Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Programs

Learning About Living

last updated Jul 23, 2012

Overview

Implementing organization: 
OneWorld UK (Mobiles4Good)
Implementation Partner(s): 
Action Health Incorporated (AHI), ActionAid Nigeria (AAN), Butterfly Works Netherlands, Education as a Vaccine Against Aids (EVA), Girls’ Power Initiative (GPI), The Federal Ministry of Education Nigeria (HIV/Aids Unit), The Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria
Legal Status: 
Private (not-for-profit)
Year Launched: 
2007
Stage: 
Existing/expansion stage
Income Level of Target Population: 
All income levels

Funding

Primary Source of Funding: 
Donor
Funders: 
Butterfly Works, Finalist IT Group, MacArthur Foundation, Oxfam Novib

Technology

Technology Used: 
Phones › Internet, Computer › Internet, Phones › SMS/MMS (Text Message), Phones › Voice
Technology Purpose: 
Facilitating Patient Communications › General Health Education, Facilitating Patient Communications › Protecting Patient Privacy

Scale

Personnel Employed: 
10-49
Number of Clients Served: 
More than 118,00 youth have used the eLearning platform (as of Apr 2012)
Other Measures of Scale: 
As of April 2012, MyQ had received more than 500,000 questions via SMS
Summary: 

Learning about Living aims help inform and engage young people in Nigeria on issues around sexual health, HIV and AIDS, maternal morbidity and gender violence through a mobile and online platform.

Program goals/rationale: 

Young Nigerians live in a society where their need to know about sexual and reproductive health issues is acute: more than 60% of new HIV infections in Nigeria are in the 15-25 year old age group and AIDS is now among the leading causes of death in this group. Therefore, Learning about Living has three goals: to use ICT to educate young people on issues around adolescent reproductive health so that they can make informed decisions; to improve the information available on sex education and encourage debate; and to help to increase and improve gender equality in a country where male superiority is regarded as the norm.

Key program components: 

Learning about Living comprises an e-learning tool created in 2007 that forms part of the Nigerian Family Life and HIV/AIDS Education (FLHE) school curriculum. ‘eFLHE’ developed by Butterfly Works, dissolves traditional boundaries by providing young people with a route to reliable sexual and reproductive health (SRH) information, negating much of the stigma associated with asking adults or the risks of receiving inaccurate information from peers. Digital ‘peer educators’ in the form of animated cartoon characters provide an emotionally safe route to accurate information for both teachers and students, enabling issues of SRH to be explored in a virtual space that is free from traditional social pressures.

Learning about Living is being piloted in three locations across Nigeria: Lagos, Cross Rivers State and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, and includes two information and advice services. These have been designed in such a way that even the shyest of teenagers can pose questions and receive answers, as they do not even have to say the question out loud.

Through MyQuestion, adolescents submit their questions by text messages, online or through a telephone hotline. The questions are then answered by trained counsellors from the Nigerian NGO Education as a Vaccine Against AIDS (EVA). Such is the need for this kind of service that more than 2,500 questions were received within the first five days.

The second service, MyAnswer, gives young people the chance to win prizes by correctly answering a monthly question. Young people enter the competitions by texting their answer or going online and ten winners are picked and given airtime. The competition opened on December 1, 2007 – World Aids Day - with the question “What is the difference between HIV and AIDS?”

The highly interactive e-learning tool is used in and out of schools and will be available on school laptops from One Laptop Per Child and Intel’s Classmate PC project. It was developed by Butterfly Works from the Netherlands in collaboration with Action Health Incorporated with support from the Nigeria Education and Research Development Council (NERDC).

Additional Information

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