The Communication Initiative
Development action with informed and engaged societies
The Communication Initiative
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Life Skills Strategy

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Author Rana Tasswar Ali, September 29 2014 - In my previous blog "Life skills for children and young people", I have discussed life skills, which are empowering skills and enable people to cope with life in normal and in difficult circumstances. In this blog I will try to draw a life skills strategy, how we can develop professional life skills strategy for designing life skills project or programs. The teaching of life skills in any program or project impacts it in multiple ways; these skills are the ability to deal with life both in routine times and in any crisis. So, life skills planning follow a comprehensive strategy for implementing life skills in any program. Initially, we conduct needs assessments of every component for correct implementation. We need life skills needs assessments to identify local capacities and give suggestions for implementable objectives. The planning process will start with overall objectives; it should be clear that overall objectives will define short-term and long-term objectives.


The strategy for life skills programming should be comprehensive, and all stakeholders and beneficiaries of a program should be part of creating the life skills strategy. The scope of a life skills strategy should be broad and can be widely used in health, education, and social sectors. Life skills approaches describe cognitive empowering and help communities to make powerful and effective decisions. Life skills in any program provide choices and opportunities of improving skills regarding personal and professional development. The provision of a life skills strategy will be healthy for all linked and connected sectors, and a life skills strategy gives an environment to communities and participants to solve problems and be proactive and solution oriented. The long term impact of a life skills strategy will be helpful for communities to think critically and constructively. There is a utility of life skills themselves, but the uses of core life skills in a program make the program effective.

The core life skills help people in emergency and regular situations, and, through core life skills, people learn how they can make informed decisions. Core skills give insight to solve their problems and understand the ability to think critically and creatively. The people who are the part of any project and program of life skills do effective communication and build healthy relations. Below we have description of core life skills, which should be part of a life skills strategy.

  1. Self-Awareness Skill: Self-awareness includes the recognition of self, knowing about one's character - both strengths and weaknesses. This skill develops awareness of how the individual thinks under pressure and in a stressful situation. Self-awareness skill builds empathetic behavior with others in any emergency or stressful situation.
  2. Critical Thinking Skill: This builds the ability to analyze information and personal experiences in objective manners. The individual with critical thinking can contribute to accessing factors that have influence on our behavior.
  3. Decision-Making Skill: This skill deals constructively with problems in our lives - decision making skills deal with unresolved problems which can be the cause of psychological stress and may harm a person physically as well as mentally. So, here, individuals learn how to make good decisions in life.
  4. Interpersonal Skill: This skill helps us to live positively with peoplewith whom we interact in life. The purpose of the skill is being able to make and keep friendly relationships, which have great importance to our mental and social wellbeing.
  5. Effective Communication: This skill enables individual to express themselves both verbally and non-verbally in ways which are acceptable in our culture and situation. This skill encourages the ability to express opinions and desired needs and facts.
  6. Coping With emotion and stress: This skill builds ability to understand the source of stress in our lives, to be able to know how emotions influence behavior, and to be able to respond appropriately and learn how to relax. The life skills strategy should be part of every development program or project, where people learn about their psychosocial needs and are empowered through life skills.

 

Image credit: Sukhdeep Matharu