Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC)

The Global Alliance for Rabies Control (GARC) works internationally to eliminate dog-mediated human rabies by 2030. Ahead of World Rabies Day 2026, GARC needed a Kenya media campaign for its Communities Against Rabies programme: one that could raise visibility for rabies elimination while encouraging relevant Kenyan organisations to explore Rabies Centre of Excellence membership.

The assignment looked straightforward on paper: develop campaign content, identify media contacts, and support outreach.

The real work was sharper than that.

Before writing the article, we needed to answer a more strategic question: who exactly was the campaign trying to move, and what would make them care?

Sector: Global Health / NGO / Animal Welfare

Location: Kenya (remote)

Engagement: August – September 2026

What We Did

We began by separating two audiences that were sitting inside the same brief.

One audience was broad public awareness: people who need to understand rabies risk, dog vaccination, bite response, and prevention.

The other was institutional: Kenyan organisations already working in animal health, public health, veterinary training, community health, conservation, One Health, or animal welfare who could become part of GARC’s Rabies Centre of Excellence network.

Those audiences needed different messages, different channels, and different calls to action. Treating them as one would have weakened both.

Our role was to build the foundation that made the campaign executable.

We researched the Kenyan rabies, media, and organisational landscape to identify where the strongest campaign opportunity sat. The clearest angle was not a generic programme announcement. It was a Kenya-specific story: rabies elimination is already being built locally, and GARC offers the mechanism to connect and strengthen that work.

From that strategy, we developed the campaign system:

Audience and communications brief
A research-backed brief defining the target audiences, campaign logic, messaging direction, media opportunity, and recommended editorial angle.
World Rabies Day feature article
A feature article designed to read as a credible public-interest story rather than a promotional announcement, showing how Kenyan organisations are already vaccinating dogs, educating communities, tracking data, and building the foundations for rabies elimination.
Social media campaign
Eight campaign posts split across the two audience tracks, with copy, creative direction, and publishing dates aligned to the World Rabies Day window.
Media pitch package
Subject line options, a journalist pitch email, follow-up copy, and outreach guidance so GARC’s team could approach Kenyan media directly.
Verified contact lists
A targeted list of Kenyan organisations and journalists, checked against GARC’s existing outreach and rated by confidence so the team could prioritise follow-up.
Campaign tracking system
A simple outreach and results tracker with automatic totals, built to help GARC monitor media outreach, partner engagement, and campaign progress without manual reporting friction.

The Strategic Shift

The campaign became stronger once we stopped treating media as the starting point.

The starting point was audience.

Once we clarified who GARC needed to reach, the rest of the work became more precise: which story to tell, which organisations to prioritise, which journalists to approach, what social content to create, and how to track response.

That changed the campaign from a one-off World Rabies Day article into a practical recruitment and visibility system.

What Made The Work Different

We made the campaign Kenya-specific.
The strategy was built from the local context, not lifted from how rabies campaigns work in other markets.

We turned one broad brief into two usable audience tracks.
Public awareness and organisational recruitment were treated as related but distinct jobs.

We made GARC’s role feel necessary, not self-promotional.
The article positioned GARC as the mechanism connecting work already happening in Kenya.

We built for execution.
The final package gave GARC content, contacts, pitch materials, publishing guidance, and a tracker their team could use immediately.

Outputs

Audience and communications brief
World Rabies Day feature article
Eight-post social media campaign
Media pitch email and follow-up sequence
Verified Kenyan organisation and journalist contact lists
Campaign outreach and performance tracker

QALLANN NOTE:

This entry captures the campaign foundation and execution package developed before launch. A fuller case study will follow once the campaign has run and results are available.