Established in 2009, Shujaaz now reaches 7.3 million comic book readers, and 4.4 million social media followers, and receives over 60,000 SMS messages every month—translating to a reach of 56% of young Kenyans and 24% of young Tanzanians. To slow the spread of COVID-19, Amref and NBCC worked with Shujaaz to mobilize youth to adopt life-saving behaviours at scale, charging young people to raise awareness by talking to their friends about COVID-19, to go shopping so vulnerable parents and elders could avoid crowds, and encourage friends to stay home to keep their families safe. #LindaFam centred young people as vital heroes in the fight against COVID-19 in the following ways: 

• Illustrated comic stories and social media content featuring young heroes of hygiene practices, i.e., young people wearing masks to protect themselves from contagious respiratory diseases, wearing masks as fashion statements, carrying sanitisers, and washing hands often.

• Illustrated comic stories and social media content depicted Shujaaz heroes protecting their dreams, businesses, family, money, and health by adhering to responsible public health measures. We highlighted how contracting COVID-19 could take a toll on young people’s lives and what they care about the most. The campaign held a spotlight on everyday community heroes, telling stories of how they were practising positive hygiene behaviours, such as utilizing handwashing stations. 

• Shujaaz joined other Hygiene and Behaviour Change Coalition (HBCC II) partners in marking the 2022 Global Handwashing Day on 15th October 2022 at the Amref International university in Nairobi. On the day, #LindaFam campaign was amplified on social media, promoting the importance of proper handwashing behaviour by integrating the hashtags #tumenawa, #oshamikono and #globalhandwashingday. In addition, Shujaaz fans were invited to a handwashing challenge where they shared short videos on online platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, and rated each other on proper handwashing with soap. This challenge had a reach of 845,000 and engagement of 18,278.

During the campaign period, from July to December 2022, we printed and distributed countrywide 1,500,000 comics through the Saturday Nation and our “Super Fan” network of over 3,000 volunteer distributors – citizen journalists and content creators. In addition, the campaign reached over 5 million young people through comic distribution in Kenya, more than 2 million through our social platforms in Kenya and over 3 million in Tanzania. We had an engagement of 470,000 in both countries.

What process did you use when designing your COVID-19/WASH intervention/response program: 

Through Shujaaz’s Ground Truth research methodology, which consists of nationally representative, cross-sectional youth surveys, digital conversations, academic research, and quarterly deep dives/interactive sessions on priority topics between Shujaaz research staff and Shujaaz youth network members, we gained valuable insights into the thoughts, concerns, and information gaps that young people in Kenya and Tanzania faced regarding COVID-19. We also learned about youth behaviours in terms of observing COVID-19 preventative measures, including positive influences promoting good hygiene and vaccine uptake as well as barriers that prevented youth from observing public health measures. 

The GroundTruth research generated four key insights on which we based the #LindaFam campaign:

1.     Young people have become desensitized to COVID-19 and no longer deem it a threat to their lives. As a result, hygiene practices declined over the past two years. 

2.     With government regulations no longer being enforced and media stations no longer sharing updates on COVID-19 cases, there was the impression that COVID-19 was no longer a priority or even a pandemic for that matter. 

3.     Competing interests, such as basic needs –food, rent, etc., took priority over the concern of COVID-19 and hygiene practices. 

4.     Young people value their families, loved ones, businesses, having fun, and hanging out with friends. Younger audiences also care about finishing school on time. COVID-19 got in the way of all the above. 

Importantly, we realized that young people would go to great lengths to protect the people and things they care about most. We used this critical insight to develop a persuasion strategy that would spur intrinsic motivation.

Is there something other interventions/programs could learn from this:

Showcasing real-life heroes in the #LindaFam campaign connected our messaging to our target audience in a meaningful way. Shujaaz fans saw themselves, their friends, and their neighbours in our comics, discussions, and social media stories, making the urgency of the situation and the autonomy our fans possessed to be their own ‘heroes’ relatable. 

In addition to the positive feedback and engagement from fans brought on by elevating local heroes, another impactful attribute of the campaign was extending the messaging beyond COVID-19. Our behaviour change messaging around mask-wearing, handwashing, and vaccination included benefits beyond protection against COVID-19. For example, healthy hygiene behaviour helps ward off the risk of cholera, and mask-wearing helped keep young people warm as well as protected against the spread of the common cold. This promoted increased hygiene behaviour in the short term, and we expect, could have a positive impact on sustained behaviour change for the long term. 

Three years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the sense of urgency around stopping the spread of infection has largely dissipated and is reflected in the relaxed public health measures. COVID-19 is seen as “old news” and creating conversations or content about the pandemic and vaccines without context or relevance to people’s everyday lives can make one sound tone-deaf, especially to a young audience.