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Mobiles to teach real-world statistics?

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, Mozambique, participation, YETAM, tagged , , , , , , on November 26, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Saturday, was the last day of the 2-week Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media (YETAM) workshop with the youth.  Each of the sub-groups had the task of prioritizing 2-3 areas that they wanted to focus on over the next 6 months and developing a basic plan. The plans included their focus issues, analysis of the causes of the issue, what they would do about it using their reinforced media and arts skills, when they would do it, and how they would know that they had achieved their short term goals (indicators). Photo: members of one of the media teams.

Nathalia, age 18, presented for the theater group. “We are going to work more on the issue of devaluation of girls by their parents.  This is caused by the belief that men were made to dominate and women to serve, the idea that girls don’t bring any benefit to their parents, but bring only trouble, and the idea that girls are physically and mentally weak.”

The other 4 groups’ topics are:

· Music/Dance group: children’s rights in general, education as the key to a successful future, the value of local culture and traditions.

· Media group:  disaster risk reduction and risks to youth in the community such as the discotheque, alcohol and drugs, and violence.

· Painting group: child rights in general, drug abuse and protecting children from violence/risk.

· Journalism group: sanitation and hygiene, education.

Mobile data gathering?

The groups will prepare work on these topics and extend their messages out to the school community and the surrounding villages.  To track their progress, they plan to survey audiences that have seen their work (eg., their films, paintings, songs, theater, newsletters, etc).  This made us think about the idea of using mobile phones to do the surveys (Nokia Data Gathering or Frontline SMS Forms, depending on which is more feasible and cost effective).

The youth could create surveys on a few devices, and then go around to survey people who have attended their events or viewed their work and heard their messages.  The youth could then have immediate results by exporting the survey results into excel for analysis.  In the process, the youth can learn about statistics, charts and graphs.  Eventually they could also take surveying to another level, such as looking at behaviors and practices, and use the information to inform the outreach work that they are doing.  Photo:  Thinking about mobiles for more than calls and SMS.

“The kids see charts and graphs sometimes in their books, but they never have a chance to learn what actually goes into making a chart or graph, or to cover anything about statistics.  This would be a fabulous hand-on way to see how data is collected and used for decision making and to measure results,” said Lauren, the Peace Corps volunteer teacher at the school. “It would be great for them to get to see immediate feedback on their own work!”

Feedback from youth

Photo: journalism group shows their newsletter.

At the closing ceremony the youth were sad to go. “This is an opportunity that we had to participate in something that has never happened here at Cumbana,” said one girl.  “I encourage my fellow students here to show through their behavior, actions and their studies this coming year that they are now different.  That they are changed.”  (theater group)

“I never imagined that I could be a painter, but now I have the dream that I can do it.  I am happy because I showed what I’m capable of and I expressed my feelings through art.” (painting group)

“My favorite thing was making the big mural. I feel very proud and I can show my friends what I’m capable of.” (painting group)

“This initiative allowed us to show light on our reality. I also know now that I have talent in my mind and in my hands to express myself now and to build my future.” (journalism group)

“I really thank Plan and Nokia because with this workshop I saw myself transforming my life. I will become an artist and I will make something out of my life” (painting group)

“I liked helping to raise awareness in people and to change things in our community and in ourselves.  I want to share the success we’ve had in this project and our work, and to involve more people. There are many things we can achieve.” (media group)

“The best thing about the workshop was the way that they listened to us, they gave us courage to believe in ourselves. They reminded us that nothing comes from nothing and that only through education can we prepare for our futures.” (theater group)

“I liked working with equipment that I had never seen.  Now I know how to use it. I feel able to learn without fear.” (media group)

And facilitators?

