Cell-Life Pilot Project: "Cellphones for HIV"

Background

As a pioneering not-for-profit company Cell-Life will be the the first organization to utilize Mobilisr in their "Cellphones for HIV"-Project.  The Cellphones for HIV-project will run two pilots.  The first pilot was launched in partnership with the TAC (Treatment Action Campaign) and other organizations working in HIV/AIDS in July 2008.  The second pilot was launched in partnership with Soul City in August 2008.  These two pilots will run until the end of 2008.  We are building an open source mobile platform with Praekelt Foundation and Upfront Systems. The aim of both pilots was to conduct research into the information needs for HIV infected & affected target audiences.

Pilot #1:  Treatment Action Campaign

The TAC has decided to use the Western Cape province as their test case for Mobilisr. TAC works with people of all ages infected by HIV and their loved-ones.  Their focus is on treatment literacy and access to ARVs.  Information will be provided to TAC members (there are over 6,000 in the province) and the wider HIV community.  The project will directly work with the 60 TAC branches and their 40 ‘Treatment Literacy Practitioners’ (community trainers).  Apart from working with the TAC, the project is also working with over a dozen other community HIV organisations in the province (from churches, community organisations, trade unions, NGOs).  Discussions have started with the provincial Department of Health on how to link the system to their clinics and health professionals.  Tshidi Telekoa has been hired as the coordinator of this project (tshidi@cell-life.org.za).  This pilot launched on 25 July 2008. 

Click here to read more about the work of the TAC.

Pilot #2:  Soul City

In the second pilot in partnership with Soul City, Mobilisr supports the work of Soul City in two ares: their broadcast communications and also their ‘Soul Buddyz Clubs’-initiative. Soul City primarily works on prevention of infection and general health messaging.  Their 'Soul Buddyz'-initiative focusses on children and youth. Mobilisr is used in prevention messaging to the club members as well as for organisational linkages.  We are also planning to provide cellphone information to support Soul City's mass media programmes, particularly their radio programmes, to be broadcast from September 2008 onwards in 9 South African languages. 

Click here to read more about the work of Soul City.

Using Mobilisr in these pilots

In these 2 pilot projects, we are currently using Mobilisr in the following ways:

• SMS module - we are using this for broadcasting information to a wide audience of contacts; subscription services (e.g. Positive living messages daily); explaining acronyms (e.g. PEP, PMTCT, ARV etc);
  
• USSD module - we are using this to send interactive requests for certain standard HIV information; polls which allow a question to be asked via SMS to a group of people, who can reply giving their view; and free-text question asking anything on HIV which we will be piloting with the National AIDS Helpline. 
• MXit module - we are using this as a low-cost platform for interaction between some people we can train (e.g. the secretaries of TAC branches), and for communicating with the youth.

We are also exploring using Mobilisr in these ways:

• Voicemail module - we are exploring to use Mobilisr to react on requests for information from the target audience through them sending us a PCM (Please Call Me - which is a free message), by sending a short pre-recorded voicemail to their inbox, which they can listen to at their convenience.
• Campaign Building module - we are planning to use this moduel as a service to strengthen the internal workings of the organizations (e.g. sending minutes, updates and reports between province, district and branch levels)
• WAP module - we are testing some ways of delivering WAP-content around HIV directly to WAP-enabled mobile phones.

Research

There are two research parts to this project:

1.  Dr William Mapham is doing the information needs analysis research. A report has now been produced and is available on request. This reports covers:

• what information and services are of use to people infected or affected by HIV;
• information needs at different stages of the condition
• issues of content style, format, language and psychology of receiving HIV related information; and
  
• what information can be effectively provided by cellphones. 

If you would like a copy of this report, please contact peter@cell-life.org.za

2.  Dr Donald Skinner of Stellenbosch University has started a research piece about:

• monitoring and evaluation of the pilots,
  
• producing ongoing feedback,
  
• an evaluation report and
• recommendations for the second phase of the project.

Project Partnerships

Content for the pilots will be provided by the pilot organisations, TAC and Soul City, as well as the Community Health Media Trust, the organisation that makes the ‘Beat it – Siyanqoba’ TV programmes.

Cell-Life is also discussing content partnerships with LifeLine (who run the National AIDS Helpline),  and the AIDS Portal.  

Cell-life has a seat on the newly-formed Communication Task Team of the SA National AIDS Council (SANAC) and we are encouraging the HIV sector to consider cellphones as a mass media for HIV messaging. We also will be running a bulk SMS service for the SANAC secretariat.

loveLife's MYMsta system
loveLife has launched a useful cellphone-based  service for youth. An integral part of their “Make Your Move” campaign has been the creation of MYMsta - the world’s first cell phone-based social network dedicated to youth empowerment and HIV prevention.  Cell-Life supports this and will link this with our Cellphone for HIV project.  For more information, conect on this link from your mobile phone: www.mymsta.mobi

Contact the project leaders

If you are interested in further information, please contact Peter Benjamin at Cell-Life, peter@cell-life.org.za, +27 (21) 469 111 or +27 (0)82 829 3353