Learn how storytelling can amplify community voices

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Bringing stories to life with customizable tools

Honest conversations is a modular toolkit that allows community based organizations to create a communications campaign that addresses health related concerns amongst refugees, immigrants and migrants. This toolkit is designed to focus on seasonal health topics and concerns, and can evolve as the needs for the community changes.

Honest Conversations campaign supports organizations in connecting communities to health guidelines and resources in a timely, relevant, and compelling way, focusing on re-engaging people and rebuilding trust.

Partnering to meet community needs 

Canal Alliance is a trusted voice with the Latino immigrant community in the San Francisco Bay Area, providing services, programs, and resources to help Latino immigrants overcome barriers. Voces Del Canal is a coalition of resident leaders and Latino immigrants who are considered local experts in their community. They joined forces during the pandemic as COVID-19 raised issues affecting their community.

One barrier this duo noticed was booster numbers were not as high as initial vaccine numbers. Canal Alliance partnered with Voces de Canal to not only build an Honest Conversations campaign, but use it to encourage their communities to get up-to-date on COVID-19 vaccines.

The foundation for their campaign was to keep the Latino community safe by:

  • Figuring out how to engage the community to receive their boosters  
  • Identifying the best times to engage the community.  
  • Disproving the myths and misinformation regarding COVID-19

Launching a campaign with a community event

Canal Alliance held a community fair as part of their Honest Conversations campaign to bring information and resources about COVID-19 to the community. Canal Alliance not only administered vaccines, boosters and information about COVID-19 in both Spanish and English, but there was also music, food, a piñata designed as a coronavirus, and many activities to gather and engage the community while providing health services. 

photos from honest conversations community event

In addition to community events, organizations can facilitate their Honest Conversation campaign via:

Honest Conversations can help encourage people to make informed decisions regarding their health and increase awareness. While designed for COVID-19, this campaign can be altered to support organizations in their public response for other health conditions, like Mpox, childhood vaccines, and more.