“It was great to see the youth increase their knowledge about their culture, history, rights and the role they can play in their community as agents of change.  I loved seeing the youth apply the things that they learned and then do the work by themselves.  I would like to see more adults in the community participating in a workshop like this. There are many things that we can benefit from as well.” (Facilitator)

“I thought the workshop was fantastic.  The kids gained so much experience and confidence and really took advantage of these new opportunities.” (Facilitator)

Related posts:
On Girls and ICTs
Putting Cumbana on the Map

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Feet back on the ground: Mozambique

Posted in development, Mozambique, YETAM, tagged , , , , , on October 31, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I got into Maputo (capital of Mozambique) around 3 on Friday and stopped by the Plan Mozambique office to meet the staff on the way to my hotel. The office here is small. Plan’s only been working in Mozambique since 2007 and in one province only so far. Maputo is absolutely gorgeous.  It’s calm, not at all crowded, and on the coast.

I’ll be here for about 3 weeks working on the Youth Empowerment through Arts and Media (YETAM) project in a community near Maxixe, which is a 50 minute plane trip north. The coordinator for the project in Mozambique is Pedro, the IT Director, and we had a nice discussion today over lunch.

Pedro is from the IT sector and used to work for a government ministry and came to Plan right when we opened here.  He’s convinced that “Plan is not in the IT business.  We’re in the business of community development, so our IT has to be in service of community development, not just the office.”  So ICT4D is high up on his list of interests, and he’s hoping that over the next few weeks we can share lots of ideas.  We discussed how just like media, ICTs are becoming more easily accessible for people, so a good ICT person should know how to support and train other people, to take the mystery out of ICT.  He or she also has to know how to see the trends coming down the line to stay ahead of the game.

Aside from lunch, we spent most of the day installing software on the computers that we’ll be using in the media project.  We got the anti-virus going on all of them – a lesson learned and never forgotten on my part.  We also got the Nokia phones and laptops synced so we can use them for mobile internet while in the community.  Pedro said that mobile internet is a huge eye opener.  “If it works there, communities will know that if they can get the phone, they don’t need to go all the way to the city to access the internet.”  I’m crossing my fingers that the signal will be strong enough to make this a reality.  We shall see….  That social media session I have planned will not make much of an impact if we can’t get online.  Which reminds me how great it always is to get your feet back on the ground and adjust ideas to reality.

Related posts:

It’s all part of the ICT jigsaw: Plan Mozambique ICT4D workshops
Inhambane: land of palm trees and cellular networks


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“It’s All Part of the ICT Jigsaw” – Plan Mozambique ICT4D workshops

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, Mozambique, tagged , , , , , , on October 20, 2009| 7 Comments »

Plan Mozambique’s team has been discussing ICTs in their work using the distance learning packet that my colleague Mika (at Plan Finland) and I put together with lots of support from Hannah Beardon. This is part of our ICT4D research and training initiative in 8 countries (Senegal, Togo, Mali, Cameroon, Ghana, Mozambique, Kenya, Uganda) that will conclude near the end of the year.

This initiative is two-fold —

1) to consolidate some information/research on what’s currently happening in each country (in Plan programs, by other organizations, general ICT landscape, government policies) that staff and managers can use for making decisions around ICT in their programs and other work; and

2) to offer a methodology whereby local staff can identify existing information and communication needs, means, mechanisms and flows on the one hand, and learn about new technology on the other hand to see if any of the new tech is a fit (in its current state or in an adapted state) to meet the existing needs.  One really important aspect is offering ways for local staff to look at the context in which they work every day and see what tools would be useful or even usable (here I like to think of those 4 C’s of successful ICT deployment -connectivity, cost, capacity, and culture).

The end goal is to improve program impact on the ground by strengthening staff capacity to look at their programs with an ICT lens.

Our distance workshop materials (which are pretty amateur — power points with accompanying home-made videos, downloaded videos from other sources, skype calls to expand the discussions) got good feedback from staff.  (This is likely due to my colleague Mika’s great sense of humor more than anything!) We’re thinking of making a few new modules to cover new tech that we’ve heard is being used in Africa or elsewhere, or that we find out about (at workshops, via Twitter, via staff in other countries, from blogs and other sources) so that interested countries could program additional ICT4D days to continue discussions and learning about new tools.

