The Ambassador Program

ASSP’s communication team worked vigorously to create and supply the Ambassadors with new, original media each month, including tutorials on nutrition and breastfeeding, entertainment education short films on lifesaving healthy behaviors, and documentaries on successful interventions through out ASSP project areas. Aside from the original media, ASSP also partnered with Girl Rising to show its films on the importance of girl’s education.

Each night the Ambassadors completed a report using ODK. Theses reports included never before captured GPS coordinates for ASSP health centers as well as data on the number of attendees, demographics of particpants and crowd reactions. The Ambassadors were also asked to perform focus groups and surveys of participants to allow ASSP to maintain a clear understanding of whether or not the media was communicating successfully.

ASSP conducted extensive research to gain a better understanding of its communications needs, including qualitative and quantitative studies on beneficiaries’ understanding of health practices and communication channels used.

ASSP hired and trained 34 Ambassadors locally in four out five assisted provinces. In addition to being trained on the basics of hosting movie nights in villages, the Ambassadors were also trained on how to conduct simple focus group research and data collection using ODK on Android smartphones. The Ambassadors were supplied with portable projectors, speakers, Android phones and motorcycles. They traveled each day to a new health area, hosting one movie night per night and, together, covering all of ASSP’s assisted health areas each month.