The South African and German governments collaborated to upgrade selected public health facilities in the Northern Cape in order to improve the uptake of HIV counselling and Testing (HCT). Grounded Media was commissioned by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) and the German Development Bank (KfW) to promote the upgraded clinics, educate communities on the importance of HCT and drive uptake of services.
Grounded Media developed a fully integrated behavior-change communication strategy in order to create community awareness of the upgraded facilities and the importance of HCT. Grounded Media also monitored and evaluated the efficacy of the campaign.
Prior to implementing the community outreach extensive stakeholder engagement and advocacy was completed to secure buy-in and support for the campaign.
A community outreach approach was used and we conducted training sessions, community dialogues and hosted events designed to increase testing for HIV.
To support these activities marketing collateral was developed and distributed to support and promote the campaign beyond the activations. These materials were translated into local languages to improve uptake.
Finally, the campaign was supported by a PR campaign to broaden the reach. We engaged with local media, including community radio about the campaign and encouraged them to publicise the campaign and to participate in it.
Over 11 700 community members were directly involved in the community outreach sessions, training and health awareness days. The campaign proved extremely popular with high levels of community engagement that resulted in increased awareness of HCT services offered at these clinics.
