In 1993, a community-based approach was developed in southern Sudan which focused on training of community-based animal health workers (CAHWS) to vaccinate against rinderpest and treat common ailments. This approach to rinderpest control in southern Sudan proved very successful and by late 2001 there had been no confirmed outbreaks of rinderpest for over three years.

However, at this time the programme was faced with a major dilemma.

Typically, rinderpest eradication involves mass vaccination followed by a period of no vaccination, but actively watching and waiting to see if the disease reappears. During this surveillance period, new outbreaks are detected rapidly and further, localised vaccination removes the disease for good. Rapid detection of outbreaks requires good relationships with communities who act as the programme's eyes and ears on the ground.

However, for many years people had been very happy with regular vaccination campaigns and they recognised their effectiveness. Therefore, programme staff realised that a new surveillance strategy would be a major change for communities and field-level veterinary workers.

The challenge was to explain the new, potentially confusing strategy to communities, remove fears about the cessation of vaccination, and create momentum and commitment for a period of 'watching and waiting'.

As the need for a good communication campaign began to emerge, there was also recognition of the operational constraints in southern Sudan. The area has very little infrastructure due to chronic civil war, and mass media communication methods such as newspapers, radio or television were not available. There was also the challenge of developing communication methods to maintain awareness and interest in the issues for a long period - the surveillance period after stopping mass vaccination and before declaring freedom from rinderpest is five years.

For many years, veterinarians have been describing how livestock keepers in southern Sudan possess considerable indigenous knowledge on livestock diseases. This knowledge formed the basis for the community-based programme and contributed towards programme design, implementation, arid impact assessment. Furthermore, it was known that verbal communication and song was central to the culture of cattle-keeping communities in southern Sudan.

Given this situation, VSF Belgium decided to use community members to assist them to develop appropriate messages and methods for communicating the new rinderpest control strategy. The idea was to explain the new strategy to some field-level workers, artists, songwriters, and storytellers and request them to develop stories, songs, poems, and illustrations for transferring the messages within their communities.