Today we got feedback from Plan Mozambique staff. The main learning/points that came out of the workshop were:

  • Demystifying ICT. “For some of us who are only NGO workers without formal training in ICT, we get scared, we think of megabytes, how info flies, all those things.  But we found that all of us use ICT – our cell phones, our gadgets, the things we use daily, internet, intranet — it’s all part of the ICT jigsaw.”
  • ICT is not stand-alone. “It was quite a useful exercise to see how we can incorporate ICTs in our programmatic interventions.  Again- we realized that all this is now linking up with the rights based approach, with our child centered development approach.  So today and yesterday we’ve seen how ICT can serve in this perspective. Especially today it was very directly apparent how ICT integrates into these approaches. ICT is not a straight alone aspect.”
  • Learning how to map communications networks, identify local communications needs, see what added value Plan can give by improving it directly, strategically or indirectly. “This was a good way for discussing ways to address information and communication needs and ways to bring about better impact in development programs using our current rights based approach,” as one staff put it.
  • Opening windows of opportunities and identifying existing challenges. “We need to map available ICT tools and see what is appropriate in our context to apply.  Some of the common ICT tools in the Africa context are still a challenge. We don’t have electricity in most of our rural communities.  During the mapping exercises on ICTs we need to take that into account. To find the means to identify the tools that are most appropriate. Mobile phones still need to be charged. We can solar charge, but I’ve yet to see this myself.  We can use other ICTs in our programs, but mostly things like radio, TV, particular videos. These tools are already available in the community, everyone in the community has a radio. TV is a challenge. Mobile phones are challenge still.  Mobile phone could add costs to the community leaders, and later would not be sustainable. This needs to be looked into to see what kind of solutions we can find to overcome it.”
  • Gaining insight into ICT4D, its dynamics and uses in communities. “It’s important to understand that we are still a very primitive country.  Different colleagues have raised the question of infrastructure. Yet there is a huge opportunity for us to create space for growth. It’s difficult for us see – we want to really engage community members but wonder if they would feel out of place due to their levels of understanding. We feel they can deal with technologies like mobile phones but when it comes to computers it would be much more difficult. But this workshop was an eye opener. Technology is not so mysterious.  We need to try our best to make technology something simple that can be used by anyone, just like mobile phones, small children can use them. If all other technologies could be that simple it would be great.”
  • Balancing possible/feasible and creative/innovative. “We’ve seen some tools that can help us with new ideas as well as with existing programs. One thing we need to address clearly is guidelines on social media to set up a basis for those who are trying things out. Also thoughts around content management and delivery.  How can countries capture information and communicate it out in a way that gets the message across best. We can also do more learning from others about ICT4D programs, especially about their context and what is the process leading into these projects, what conditions were in place.”
  • Greening our ICT4D.  “Another thing we need to really consider is equipment which with time becomes obsolete – how can we recycle equipment and put it to better use?  Green equipment – how to stop generating trash in communities. Renewable energy sources – solar was mentioned, tapping wind energy also – how can we look at that and enter into that as well.  And what about other appropriate technologies that are not IT.  There are innovative irrigation pumps that are very effective and cheap.  Magnetic torches that don’t use batteries which come in very handy.  There are many things we could adopt and incorporate.”

Related Posts:
I and C then T
ICT ideas from Plan Cameroon
ICT4D Kenya: ICT and community development is real
Modernizing birth registration with mobile technology
In Kenya brainstorming on mobiles
Chickens and eggs and ICTs

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I and C, then T

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, tagged , , , , , on September 13, 2009| 6 Comments »

Last week some Plan USA staff got together at Plan’s Washington, DC office as part of our ongoing discussions on how Plan globally could better use ICTs and social media as enablers in our work and to improve program outcomes.  We had the honor of some amazing minds to support us, including Josh Nesbit (@joshnesbit) from FrontlineSMS: Medic, Dave Isaak from SixBlue Data (@sixblue_data), Michael Downey from Indiana University (@downeym), and Wayan Vota from Inveneo (@wayan_vota).

