Yesterday, we had the pleasure of presenting Map Kibera at a networking meeting for organizations who share the common goal of ending gender based violence (GBV) in Kibera. The meeting was led by Population Services International (PSI) and attended by service providers (Kenyatta Hospital) and grassroots groups (Youth Development Forum, Kibera Shelter, Women’s Empowerment Link).
While there was strong consensus around mapping hot spots where young girls are particularly at risk (more on that soon), the most interesting discussion was around making  our SMS short code available to young women for reporting GBV (so far we are planning on using the shortcode for (i) community news reporting to Voice of Kibera; and (ii) SMS responder corps to report on health care and public safety issues). We’ve thought about the question of emergency response quite a bit, and see at least two distinct challenges:
– Emergency Responders- First do no harm. For an SMS responder service to be useful, first there needs to be responders. Folks at our meeting felt this was an ongoing challenge, and there is an effort to create a flow chart of who is responsible for what, where and when when it comes to GBV. When this flow chart is active and in place, it would be great to float the idea of an SMS short code.
– Norms- People know things in Kibera by talking to one another face to face. Reporting something as deeply personal as a sexual assault would require a dramatic change of normative behavior. Like a Ugandan farmer buddy of mine who would rather ride to town (at 3X cost) than use Google’s Farmer’s Friend to get crop growing tips, behavior change is difficult: the payoff has to be overwhelming, obvious and guaranteed.
My hunch, and I’d like to hear what health behavior change folks think, is that our SMS code is better for extracting tacit knowledge that would otherwise stay amongst a small number of people (i.e. there is a drug shortage at this clinic, or, many young girls are complaining about how dangerous the main road in gatwikera village is this week) than for direct emergency response.
Thanks for posting – this is a really tricky question. We’re working on something similar in Benin, and continue to think a lot about it. I actually wrote a couple of blog posts on how we’re exploring some of the questions around this. At this point we are still in process with some technology glitches preventing us from piloting. For me a critical point is involving and engaging those who should be responsible for response from the start (local government, etc.). If there really is no one to respond or who is interested improving the response, then I’d say you might still collect information and use it for the community to advocate around the actual need for resources for those services if it’s a real priority for them. But you need to be very careful how the project/activity is framed then so that expectations are not raised that won’t be met. Here are some thoughts we’ve had around that. Would be great to discuss this more as we’re working on really similar things:
http://lindaraftree.wordpress.com/2010/02/12/7-or-more-questions-to-ask-before-adding-icts/
and
http://lindaraftree.wordpress.com/2010/03/01/finding-some-ict-answers-in-benin/
this is great stuff, Linda. Lets continue to collaborate and share ideas.
I have been discussing this a bit here at the WB Innovation Fair too. My feeling is that we don’t have to decide, we’ll find out what people most want to report, then we’ll do our best to connect with responders or at least follow up from NGOs, etc. It is, potentially, the most exciting impact we could have out of the SMS program but as Linda says, the expectation must be set properly & technology understood (it’s not 911 – but no one expects that anyway). I think people may want to report sensitive information if it can be done anonymously such as via phone AND if they receive a reply or response.