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Animating early childhood development for UNICEF Malawi

Video and animation

Enhancing UNICEF-partnered ECDs through tech

Partner: UNICEF Malawi

Big results

We developed an animation to help promote the use of tech to enhance UNICEF-partnered Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in Malawi.

Story

In June 2021, the Government of Malawi and UNICEF launched a year-long advocacy campaign entitled ECD 360 to create greater awareness of the importance of the Early Childhood Development (ECD) and promote positive parenting and responsive caregiving.

The campaign advocated for increased investments in early childhood development in Malawi through high-level engagement with decision-makers. The campaign, funded by UNICEF Finland, also supported the ongoing ECD interventions in the country. One group of these interventions focused on incorporating tech more strongly to generate game-changing data collection to produce positive benefits to Malawi’s ECDs at scale.

Approach

Big Blue assisted UNICEF Malawi with production of an animation to raise awareness of the project. The project included preparing a storyline, script and storyboards in partnership with the Nucleus group (a leading implementer of the awareness-raising campaign for this work on ECD 360), working with voice talent, and producing original music.

Results

In 2021 alone, UNICEF was able to support more than 4,900,000 parents and caregivers by helping them to increase their knowledge and skills on Early Childhood Development (ECD), health, HIV, and nutrition. This led to improved early stimulation, nutrition, and positive parenting practices and responsive caregiving and quality of diets for nearly 348,000 children between 0-23 months. Moreover, nearly 865,000 parents and caregivers were reached through parenting programmes using different platforms, such as home visits and community radios.

UNICEF Malawi continues to work closely with Malawi’s Ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare, and the Ministry of Health to achieve an integrated Early Childhood Development agenda.