Photo: Mwendar and Ali using mobiles during a meeting on modernizing the birth registration process in Kwale, Kenya, in June 2009.

We started with an overview of ICT4D, emphasizing the importance of not starting with the tools and devices, but rather a mapping of information and communications needs.

The presentation was based on Plan’s “Mobiles for Development Guide” by Hannah Beardon.  (See the presentation here). For me, a key aspect was the 3 ways that organizations can incorporate ICTs in their work:

1) Directly:  Addressing the digital divide through improved connectivity, capacity, access

2) Strategically:  Applying ICTs to enhance the impact of development projects and programs

3) Indirectly: improving their efficiency and effectiveness

The Mobiles for Development Guide also proposes a three-step process for arriving at decisions on how ICTs can be incorporated:

Stage 1: Assess the need/potential for ICTs/mobile technology

Stage 2: Analyze the socio-technological context

Stage 3: Choose the technology and content

For me, this is kind of obvious but we seem to often forget it.  Most sound organizations wouldn’t decide that building a clinic or a school is the solution without looking at the broader situation together with community members, and analyzing together what the desired outcomes actually are, what the local resources are, what the barriers are, how sustainability will be achieved, issues of upkeep, local ownership, power and control, usability, etc.  In the same way, we clearly shouldn’t slap on 100 mobile phones and some computers and call it an ICT4D or m-Something initiative.

But sometimes technology seems like such an obvious solution that organizations start with the technology tools rather than looking at the desired outcomes:  let’s do a radio project, a video project, an m-Health project – when rather we should be stepping back and seeing what the larger goals are, how we plan to reach them, what kind of information and communication needs to happen to reach project goals, how is information and communication currently happening in the local situation and who has control over it, and lastly what types of tools might work best for relaying that information and communicating.

As an action item from the workshop, we will begin work on a more concrete methodological guide for Plan staff to use at the local level.  The concept is in place, but how to actually do this concretely when we are developing programs with communities is perhaps not so clear.  The idea is to develop a detailed and participatory methodology that could be used locally (by staff, community members, district officials, etc.) to identify information and map out communication needs in existing (or developing) initiatives, to better understand the local ‘socio-technological’ context, and to have some sort of ‘decision tree’ that could help suggest the most appropriate ICT enablers for the local context. We hope to gather input from others who have done similar work (in and outside of Plan) and to field test it in Cameroon in a Child Survival project early next year.

Related Posts:

11 concerns about ICTs and ‘social media for social good’

It’s all part of the ICT jigsaw: Plan Mozambique ICT4D workshops

ICT ideas from Plan Cameroon

ICT4D Kenya: ICT and community development is real

Modernizing birth registration with mobile technology

In Kenya brainstorming on mobiles

Chickens and eggs and ICTs

On Girls and ICTs

7 (or more) questions to ask before adding ICTs

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Development Education – a relevant term?

Posted in development, random, musing or confusing, tagged , , , , on August 6, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I recently participated in some research that an organization is doing to update its Development Education strategy. One of the questions during the interview was whether the term ‘development education’ is relevant anymore, and for whom. It made me think about a comment I recently came across asking if people in ‘developing’ countries use the term ICT4D or just call it ‘ICT.’

Development Education is often used to describe different activities that development organizations do ‘in the North’ to educate donors, students, and/or the public in general about the realities of the “developing” world. It aims to help people better understand ‘good development’ and to get them to make personal choices that would contribute to ‘good development’ overseas (eg., voting, purchasing or consuming differently, supporting policies that offer certain benefits to the developing world, volunteering, ‘spreading the word’, etc.).

Development Education can be used to prime or soften people up for advocacy campaigns and concrete actions. It can be directed at large donors when organizations are attempting to get them to change policies or funding habits. It can be part of the school curriculum, created in a way that maintains a middle ground, but prompts students to think about issues and choices faced in development or the global context (see Choices for the 21st Century Curriculum). And some governments give grants out under the category of ‘development education’ when they are funding organizations to ‘educate’ people overseas about how friendly and generous the donor country and their policies and people are.

