Malawi – Moyo ndi Mpamba Campaign Marriage Counseling for Newlyweds Training Manual

The Moyo ndi Mpamba, Usamalireni (“Life is precious, take care of it”) campaign produced these materials for newlyweds. SSDI-Communication worked with the Ministry of Health and faith leaders to develop a booklet for young married couples (the Takunyadirani [“We Celebrate You”] booklet) containing messages on priority health topics especially relevant to couples who are about to be married or who are newly married: maternal and child health, nutrition, family planning, malaria in pregnancy, and HIV & AIDS. The project also developed a training for religious marriage counselors, and conducted trainings in six districts.

Trained counselors reached out to young married couples through counseling sessions, small-group church meetings, door-to-door visits, marriage outreach sessions, mock weddings, and sermons. The Takunyadirani booklet served as a guide for counseling sessions. SSDI-Communication trained over 1,450 marriage counselors in six districts, and distributed 14,000 Takunyadirani booklets to as many newlywed couples, representing over 90% coverage of all marriages that occurred in the catchment areas of trained counselors; these couples also benefitted from counseling sessions.

Learn here about the newlywed booklet.

In the Moyo ndi Mpamba, Usamalireni campaign, the SSDI-Communication supported the Ministry of Health in realizing its ambitious health promotion agenda by developing and running a multimedia, multi-level Moyo ndi Mpamba, Usamalireni (“Life is precious, take care of it”) campaign, from 2011-2016. The ultimate goal of this campaign was to promote positive health behaviors and create demand for available services across six focus health areas – HIV & AIDS; family planning; nutrition; maternal, neonatal and child health; malaria; and water, sanitation and hygiene – and with audiences across the socio-ecological landscape and all targeted life stages.

Source: SSDI-Communication

Date of Publication: March 25, 2019