Guatemala

C-Change is providing capacity strengthening in social and behavior change communication (SBCC) to USAID's health and education partners and subgrantees. The project is also assisting efforts of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate SBCC activities.

To that end, C-Change and other in-country implementing partners, working under the Guatemala's Ministry of Health, have developed a unified, overarching SBCC strategy that integrates HIV and AIDS, nutrition, maternal and child health, and family planning / reproductive health, and education programming. The SBCC technical working group, which is comprised of implementing partners agreed on the importance of developing a set of key messages in each of the health areas and around four life stages: 6-12 year olds; single adolescents and youth; young families with no children or children 0-5 years; and adult families with school-aged children. A final document that harmonizes the work across all health areas will be an implementation guide incorporating all messages to be ready in summer 2012. The Ministry of Health is directing the entire process.

C-Change builds SBCC capacity and supports development of center of excellence in Guatemala

C-Change is strengthening Guatemala’s local capacity in social and behavior change communication (SBCC) through partnership with the Universidad de Valle Guatemala (UVG), in collaboration with USAID/Guatemala. C-Change, with partner Ohio University, is developing a center of excellence (CoE) for SBCC at UVG and providing technical assistance to UVG to create certificate short-courses (diplomado). This will support Central American professionals already working in the field of SBCC to further specialize in this area and expand SBCC capacity in the region. The program is also creating an SBCC concentration (a set of academic SBCC courses) in UVG’s existing ‘masters in development’ program. (Access the story about development of the CoE at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa with technical assistance from C-Change.) 

Collaboration Yielding Results

In spring 2011, C-Change and UVG faculty held a technical meeting, followed by an SBCC training, for 14 UVG faculty from three campuses, led by Ohio University. Since then, UVG faculty has taken the lead in the design of SBCC curricula and teaching of SBCC, with continued support and mentoring from C-Change.

Already the partnership is yielding results: six participants from the SBCC training have adapted and shared what they learned by organizing and facilitating SBCC training sessions using the C-Modules for community members and students at the UVG Altiplano and UVG Sur campuses in October 2011.Specifically, these “C-Change SBCC alumni” successfully adapted portions of the C-Modules to train a group of 20 young community organizers and UVG students implementing projects in their community. Another alumni group facilitated training sessions for 15 representatives from local businesses and government, and community-based organizations.  

Specifically, these “C-Change SBCC alumni” successfully adapted portions of the C-Modules to train a group of 20 young community organizers and UVG students implementing projects in their community. Another alumni group facilitated training sessions for 15 representatives from local businesses and government, and community-based organizations.   

SBCC Training - February 2011

C-Change conducted a participatory and interactive training in February 2011 for USAID/Guatemala’s Health and Education Office (HEO) technical officers, managers, and support staff to strengthen their social and behavior change communication (SBCC) programs and interventions.

USAID Guatemala staff learned how to apply the SBCC framework to conduct a situation analysis and develop a communication strategy applicable to projects within health and education, and to work with the C-Modules to create a common vision and framework for their communication activities. C-Change is providing ongoing technical assistance to USAID/Guatemala and will be also be providing SBCC training to implementing partners and staff at the Ministries of Health and Education.