In most cases, I think the concept of Development Education is a good one. It helps people understand the broader picture, the structural causes of poverty, cultural relevance, why hand-outs are not the way to go, why local ownership is important, and why the way people do things ‘here’ isn’t necessarily the way people should do things ‘there’. It helps scratch under the surface of advocacy campaigns so that people better understand why they are signing something or clicking on that email to their senators. It can be a way of bringing examples of good practices and real situations to large donors to change their perspectives on what they donate to based on concrete experiences rather than hyphotheses and theories or the latest trends.

Development Education seems especially important in the US where people often give out of a charity mindset or guilt; where they are bombarded daily with pathetic images of starving children who can be fed for just 50 cents a day; and where stories of American heroes who go off to ‘solve’ problems for those living in other places get more airtime than stories of capable people in other countries resolving things on their own. It has a place with US young people who don’t have access to much global education in the classroom because standardized tests focus on the 4 basics. (As opposed to the UK, for example, where schools are mandated and funded to offer topics that provide global perspective on global issues). Yes, in the US there is very likely a place for something along the lines of ‘Development Education’.

But can a global organization talk about ‘Development Education’ in a way that is relevant across all countries where it’s working? And if so, what would be the common term? What constitutes Development Education ‘in the South’ and is it even a relevant concept? Can development education be separated from civic engagement, advocacy and political processes? I have some thoughts around this, but haven’t hit on one that convinces me enough…. I’m sure I could just google it, but what would be the fun in that?

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ICT4D Ideas from Plan Cameroon

Posted in Cameroon, development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, m4D, mapping, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 28, 2009| 1 Comment »

I had a chance to meet with Plan Cameroon’s Program Technical Team today (including those that look at Monitoring and Evaluation, Health, Education, Sponsorship, Child Protection, Water and Sanitation, Gender and the overall Program Support Manager) to give a quick brief on the ICT4D research and training that Plan Finland is supporting with Plan offices in 8 countries in Africa (Mali, Senegal, Cameroon, Ghana, Togo, Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda).

We are working with Hannah Beardon, who wrote Plan’s Mobiles for Development guide (available in both English and French) and building on that towards some more focused and concrete ideas for ICT use in these 8 countries. We’ll share the research with staff during 2-day workshops to brainstorm and gather ideas on information and communications needs, as well as available tools that could be used or adapted to local situations.

The 2-day workshops are planned for Aug and Sept. Hannah, Mika (Plan Finland) and I are developing the methodology and will make a training DVD to send ahead of time to each country (apparently complete with our selves doing presentations!) since we don’t have funding to do face-to-face training. We’ll have a staff person in each country as the main facilitator, and 10-12 key staff, from management to frontline, will attend. Mika or I will beam in by skype to support if needed. We’ll use the Frontline SMS demo video that Mika and crew did also, (see my earlier post about this from a few months ago), show how Nokia Data Gathering Software works, share the Common Craft Social Media videos, among other things. Hannah’s methodology will also come in for thinking about how ICTs could enhance existing efforts.

The idea is to both learn about new tools as well as look at current programs and see if there are ways to use ICTs to improve impact, and how to begin tailoring them to the programs and local settings. We’re also doing research on government policies and how Plan’s work links there. I hope that we can also look at partnering with local developers and ICT4D innovators in each country….

The idea of ICT4D was a bit new to some of the Plan Cameroon staff and not at all new to others. One interesting idea they shared was using SMS in anti-malaria programs to periodically remind people to retreat their bednets. There was some concern about literacy rates if one relies on SMS, and interest in using voice response, but given the number of languages in Cameroon, voice could also be a bit of a challenge. I’ll have to try to find out if/how that’s overcome in other places. Another concern was ‘scamming’ and how to avoid that happening. But it seemed that the issue of scamming is not something that Plan alone would face, but something in general that is faced with mobile phones.

