Men and women across Tanzania equate the Green Star logo with family planning. This is thanks to a decades-long effort that saw the logo launched alongside a family planning campaign in 1993, and reintroduced in 2013.
However, despite the success of these Green Star efforts, several regions of Tanzania lag significantly behind the rest of the country in terms of contraceptive prevalence.
For this reason, in May the Tanzania Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, in collaboration with the Tanzania Capacity and Communication Project (TCCP) and with the support of USAID, began a series of regional events to re-launch the Green Star campaign in the lagging Lake and Western zone regions of Mwanza, Simiyu, Shinayana, Geita and Mara.
Incorporating theatre and musical performances about family planning myths and misconceptions, testimonials from family planning users and clinical family planning outreach, the re-launch events generated excitement about family planning.
TCCP partners – Marie Stopes Tanzania, EngenderHealth, PSI and T-MARC – provided family planning services at the events and in the weeks leading up to and following the re-launch, reaching every district in each of the lagging regions.
These regional re-launch events are part of a much larger multimedia campaign that aims to contribute to the national target of 60% CPR by 2015. The revitalized Green Star Family Planning Campaign includes mass media outreach through radio, TV, print news media, blogs, and a series of promotional materials.
Health facilities receive Green Star brochures and are branded with Green Star signage to increase visibility. National Family Planning Message Guides are being disseminated to key stakeholders to help harmonize the delivery of family planning information.
The community outreach component of the campaign incorporates key campaign messages through interactive small group activities, and links to TCCP partner work at the community level. The campaign also promotes the use of the Mobile for Reproductive Health (m4RH) SMS platform for free information on family planning through text messages.
