Digital Research: We use in-depth analysis to better understand the digital narrative landscape and offer movements with strategic insights.

Collaborative social listening: We facilitate collaborative research processes using generative AI platform VELMA developed by out partners at Komons. Diverse research cohorts work together to produce audience research and social listening research to support social justice movements in developing effective messaging, digital, creative, analog comms and coalition approaches.

Narrative Crafting and Testing: We carefully develop and evaluate messages to ensure they resonate with our audiences and broaden their perspectives through digital testing and/or focus groups.

Audience Analysis: We develop thorough understanding of our audiences through focus groups and digital insights to generate messaging that taps into their values and beliefs.

Narrative Change Digital Monitoring and Evaluation (MEL) Experimentation: Experimenting with and developing digital MEL approaches that shift movements beyond vanity metrics to implement meaningful evaluations that drive learning and enhancement for social initiatives, measuring impact in the media landscape.

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Abortion Access Messaging Guide

In collaboration with Komons, Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network (KELIN) and Goodwin Simon Strategic Research(GSSR), we conducted research aimed at identifying potential barriers and messaging opportunities to increase support for access to safe and legal abortion in Kenya. There were three phases of the research:

• A media audit 
• A messaging analysis to understand the ways in which advocates and opponents currently communicate about access to safe and legal abortion in Kenya 
• A persuasion phase to understand the audience mindset around access to safe and legal abortion in Kenya and identify what messaging components are persuasive to audiences. 

From the findings of the research, we developed a messaging handbook on Protecting Women and Families: Building Support for Access to Safe and Legal Abortion in Kenya. Our hope is that activists and organisations in the SRHR and reproductive justice movements across the continent will use this guide to develop more relatable and persuasive abortion access messaging that targets audiences effectively. You can download the messaging guide here.

VELMA: AI-powered social listening

The digital landscape offers a fertile arena for narrative change-makers to explore and analyze narratives, providing critical insights for crafting effective communication strategies. However, the social sector frequently lags in acquiring the necessary technological infrastructure and skills to unlock the full potential of data-driven knowledge. Velma, a prototype digital analysis platform designed for narrative communities, was developed by Komons in 2023 to serve the Latin American research community. Now, Komons & KCH are working together to  facilitate a tailored learning process for narrative actors in the LGBTQ+, SRHR and feminist movements. This project focuses on adapting and deploying this innovative technology to generate strategic communications insights that enhance digital campaigning in represented movements.

First Research Cohort:

• Ngare Kariuki, Journalist and SRHR Communications Expert
• Annette Atieno, Communications Specialist and All Out Campaign Fellow
• Vivian Ouya, Lawyer and Founder of Feminists in Kenya
• Āryā Jeipea Karijo, Feminist mutual aid organiser
• Terry Gachie, SRHR advocate and Country Director of Love Matters Kenya

Research Objective: Tracing how narratives and actors associated with family values influence online Kenyans’ discourses on sexuality, gender and family from January 2023 to July 2024

Researcher Statement: “We want to explore how family values, as informed by heteropatriarchy, right-wing geopolitics and conservative religious and cultural values, shape discourses on LGBTQ+ life, gender roles, CSE and reproductive health. We believe our research will resource queer, trans, youth and feminist communities - the communities to which some of us belong - with the information required to resist anti-rights movements from a place of evidence, strategy and solidarity.”