The program support manager was really keen on using mobiles for program monitoring as that is something that can always improve and be more efficient with ICT, he said, and wants to test some ideas. The ICT manager also said he wanted to write something up. The sponsorship manager suggested trying out some data collection or quicker communications tools for linking with community volunteers. And as mentioned earlier, child media and child protection are areas that can be greatly enhanced and supported via ICTs (help lines, SMS incident reporting, social media and mobile reporting).

After the 2-day workshop, we should have something really nice to go forward with.

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Modernizing Birth Registration with Mobile Technology

Posted in children, development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, Kenya, m4D, protection, tagged , , , , , , , on June 28, 2009| 2 Comments »

As part of our mobiles for outreach and data gathering training last week, we went out to a community about 20 minutes away from the hotel today to hear Silla, the district civil registrar, talk about a project that Plan Kenya is supporting that aims to modernize the birth registration process. Plan Kenya is looking incorporating mobile data gathering and outreach into the project, so it was a good opportunity to test data gathering. We tested the Nokia Data Gathering Software using a form that the team had created earlier in the week based on the paper forms that the District Registrars office uses. It all worked just fine. Photo: Silas from Kwale District, and Petri, Director of the Nokia Research Center in Manaus, Brazil.

Silla is really an expert on birth registration and anything that has to do with it. He can quote you just about any law related to the subject in great detail. Currently, for registering births, people have to go to the sub-registrar/assistant chief’s office which can be quite far. Once there, sometimes there are not enough actual registration forms and they just give the registration information to someone who writes it in a school notebook. Later when they have more forms, the information is transposed to the official form, and sent along for processing. It can take awhile for processing, and people have to return to the sub-registrar’s office personally if they want to find out if it’s ready. The district is quite large, so they may have to travel up to 100 kms sometimes to go into check, and the certificate may not even be ready yet. Photo: Silla schools us on civil registration and explains why the district wants to modernize the process.

I talked to Ali M and Ali K (‘the Ali’s’ as we call them, since they are pretty much inseparable) who both work with Community Based Organizations (CBOs) that are participating in the birth registration project. (They were both at the video training with me last month here also). They explained some of the main reasons that not having a birth certificate makes life difficult:

If children don’t have birth certificates, they cannot get passports obviously, but that is the least of the issues. They cannot attend secondary school without one, nor can they benefit from any type of social service or insurance. Kwale district has a very high incidence of child marriages, yet if there is no birth certificate there is no way to prove in court that a girl is too young to be married. Other kinds of abuse also cannot be proved as child abuse. Without proper registration, the district does not get its fair share of the national budget because it’s not clear how many people are actually there. Photo: Ali K and Ali M – real leaders and innovators in community development.

As the Ali’s explained, if Kwale District is successful in incorporating SMS’s, mobile data gathering, and mobile outreach into the birth registration process, not only will they be the first district in Kenya to do it, but Kwale will be the first to even computerize the birth registration process. A couple ways they want to use mobiles are to provide a phone number that people could SMS their registration number to and find out if their certificates are ready or not, thus avoiding a long trip into the district office for nothing. They are also thinking of shifting the actual data gathering from hand written (carbon paper with several copies) to mobile data gathering and computerized data storage. In any case, a full project is being developed and piloted that will automate much of the current time consuming processes.

I remember when I lived in El Salvador and the municipality changed from hand written logs to computers. You used to have to go really early in the morning and wait in a huge line to get a number. Then you waited again till they called your number, went up and gave someone your information. That person would give your information to someone else who would look up the name/date, etc. and after an hour or 2, they’d call you and give you a little piece of paper with your record number on it. From there you would go wait in the cashier line to pay a fee for the copy of the certificate. Then you would go to another line at another window and give that number to someone else and sit down again for another few hours while that person would go into the archives books (bound books of hundreds of records) and find your certificate for you (birth, death, marriage, etc.). They’d make a copy and then it had to go to an official somewhere to authorize the copy before they’d give it to you. So basically you had to get there around 7 a.m. if you wanted to get it the same day, and it was a whole day affair.

