#Uganda farmer on info r CKW program provides: “The market information saves us from lies which the middle men tell to cheat us" #ICT4D06:24:12 PM July 28, 2011from TweetDeck
super excited our #mHealth program in #Ghana is one of the finalists in the #SavingLivesAtBirth challenge from @usaid and @gatesfoundation04:47:34 PM July 28, 2011from TweetDeck
Great mention of our CKW program here | The Observer: http://bit.ly/qHmcZs #ict4d #m4d08:56:50 PM July 24, 2011from Echofon
Durbars are community entry ceremonies that must be done in all of the 11 zones where we are working with Mobile Technology for Community Health (MoTeCH) . They include bringing offerings to the Chief, telling the community members about MoTeCH, dancing and hopefully getting the community members to formally “accept” MoTeCH as a valuable health service. Durbars last for several hours, usually take place under a tree and we’re holding them for all 11 zones this week so we can keep on schedule with our launch activities. (more…)
In early 2009, Grameen Foundation went to Uganda with the idea of creating a fluid and effective two way communication channel between rural farmers
CKWs in training
and the world of agricultural experts, development agencies, traders and commercial players. Through this loop, rural small holder farmers would be given livelihood saving agricultural information generated by the experts and the big players would keep informed on conditions on the farm from adoption of best practices to available produce for sale. (more…)
A Village Phone operator signs up to be an agent for KerjaLokal
On April 28, AppLab organized a training of 20 VPOs in Tangerang, Western suburb of Jakarta, on becoming Agents for KerjaLokal, a blue collar job search service that can be accessed via the mobile phone. The 20 new Agents will participate in our initial pilot testing of the KerjaLokal micro-site and the supporting algorithm to match job seekers with jobs they desire. (more…)
Joyce Ndago and Maria Nuela, two of our MoTeCH field staff
In December we had our first workshop to introduce and test our mobile phone technology for MoTeCH to community health workers (CHWs) in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Prior to this workshop, much of our field research and testing has focused on building content for our “Pregnant Parents” application, but today we were focused on how MoTeCH can help practitioners deliver high quality antenatal and neonatal health care. (more…)
We are being assisted this week by a crew of Harvard Business School (HBS) graduate students who have volunteered to assist Grameen Foundation and its sister social enterprise in Indonesia, PT Ruma, on developing business plans for some new pro-poor products. The HBS students will spend 2 weeks in Indonesia. During that time, they will review and further develop the business model for the AppLab-sponsored jobs market application, Kerjalokal.com. Their recommendations will fit into Grameen Foundation’s ongoing work to incubate and launch sustainable social enterprises that make use of ICT innovations to help the poor improve their lives and livelihoods.
Posted by: Ross Jaax, AppLab Indonesia Program Manager
As we get underway with our application development in Indonesia, we are looking at those Applications that will assist people in the informal job sector, the source of livelihoods for most poor Indonesians. The informal sector encompasses the lower end of the labor market, for those those working as maids, gardeners, drivers, and other day laborers. It also includes millions of small and medium entrepreneurs (SMEs) who engage in such businesses as selling snack food and sundries from roadside kiosks, cooked food from push carts, and pre-paid airtime for wireless communications. (more…)
Right now we’re in a planning phase—which ultimately means we’re wrestling with the “big” challenges that become even more significant at scale. We’re building partnerships to begin recruiting Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) in early 2010 and that has me thinking about one of those challenges: how do we ensure that female farmers have an equal opportunity to participate as CKWs and that they have the same access to services offered through the CKW channel?
In the pilot we learned that women do most of the manual labor in farming in Uganda and will often be the decision makers when it comes to adopting new agronomic techniques. Our observations also show that they’re less likely to own their own phones and to approach a male CKW. During the pilot, 33% of CKWs were women, but if we really want to reach female farmers we will need to recruit equal women and men to participate in the program and ensure that both enjoy the same benefits. So how do we do it? (more…)
As a part of our MoTeCH initiative, we are holding content workshops to learn more about what types of information local women want and need in relation to their health. In Accra, Ghana, Eve’s Pregnancy School has offered lessons about pregnancy and motherhood to women for over 10 years, and has seen over 2,000 mothers through safe pregnancy and delivery. The founder, Florence, gives bi-monthly classes to pregnant women and mothers; she attended our first content workshop recently and had lots of fantastic input for our program. One of the key takeaways from the workshop was that singing and music is an important part of Ghanaian culture and this class opened with the women singing a local song about womanhood, empowerment, and feminine beauty. It definitely got people excited! Part of the class was then given over to the group chanting “positive utterances” such as “my body is strong”, “i will have a safe delivery”, “my family loves me”, and “my husband loves me”. Teaching was interspersed between these more fun and participatory sessions. (more…)
During the test of concept phase of our Community Knowledge Worker initiative, AppLab Question Box (AQB) was one of the services that the CKWs provided to rural communities. Grameen Foundation worked with Appfrica Labs, and US based NGO, Open Mind, to pilot this service. AQB is a live, local language hotline service that brings the Internet and expert advice to the homes and market stalls of individuals who may never see a computer, visit an agricultural specialist, or read in English. Between April and September, villagers in Uganda’s Mbale and Bushyeni districts had access to the service to ask agricultural, education, recent events and other questions. (more…)
Last week in Uganda I was fortunate to attend a meeting in Busano subcounty, Mbale district, with some of the Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs) – local farmer leaders empowered with mobile applications to improve the livelihoods of their communities by distributing and collecting relevant information about agriculture – and their clients, the smallholder farmers we all seek to benefit. There was a lively discussion of the pros and cons of a variety of information services we have been testing nearby. One farmer, Elias Mabala, then stood up and spoke about how his income improved more than 100% last harvest by virtue of having greater access to market information through the CKW assigned to serve the information needs arising in his village. Stories like that explain why we come to work each day. (more…)
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