Building on the success of the 1st workshop in 2008, The Center for Community Health Research and Development (CCRD) and the Center for Communication Programs (CCP) of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health organized a second international workshop “Leadership in Strategic Health Communication (LHSC) Workshop” in Ha Long Bay, Quang Ninh, from September 21 to October 2, 2009.
Dr. Benjamin V. Lozare, Associate Director and Chief of the Training Division and Mr. Edson E. Whitney, Associate Director both from The Johns Hopkins University, Center for Communication Programs facilitated the workshop. This year’s workshop was also designed based on models of the workshop which has been conducted in over 50 countries worldwide over the past 22 years as well as experiences from the 2008 Vietnam workshop. The workshop this year was tailored specifically to the context of the reality of the Vietnam situation.
Participants of the workshop came from Vietnam as well as Myanmar and the Philippines. With diverse cultures and a variety of experience and knowledge, the participants created a lively workshop and learned from each other as well as the facilitators. Through the workshop, they learned about modern communication theories and applied them to project designs using a computer based software, SCOPE. SCOPE is a tool to analyze and develop strategic communication campaigns by going through a systematic process. With the combination of theory and hands on design, participants were able to produce sample BCC campaigns on various health issues including prototype materials including posters, billboards, radio scripts, TV spots, and brochures.