Around 2000, they got a computer system in and modernized the process. I went in to get a copy of a document, and I clearly remember the security guard laughing at me because I looked at the certificate twice in shock when I paid my fee and was handed the actual certificate after about 30 minutes.

If the Ali’s and the Kwale District are able to get the equipment and set the project up, it could mean huge time savings for people and translate into greatly increased numbers of parents getting birth certificates for their children. The Ali’s have already taken the idea to a national level meeting and have other districts interested in their idea. Hopefully Kwale pulls it off and the model can be nationalized once any kinks are worked out! Photo: Mwenda and Ali, Kwale district CBO members.

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SMS in Program Outreach

Posted in development, ICT4D, ICTs, mobile and technology, Kenya, m4D, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 26, 2009| 1 Comment »

Building on the last post, I wanted to share also some of the discussion at last week’s Kenya workshop about incorporating mobiles into our work. People in general were pretty excited. Even those people who were skeptical seemed to see mobiles as tools that could improve work we are already doing if well incorporated and done from ‘the bottom up’ in sustainable ways, based on program information and communication needs. Some great discussions came up and participants shared some potential solutions and good practices.

Issue: Access

We are working with children. How many children have phones? How do we get information from children? We work with communities who are the “poorest of the poor” – so how do we get info from them using FLSMS – do we expect them to have phones? Or people may have phones but no credit? How do you handle such circumstances?

Use a short code if you can get one

Credit is a very important issue. If organizations or institutions want to use SMS, then there is an investment cost unless you can acquire a short code. If you have a short code you deposit money to make this free or much lower cost for people.

Don’t assume that children don’t have access to mobiles

We should not assume children do not have access to phones. If the information is out there, children will find someone that is willing to help them make a call or text. Many children now call us (at the Child Help Line) even without a fixed line. They have a teacher, an auntie, a big sister who will allow them to borrow the phone. I’ve seen that almost everybody in the community has a SIM card. They do not have a handset, but when they need to make a call they borrow the handset for a few minutes and somehow they do it. We can’t make the argument that children can’t use technology. There are innovative ways of using the technology so let’s put the technology out there and stop assuming that people can’t access it. The issue is how can we make the technology reach as many as possible?

Give out SIM cards with a few minutes on them to protect privacy and confidentiality

We had a similar situation with a reproductive health project that was offering out information that most girls wanted to remain confidential. What we did was gave out 10 bo SIM cards. We passed them out in little boxes. Many of the girls had phones but wanted to send in anonymous questions so they used the SIM cards to send the SMS in, and then removed the card from the phone, put it in their pockets, and replaced their original SIM. It only costs 1 shilling via Orange. We found that normally the SMS conversation lasts for around 6 shillings. They can maintain anonymity this way. It’s cheap and they can just keep these SIMs in their pockets.

Issue: If mobiles begin to replace face-to-face contact and relationships with partner communities.

Using Frontline SMS for community outreach and communications has many advantages, particularly in terms of the information that we constantly need to gather. However, we should be careful though that it doesn’t substitute field visits. If people get used to getting information quickly they are likely to avoid going out and getting in touch with communities to see what is happening. If you just sit and wait for an SMS you will lose this face-to-face contact with the community.

Mobiles can be a tool, but must be integrated with other communication means

This point reminds us that we should not totally substitute it but use it as an additional tool in the toolbox to improve, cut costs, reduce, etc.

Issue: A text does not give enough space for full and clear information in health or other cases

We talked about using Frontline SMS for radio. In our participatory youth media programs, children bring out issues in video, in radio, etc. We are not always able to respond immediately to their concerns and issues. FLSMS could be a way to respond to these issues. Are there examples of how to pass on this type of technical information? If I’m a midwife and am too far from hospital, I need very clear information. How could this be done with SMS via an auto reply and only a short amount of text?

