We have just completed a "Train to Deliver" social marketing course for the Jordanian Royal Rangers in Amman. The Royal Rangers are responsible for protecting Jordan's natural environment and resources. We have been working with them specifically to develop behaviour change programmes to stop pollution and the theft of Jordan's precious water supplies.
Hastings Safe Space has now been operating for nearly 9 months on a Saturday night in central Hastings close to the town's bars and clubs. Developed and operated by the NSMC, on behalf of Hastings and Rother NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), the service aims to reduce the demand for unnecessary A&E visits and emergency service call outs by treating young people suffering from intoxication or other minor injuries 'on-the-spot' in the Safe Space using our team of highly trained first aiders and volunteers.
The NSMC has been very fortunate over recent years to island hop and work on various different islands around the world, including the British Virgin Islands, Jamaica, and now St Helena. With the drive for place-based approaches to health, local authorities and Clinical Commissioning Groups could learn a lot from the approach taken by these islands, particularly St Helena and their natural total place approaches.
The NSMC is now working with the Jordan Social Marketing Center and Tetratech on a USAID funded project to improve water efficiency in households, industry and the service sector in Jordan. Jordan is a "water poor" country that rations water to nearly all of its population. Most households are supplied with water once a week this is then stored in water in tanks often on the roof.
'You want to stop young people from volunteering in overseas orphanages, shouldn't it be the other way round?' This is the usual response I get when I tell people about one of our latest projects.
We are delighted to announce that the NSMC will be running its Three-day Introduction to Social Marketing training course in Washington D.C. in May 2018. We have run this course for a couple of years exclusively for a client in Washington but this year we are opening it up to everyone.
The NSMC is currently working with the Jordan Social Marketing Center (JSMC) on a number of water and energy projects designed to deliver behaviour change on people's use of Jordan's scarce natural resources. Jordan is one of the most "resource poor" countries in the world and has water rationing across the whole country. It imports over 97% of all its energy and has experienced challenges over the last few years from high levels of inward migration because of the Syrian civil war.
The only time that I recall some of our most successful projects is when I am training and I am using one of a past social marketing interventions to explain or demonstrate a core concept. One of the most innovative projects of the last decade was the "Be a star" breastfeeding programme. Based in Lancashire and in partnership with the Little Angels breastfeeding peer support organisation and The Hub, the programme promotes breastfeeding amongst 16- to 25-year-old mothers.
The NSMC is delighted to announce that we will be launching the Hastings Safe Space on the 23rd December to support the town's night-time economy. The service will operate on Saturday nights for the next two years, as well as on special event days in the town.
We have almost completed a new social marketing strategy for Medecins sans Frrontieres in Rustenburg South Africa. The project's aim was to increase the number of women who had suffered gender based violence to access new medical and counseling care centers setup close to the towns of the mining belt close to Rustenburg in South Africa.
In April, The NSMC launched a campaign in Hastings aimed at parents of teenage children. The campaign highlighted the negative impact alcohol can have on a teenager child's brain development and ran with the slogan: Your child and alcohol. Think Again Now.
The first UK Social Marketing Conference in ten years will be held in London on the 14th September, 2017 at the Queen Mary University of London.
Ten years after the creation of the National Social Marketing Centre (NSMC) in the UK, the conference will reflect on the successes (and challenges) of the last decade and plot a positive future direction for the discipline.
