http://viewchange.org Videos from ViewChange.org (Filtered by topics: SMS) en-us Mon, 04 Jun 2012 08:40:00 +0000 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/the-health-show-sms-for-life SMS for Life is a pilot program in Tanzania that uses mobile phones and text messages to keep track the amount of malaria drugs in different areas, preventing stocks of malaria drugs from running out at critical times. Mon, 04 Jun 2012 08:40:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/the-health-show-sms-for-life Tanzania, Malaria, Mobile phone, Artemether/lumefantrine, Kibaha, SMS, African people, Antimalarial medication, Community Health Center, World Health Organization >> VOICEOVER: Malaria kills 800,000 Africans every year. Eighty-five percent of them are children under five. Malaria patients at African health centers, like this one in Mlandizi, Tanzania, need drugs known as Artemisinin-based Combination Therapies, or ACTs. They can wipe out Malaria parasites in just a few days. >> DANIEL CRAPPER [Population Services International, Tanzania]: Artemisinin Combined Therapies are making a huge impact, not just on saving individual children, but also helping prevent the transmission of the disease. >> VOICEOVER: But drugs like Coartem, the first ACT approved by the World Health Organization, are not always available. In Tanzania, incoming drugs start their journey here, at the central medical stores. Lorries then take them to regional stores, and on to district and local health centers. But the system often breaks down. >> DR. MAIMUNA YUSEF [Mlandizi Health Center, Tanzania]: It was so difficult. So far in the last two years we didn't have Coartem at all. It's true. >> VOICEOVER: A new approach is being piloted here in Tanzania, which could prevent stocks of drugs running out. It's called SMS for Life. It uses the most reliable method of communication in Africa -- mobile phones and text messages. >> DANIEL CRAPPER: SMS for Life is simply a management information system. It sheds light onto the availability of essential life-saving drugs. It gives you a picture of where drugs are, and more importantly, where they are not. >> VOICEOVER: Dr. William Mwaga is the man responsible for knowing exactly where all the drugs are in Kibaha district. Every Thursday, he sends a text message asking all his specially trained community health officers to tell him how many malaria drugs they have. >> DR. WILLIAM MWAGA [District Malaria Officer, Kibaha, Tanzania]: The situation before this program was very poor. We didn't know the status of malaria drugs until the end of the quarter. But now, we know the status of the malaria drugs every week. >> VOICEOVER: The answers come quickly. There's an incentive. Health officers who respond within 24 hours receive a small payment, topped up onto their mobile phone. These are the figures Dr. Mwaga received yesterday. Mlandizi Health Center reports a worrying shortage of the ACTs designed for babies and children. >> DR. WILLIAM MWAGA: They have zero yellow Coartem but they have 19 boxes of red Coartem, which is for adult only. >> VOICEOVER: So Dr. Mwaga checks his own store at the District health center. It's good news. He's got plenty of boxes of yellow Coartem. Dr. Mwaga can now send some off to Mlandizi. >> DANIEL CRAPPER: It's not so much a push system where someone at the center level says you will have these drugs. It's moving towards a system where people at the facility, the people who know what the demands are, are ordering the right drugs at the right time. >> DR. MAIMUNA YUSEF: I think that it's useful. We just look at the systems, and we ordered, and you bring it to us. It's very nice. I like it. >> DANIEL CRAPPER: If people with fever are not getting treated within 24 hours, the cure rates significantly decline. By making sure that the right drugs are there at the right moment, we can make a significant impact on the reduction of malaria. http://www.viewchange.org/videos/vidiyal-ict-for-development <p>Groups of women in the Theni district of Tamil Nadu in India are using mobile phones and computer technology in innovative ways to benefit their agriculture-based businesses.</p> Fri, 17 Sep 2010 10:16:00 +0000 http://www.viewchange.org/videos/vidiyal-ict-for-development Information and communication technologies, India, Vidiyal, Mobile phone, Information technology, Theni district, ViewChange Online Film Contest, Tamil Nadu, Agriculture, SMS >> JYOTHIKA: My name is Jyothika. >> GIRL: I listen to music on the computer >> BOY: Painting, internet. >> JYOTHIKA: I want to become a doctor. >> BOY: Keyboard. >> TITLE: Using ICT [information and communication technologies] to build Social Capital. The Vidiyal Experience. >> VOICEOVER: Vidiyal works with women in four villages of the Theni district of Tamil Nadu, under the self-help group [SHG] model helping them in, among other things, procuring loans for various income-generation activities. But when, in 2008, 300 women applied for a loan of 43,500 rupees to buy 10 female goats and one male goat to augment their incomes, they also added a rather unusual component to their loan amount: the cost of a mobile phone and a SIM card. Here's why. >> VOICEOVER: Every day, each of the women who will sanction the loan for goat rearing must, in addition to looking after their goats, also wait for and listen to the five audio SMSs sent in. Delivered in Tamil, these audio SMSs give information about goat rearing. Next, they must get this information written out in these special notebooks given to them, so that each of the SMSs can be discussed in the next group meeting. The idea is to make sure that the women have all the requisite information to take care of the goats. The best part of the SMSs is that they are recorded each day in Theni itself, using nothing but a regular mobile phone. Once recorded, the message is sent as an SMS to a central server in Delhi from where it is beamed to all those who have the special SIM card. >> SIGN: Village Knowledge Center >> VOICEOVER: Vidiyal has also helped the women SHGs in setting up village knowledge centers, or VKCs, in four different villages. Equipped with a couple of computers, a printer, electricity, and an internet connection, these VKCs help the women earn some extra money. They also help children of the villages get acquainted with computer technology. Some of the VKCs also have this special touchscreen kiosk, which contains prerecorded information on different subjects, such as agriculture, health, and livestock, that can be accessed even by an illiterate person. >> LAKSHMI [SHG Leader, Badralipuram]: We get crop-related information on fertilizers and other such things. We also get updated information on the prevailing prices in the market, which helps us decide on where to sell our crops. >> VOICEOVER: The VKCs are now also being used by the women of the SHGs for weekly legal counseling sessions, through the free-to-use Skype software. Skype allows face-to-face interaction with the local, government-appointed lawyer, without the women having to leave their villages. Poor, uneducated women -- and yet completely at ease with technology. The Vidiyal experience has shown that, with the right training, and the right grassroots approach, ICT can be harnessed fruitfully to improve lives of the poorest of the poor.