Use SMS to bring face to face help more quickly and to track/record incidents

SMS isn’t a solution for everything, but I know of an example of how that can work. There is another program called Ushahidi that is about crisis mapping. It’s a digitized map. Sometimes when a situation becomes extreme people are asked to share their locations using GPS and then you can send local people to these places on bicycles or through other means to help. This allows the professional help to arrive more quickly. Maybe SMS can’t solve it but it can bring help more quickly.

Use SMS as a supplement, not a replacement for human contact and long-term work

In the case of trying to change harmful practices and traditions, we need time and eye contact. If we are working with trying to make cultural changes, such as in the case of infanticide or something, you can’t just send a text that says “this is a bad practice”. You need to come close to people. I believe FLSMS can offer a secondary way or a supplement to a given community meeting, to strengthen a rapport with the community, but it’s not a replacement for our long term work and ongoing relationships with people.

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Child Friendly Communities

Posted in development, Mali, participation, smart aid, travel, youth media, tagged , , , , , on February 9, 2009| Leave a Comment »

I had dinner last night with those who had arrived for the meeting and then crashed. My luggage came around 3 a.m. so I had to go down to the lobby half asleep to get it! But yay!
Today we went out to the community were we had dropped the radio equipment off yesterday. First we went to a meeting at the Plan office. It was really interesting to hear their strategy which is centered around the concept of Child Friendly Communities. The cool thing is that they work with the community to define a set of indicators that the community is in agreement with. Then they measure where the community is at currently (baseline). Then they work with the community to improve their indicators. The interesting thing is that I have never seen it where the community is involved with setting and tracking indicators of their own development. Really really cool. We heard all the theory about it in the morning when the country director and program manager gave us an overview.
Then we all drove out to the village where the community representatives went through all their community indicators and explained where they were with them. So things like how many mothers are exclusively breastfeeding. How many kids are attending school. Percentage that have good hygiene habits. Etc. etc. We saw a few projects in the community – the early childhood care and development center, the nutrition center, and the women’s village savings and loan project. It was really interesting to see how they work, the impact the projects are having on the health and education of the kids, and also all the work that the women are doing to improve their community.
Photo: Community nutrition center where they weigh children to track their growth. They also work with the mothers to show them how to use locally available ingredients like sorghum, peanuts, herbs that grow in the area, to make high protein, high calorie porridge. The program is based on the concept of positive deviance — where the mothers who manage to have well nourished children are studied to find out how they do it, and then their habits are replicated/taught to the other mothers.
Stefanie asked the women in the savings and loan group what the men did, because she had seen mostly women doing all the work in all the projects. That really got a good laugh out of the women. The way the development process seems to work is that the men make the decisions about which projects and initiatives that their wives can participate in. Custom allows multiple wives. The men see the advantage of the improved health and education of their children, and the improved financial status of their wives. Mostly the men work in the fields and do the heavy work for project that require manual labor. Interesting dynamic though – when Stefanie asked her question there was a super long and animated conversation among several of the women and the men from the partner local organization that manages the project. None of this was translated for us! Then Thiekoro from Plan Mali just made a very quick summary. Stefanie asked for clarification later….and I’m not sure the real story was revealed then either.
After we talked with all the project groups, the radio project crew – Kids Waves – did a live radio show. The radio project moves from community to community, training the kids and then the develop a half-hour radio show on different topics. They were covering the issue of Violence in Schools. They had invited the local mayor and the director of the school to ask them about the issue and what they planned to do about it. When will children stop being beaten in schools? The officials assured them that they would not beat children any more. Many of the children laughed at that. I didn’t understand much of what was happening because the radio show is conducted in Bambara, the local language. But the kids and the community really really got a kick out of it, and the kids were great. Self assured and really professional.

Photo: Kids Waves radio program.

We stayed until around 4 and then drove back. We arrived quite late due to traffic and I was soooo tired by then. I went out for pizza with a few of the others, Messan from Togo, Carmen from Benin and Francoise from Burkina. Messan and Francoise had participated in the Kenya Social Media for Social Change workshop, and it was great to see them again. One of the best things about working for Plan is when you have a chance to see colleagues again and develop nice friendships and working relationships.

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