Overview
The Urban Health Initiative (UHI) funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is part of a larger global initiative spanning four countries – India, Nigeria, Kenya and Senegal. In India, the project operates in Uttar Pradesh (UP), India’s most populous state, with a focus on four core cities: Aligarh, Agra, Gorakhpur and Allahabad. UHI is a consortium whose goal is to increase the contraceptive prevalence rate (CPR) among the urban poor of UP. CCP leads the demand generation strategy of UHI and promotes modern family planning methods for spacing and limiting children through an innovative mix of mass media platforms and products. Using a layered approach, CCP has created a comprehensive package of media products to inspire behavior change: mass media spots inspire change with a catchy tagline, behavioral films use entertainment education to model couples asking for and successfully using family planning methods, role model films document real stories of satisfied adopters of family planning in each of the core cities, and community events advocate for the need to support family planning and allow couples from city slums to experience family planning counseling and hear first-hand success stories from their peers who are celebrated and rewarded in “Happy Couple” contests. CCP is also leading a pilot mobile health intervention that targets men in city slums.
Accomplishments
- Developed an integrated and multi-layered demand generation campaign.
- 3 mass media spots for TV and radio
- 3 entertainment-education behavioral films on successfully seeking and obtaining female sterilization, NSV, and consistent condom use
- 33 documentary-style role model films
- Q&A films with local doctors
- Aired mass media products on TV (national, state and cable) and radio.
- Shared mass media products with local NGOs, clinics, health officials and the National Rural Health Mission.
- Obtained significant funds leveraged in the form corporate sponsorships, free airtime for UHI mass media products and prizes for contests to reward successful family planning users.
- Tested innovative approaches for increasing demand using an experiential marketing (community activation) platform, as well as a mobile health initiative.
- Met unmet family planning needs among married couples living in slums of UHI project cities.
- Promoted future financial means and a supportive environment for ensuring sound policy, continued access to FP supplies and services for the urban poor.
