FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2004

New HCP Series Guides Those Considering Becoming
A Health Communication Organization

First Issue Focuses on the Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation

BALTIMORE — The Health Communication Partnership (HCP) has launched a new series that describes how its partners became successful strategic health communication organizations. Partners in Action is a series of case studies profiling HCP's Southern-based partners, with the first issue focused on the Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation (TAPF).

Written by TAPF's executive director Yasar Yaser, this premier issue offers lessons, inspiration, and ideas for others considering the field, including the importance of leadership. Turkish business tycoon Vehbi Koc was the guiding force that led TAPF to success at a time when family planning and reproductive health were considered somewhat taboo in largely Muslim Turkey. His connections in the business community as well as his commitment to reproductive health issues helped him gain for the family planning cause, the support of Turkey's conservative political leaders in the early 1980s.

A key turning point in TAPF's evolution occurred when the organization successfully transformed itself from a relatively small health service provider to a health communication organization that had the potential to reach a much larger population.

HCP uses health communication to create an environment that encourages individuals, families, and communities to act positively for their own health. Part of creating that environment includes building the capacity of its partners based in developing countries so that promoting healthy behaviors becomes a sustainable activity. TAPF's case illustrates how it has become more self-sustaining over the years and less reliant on foreign donors.

HCP is a global communication initiative based at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development, Save the Children, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In addition to the five core partners, HCP works with leading Southern-based health communication organizations as well as global programming partners from the corporate sector, international media, academic institutions, and faith-based organizations. For a full list of HCP partners and collaborators, visit www.hcpartnership.org .