FHI 360 has been selected as the implementing partner for the Health Communication for Life (HC4L) project, a five-year, $24.7 million project funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The project supports efforts by the Government of Malawi to increase public demand for quality, sustainable, priority health services and products. Specifically, the project will focus on expanding the demand for these priority services: maternal, neonatal and child health; HIV; family planning and reproductive health; malaria; nutrition; and water, sanitation and hygiene.

FHI 360’s social and behavioral change communication team will work closely with a consortium of experienced Malawi-based partners, including Creative Center for Community Mobilization, Human Network International, Story Workshop Educational Trust, Theater for a Change, University of Witwatersrand, and Youth Net and Counselling.

The team’s approach will use data and diverse partnerships to conduct activities that address local health challenges, the sociocultural context and behavioral norms. FHI 360 will use an integrated health communication platform based on a participatory action media approach. Community-facing messages will be created through an audience-centered process coordinated closely with the Malawian Health Education Department.

HC4L builds on FHI 360’s track record of successfully implementing flagship behavior change programs with USAID in Africa. It will capitalize on our expertise in the area of social and behavioral change communication, as evidenced by our ongoing implementation of the Communicate for Health project in Ghana, Communication for Healthy Communities project in Uganda, the Integrated Health Project in Burundi and others. This is our fifth major bilateral project since the closure of the Communicate for Change project in 2016, and it is based on methodologies and strategies first conceived during that project.

“This award further demonstrates FHI 360’s strong core corporate capabilities in social and behavior change communication, in addition to those of [the] WASH, FANTA and Alive & Thrive [projects],” remarked Thaddeus Pennas, Senior Technical Advisor with FHI 360.

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Photo credit: Michael Szpir/FHI 360