AfriAfya, North America,a 501 (c) 3 was established to leverage an innovative approach for knowledge management of community driven health and development through Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s). We wish to raise funds to explore the impact and logistics of a community Smartphone library to benefit marginalized post conflict countries in eastern Africa. Helping communities gain access to needed Health and Development information.

Most North Americans don’t realize that more lives will be saved in eastern Africa in the next ten years by effective use of Information Communication Technology (ICTs) disseminating health and development knowledge we already have than by laboratory or medical research. This may not be true in the rest of the world, but it is in rural post conflict eastern Africa.

In the most marginalized and conflict ridden places in the world, the biggest barriers to Community Health and Development are lack of knowledge and a shared community distrust of outside knowledge. We know how to reduce the risk of infectious disease but in many cases Health Knowledge disseminated by Health Workers from outside the community is misinterpreted or rejected.  And so, outside Health Workers distribute treated mosquito netting which is then used for fishing or wedding veils.

We believe social change will come as a result of communities using knowledge because they have been part of the generation process and will feel ownership of the content and the technology by which it is delivered. It is the our responsibility to raise the funds necessary to bring this basic health and development information to those how need it most in post conflict eastern Africa.

By partnering with global consumer electronics companies we can more effectively create a self-sustaining lending program for mobile technology and health and development content. We have already been working closely with the largest global consumer and media research companies in order to develop effective program evaluation studies. Such research will be critical to demonstrate the value of large scale deployment to our consumer electronics partners. 

We are applying for this grant in order to create the structure necessary to 1) raise funds to implement this program and 2) to establish additional corporate partnerships in the consumer electronics field in order to assist in the technology needs of the program.

In the first phase, we wish to raise funds to conduct a pilot which explores the impact and logistics of a community Smartphone library for easier access to needed Health and Development information. Information dissemination and improved health and literacy through the successful lending and return of mobile technology are our measure of success in the first year. 

In the second year, we want to focus on building self sustainability in the program. If community members begin to improve health and create businesses based on mobile technology – such as market price or availability services, our ability to scale this program to national or even global is greatly facilitated. Sustainability, improved health statistics and micro business development are the measures of success in the second year.

Year three, having demonstrated the value of the program to community health, literacy, and micro business development, we will seek to raise investments from social investors and companies to develop a global mobile library system for the worlds marginalized population.

 

In addition: In the most marginalized and conflict ridden places in the world, the biggest barrier to preventing infectious diseases, malaria and HIV are not medical. The biggest barriers to Community Health are Community Knowledge and Shared Community Beliefs. We know how to reduce the risk of Malaria, HIV and many infectious diseases but in many cases Health Knowledge disseminated by Health Workers from outside the community is misinterpreted or rejected. And so, outside Health Workers distribute treated mosquito netting which is then used for fishing. In the marginalized rural communities of eastern Africa, the lack of knowledge that currently exists, or the sociological inability to use that knowledge because of community custom is the greatest threat to health and development.

Since 2001, our organization has operated 34 Health and Development Information Resource Centers (ICTs) throughout rural marginalized eastern Africa. Most of these centers are solar powered. Reflecting the unique and unconventional philosophy of our approach, all of these centers are Community Empowering because the Health and Development content is a blend of Community based and shared knowledge, and, scientific medical and knowledge.

Madison Avenue calls it “viral marketing”, “word of mouth”, “listening”, … . Since 2001, we have encouraged influential community members to create health and development content. We edit it and integrate it with scientific content and then distribute it through our Resource Centers. In this way, community members take ownership of the process and the scientific health and development content assumes a much greater credibility because of this ownership.

We have reviewed the growth rates of mobile in sub-Saharan Africa and contrasted their costs to that of maintaining solar powered ICT Resource Centers. We are currently asking for funds to help us move from stationary solar powered Resources Centers to a pilot test of 3 stationary Resources Centers with mobile technology satellite centers and a widely distributed audience accessing information on mobile devices. The pilot is to be conducted in post conflict South Sudan. The purpose is to study the increase in usage and impact of these satellite centers and mobile devices in these seven villages and compare this impact to the standalone stationary ICT Resource Centers.

We will demonstrate how many local minds (a health Wiki), influential leaders, current medical knowledge and communication technologies can save people from preventable death from infectious disease and malaria