October 2022 — With support from the UNICEF ESARO SBC section, two Human-centered Design (HCD) workshops on COVID-19 vaccine uptake were organized by the UNICEF Rwanda SBC team in July 2022, following the process described and using the tools available at the UNICEF HCD for health homepage. Both workshops proposed feasible solutions for key personas, including health workers, teachers, mothers, adolescents, and faith leaders. Action plans were agreed upon to continue the next steps for prototyping and iteration of solutions.

Both HCD workshops were highly appreciated, and the approach was fully accepted and started being applied by the Rwanda Health Communication Centre and other civil society partners in their work for COVID-19 vaccine uptake, youth engagement, and other areas.

Key lessons learned include:

• Planning: Liaise with the regional office for support; Arrange for the community research stage early; Plan for logistics and contingencies carefully; Send invitations early.

• Arrangement: Select a comfortable location to create a conducive and engaging work environment; A diverse group of partners (Ministry of Health, civil society, faith-based, persons with disabilities, and private sector/creative agencies) makes it possible to look at challenges and solutions from different angles.

• Facilitation: Keep people motivated, united and engaged through smaller groups, energizers, competitions, and social activities; Maintain a sense of joint ownership of the purpose and solutions.

• Documentation: Documentation (written and audio/visual) of every step of the journey is a critical step to continue advocating for HCD application and resource mobilization; Soliciting feedback about the HCD approach from various stakeholders adds value. Click here to watch the documentation video from UNICEF Rwanda.

• Treat information with caution: It is essential to agree within the group that the sensitive data obtained during the community research will not be shared beyond the workshop participants and will only be used for refining the solutions.

• Community research: It is essential to make sure community research participants feel safe and comfortable to share their views openly; Remuneration for community members’ time and effort is key; The expectations of community members should be managed in terms of which solutions could be implemented immediately, based on the prioritization of the key objectives, available funds, time, human and other resources.

• Maintain the momentum: HCD workshops triggered a lot of interest within and outside UNICEF (Programme colleagues, USAID, UNHCR, etc.), therefore a series of follow-up sessions are planned in Kigali; It is key to assign responsible UNICEF and partner organizations’ staff who will continue leading on the next stages of the process – prioritization of the solutions, testing, piloting and iterations.