Kings Hall Media, in partnership with World Vision International, Ghana, successfully organized a 12-week cartoon campaign on open defecation, targeting Ghanaian school children. Available statistics estimate that more than 6,000,000 people in Ghana practise open defecation, a behaviour that costs the West African lower-middle income country a whooping amount $79 million per year, and damaging the image of Ghanaians in international circles.

“To win the war against open defecation, children must be our focus. Once we win the child in this war, we are at least assured of a future without open defecation in Ghana,” says the CEO of Kings Hall Media, Emmanuel Addai. The principal objective of the campaign was therefore to intensify sensitization of children against open defecation.

The strategy of the campaign was to develop a fiction on open defecation entitled “The Samikrom Open Defecation Story.” A section of the story was published each week in the Junior Graphic over 12 weeks between September and November, 2018. School children were then invited to read the story and then call a hotline to answer a set of questions for a reward.

Children in basic schools called from every region in Ghana, majority of them coming from Accra. At the end of the 12 weeks, there were 36 winners from the Greater Accra, Eastern, Ashanti, Upper East, and Upper West Regions. Regional level events were organized to present the awards to the children between May and July 2019.