the C-Modules: A Learning Package for Social and Behavior Change Communication. It included exercises,  a case study that highlighted the  building blocks of an SBCC strategy, extensive group work, and experience-sharing.

Participants were from 11 countries that experience heavy malaria burden: Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Senegal, Uganda, and Zambia. Post-test evaluation scores indicated that the time was well spent.
 

Short-term Technical Assistance

C-Change provided short-term TA that strengthened the SBCC capacity of local NGOs in Ghana and Liberia engaged in malaria prevention and control, providing them with tailored feedback on their SBCC programming and assisting them to refine work plans. 

C-Change worked with Malawi's National Malaria Control Program to develop a final draft of the country's Malaria Communication Strategy.

In 2008-09, in partnership with the Government of Brazil, C-Change provided short-term TA to São Tomé and Príncipe's Ministry of Health to strengthen SBCC capacity to address malaria prevention and control. C-Change has carried out skills-building workshops and on-the-job training for ministry staff in conducting formative research and developing and pre-testing SBCC malaria-prevention materials. Local NGO staff working in malaria prevention participated in the training, along with media personnel.