10 Lives, 10 Stories, One Message on Family Planning

Winners named in contest developed to gather 10 firsthand accounts of how social and behavior change approaches have been used by people and organizations to improve family planning outcomes.
stories
Photo: The Grandmother Project

The Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs-led Breakthrough ACTION project has announced the winners of its 10 Lives, 10 Stories, One Message competition.

The contest was developed with one goal in mind – gather 10 firsthand accounts of how social and behavior change (SBC) approaches have been used by people and organizations to improve family planning and reproductive health outcomes.

A panel of judges from FP2030, CCP, Save the Children and USAID chose winners from 35 submissions.

The winners:

First place

  • The Grandmother Project in Senegal promoted SBC by working through grandmothers’ matriarchal roles in their families and communities. Grandmothers helped address issues such as gender norms, challenges around female genital cutting/mutilation and reproductive health barriers.
  • ZanaAfrica developed popular and influential comics based on the stories and experiences of adults and adolescents in Kenya to make comprehensive sexual education more accessible.
  • Pathfinder International led a national reproductive health rights campaign with the government of Pakistan. As part of this effort, imams worked with men in their communities to shift gender norms and promote couples’ dialogue on family planning, reproductive health, and gender-based violence.
  • IntraHealth International worked with village health teams in Uganda to implement an array of SBC interventions to encourage the uptake of family planning among women and couples. A highlighted intervention was an interactive game to encourage male engagement in family planning.
  • HealthRight International worked with community-based distributors in Kenya to increase access to long-acting reversible contraception in rural communities and among women with disabilities.

Second place

The first-place winners will work with a producer to create short videos that bring their stories to life. Second-place winners will work with Breakthrough ACTION to develop their stories into technical briefs that help grow the body of knowledge in the field of SBC.

Work with the winners to produce the videos and briefs is already underway. In November, Breakthrough ACTION will host a virtual premiere of the winning stories. Look for an invitation on Breakthrough ACTION’s Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages.

 

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