What is Your GoodLife?

The GoodLife animated food heroes were part of an innovative child nutrition campaign launched by BCS in 2012.

What Is Your GoodLife? Tens of thousands of Ghanaians tried to answer that question at the start of a unique, comprehensive campaign from August 2009 to February 14, 2014. Without telling the public what the campaign was about or which organization was sponsoring it, the teaser campaign tried to get people to reflect on what was really important in their lives.

In short, GoodLife is a unified, umbrella brand by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) and the USAID Behavior Change Support (BCS) Project and is part of an exciting overarching multimedia campaign in Ghana. The GoodLife initiative encourages self-reflection about what makes life “good” and links personal happiness to the practice of healthy behaviors. The most recent Health COMpass Spotlight covers the development of the campaign, its implementation, and evaluation results.

Eventually the campaign moved on to identify its goals and subject matter. It aimed to move health messages beyond instructive commands to engage Ghanaians on issues relevant to their daily lives. GoodLife served as a platform to discuss and promote positive behaviors in a wide range of health areas, including maternal, neonatal and child health; family planning; malaria prevention and treatment; nutrition; and water, sanitation and hygiene. In short, GoodLife encourages individuals to think about what gives them fulfillment in life and promotes healthy behaviors and lifestyles so that one can continue to enjoy their GoodLife. By providing a unifying theme, logo and slogan, the initiative aims to tie the different campaigns together and avoid message fatigue and confusion among the audience.

The campaign was at once characterized by the following:

• It was innovative: Using efforts such as “Nutrition Super Heroes” 

• It was large scale. BCS reached 10s of millions of people across the nation. 

• It was productive. Audiovisual project materials were broadcast over 100,000 times on television and radio reaching the tens of millions of people across Ghana. Hundreds of thousands of print materials were produced and distributed to facilities and communities. And job aides and community guides were developed and distributed to thousands of GHS staff and community agents, who were trained on their use. 

• It built toward sustainability. Systems Strengthening and Capacity building approach focused on building institutional and skills capacity in health communication and advocacy at the community, district, and within the national Ghana Health Service.

It was effective. BCS contributed to increases in measurable positive behavioral impact across multiple health areas.

Check it out and learn more on the Health COMpass Spotlight page!