Changing Minds, Changing Lives: Communication Strategies for Healthier Behaviours

Summary: Ghanaian youth are among the audiences the Meatless Monday healthy eating Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) prevention campaign was designed to reach. Data from the WHO's 2023 and 2024 STEPs reports confirm that Ghanaian youth are increasingly exposed to unhealthy lifestyle factors, especially unhealthy eating leading to a higher potential for developing NCDs earlier in life. In order to reach the youth with healthy eating promotion messages social media with its exponential ability in messages dissemination and cost-effectiveness became the obvious choice, with short (60 seconds) videos as the audio-visual format through which messages will be disseminated.
This format was chosen as it responds to the demands of the shorter attention spans of the youth who are always actively on the move. Short and interesting videos also have the ability to increase engagement and the ability to easily make the message go viral through easy sharing of messages with friends and relatives. This format also favours improvement in algorithm favourability, and offers an accessible, authentic, and easily shareable format for communication. The concise and digestible nature of Meatless Monday short videos allowed the healthy eating campaign to deliver its messages quickly, and maintained a consistent, dynamic presence on the various social media platforms where users expect fast-paced and engaging content. The seven short videos, three commercials and four endorsements with an average duration of 60 seconds per video have thus become a flagship social and behaviour change communication SBCC material for the Ghana Meatless Monday project.

Summary 
This multimedia showcase will introduce newly developed guidance aimed at reducing stigma, designed to assist Sightsavers staff and partners in incorporating stigma reduction strategies into their programs. Stigma significantly undermines the effectiveness of interventions, making it crucial to address in order to achieve meaningful and lasting change across various sectors.
The guidance is based on evidence and practical field experience, offering tools, strategies, and case studies to combat stigma in various areas such as health, education, economic empowerment, political participation, and neglected tropical diseases. The session will include a short video demonstrating the effects of stigma on individuals and society, as well as the transformative impact of social and behaviour change (SBC) interventions. Additionally, there will be an opportunity for live online interaction with the digital version of the guidance.
A Quick Response (QR) code will be displayed during the presentation, allowing participants to access digital guidance instantly on their phones. The showcase will highlight how the guidance was developed collaboratively and demonstrate how it can be adapted for use in different settings.

1001 Nights is an evidence-based educational entertainment property that uses cartoons and cartoon-based curricula to teach civic education, human rights and life skills, while also providing MHPSS for children in conflict.  The program, which uses award-winning cartoons, by creatives from Disney and childhood development psychologists from Sesame Street, has been used by UNICEF and ministries of education in over 15 countries with over 3 million children in conflict to provide MHPSS. 


Third party studies, using quantitative instruments created by Oxford data scientists and the former head of research from Sesame Street,  have consistently found that the program reduces the vulnerability of displaced children by 50-75%.