Participants in the ACT Nairobi project created murals, comic books, puppet shows, music videos, cellphone
videos (“cellphilms”), personal video diaries and digital stories; these were used to communicate messages that integrated up-todate public health information about Covid-19 and local knowledge from the community.

Experiences from the project suggest that public health messaging from trusted community sources creates conditions for local communities to understand and respond favourably. Message makers and recipients who live in the same community have a shared understanding that can help tailor messages to the local context to help combat misinformation, conspiracies, and rumours.

The project led to sustained activity and self-initiated use of such methods in other contexts. For example, participants established a community-based organization to continue creative engagement and messaging for health and environmental issues, and teachers use techniques learned in training to instruct students on other topics.

The authors argue that creative methods can engage the community in new and familiar ways, and they urge other public health campaigns to employ such approaches. These methods of communication can reinforce key messages by creating memorable experiences and long-lived artefacts (such as murals) that can have impacts beyond the lifecycle of a given project.