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Taking cell phone use to another level
by Henry Neondo, Kenya
2005-03-10

The question of how to reach out to the youth and effect a behavioral change that would minimize the risk of the youth falling victim to the HIV and AIDS, has always remained a challenge among activists and policy makers mitigating against the ravages of the epidemic in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

But now, a partnership that brings together activists, policymakers,local and international companies and trustees operating in Kenya are determined to change all that through an interactive play designed by the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, PATH, Kenya office.

At the centre of the group's strategy is the mobile telephone technology that has come to be handy among the youth, who form the most vulnerable group in the HIV and AIDS epidemic that has so far killed close to 40 million people worldwide, 70 per cent of who from the sub-Saharan Africa and more than 50 per cent of who are youth falling in the age group of 15-24 years, according to the United Nations Agency for AIDS, UNAIDS.

According to PATH, a variety of factors place the young people at the center of HIV vulnerability. These include lack of HIV information, education and services mostly among the young people who become sexually active in their teens and many before their 15th birthday.

These are fuelled by such factors as increasing urbanization, estimated at increasing at 9 per cent annually by the UN Centre for Human Settlement, poverty a and exposure to conflicting ideas about sexual values and behavior and the breakdown of traditional sexuality and reproduction information channels.

The campaign involves the youth, estimated at 50 per cent of Kenya's 30 million people by the Kenya Population Council's estimates and 5 of who get infected with the virus that could lead to AIDS every minute, designing interactive messages on HIV and AIDS appropriate for their peers through the use of Short Message Texts, SMS, in a five month play to be simply known as eQuest.

Launched on Wednesday March 2, 2005, and dubbed Look, Learn and Search,the eQuest will take the SMS in Kenya to the next level, says 20 year old Hubert Nakitare, a popular hip hop musician among Kenyan youths going by the stage name, NoNiNi and chairman of a group of popular young hip hop musicians engaged in the eQuest play known as Vumilia (Kiswahili word for patience).

Hubert says that among the Kenyan and the East African youths, mobile phone has come to be like an additional limb. It is the link to my network of friends. It is my hotline, emergency line and network that anyone in need of getting me has only to buzz and will accessible me. So it is only common sense that you reach out to me via my link on anything HIV and AIDS, he says.

He says that to leave out mobile phone technology in the Anti-HIV and AIDS campaigns is leaving out a significant segment of the population.

He says that the youth have often regarded the numerous anti AIDS campaigns, often carried out with pamphlets and brochures with messages the youth had little to do with, as bitter chloroquine pills being pushed through their throats.

Instead of the intended effect, these have often left the youth bored,angry or completely turned off, adds NoNiNi.

With funding from the Vodafone Group Foundation through the Elton John Foundation,the eQuest is to run for five months.

According to Rikka Trangsrud, PATH-International country director in Kenya, the eQuest is going to give Kenyan boys and girls aged between 15-24 years a way to use their mobile phones and instant messaging to take part in a treasure hunt for life-saving information and win fabulous prizes every week in the process.

While this would not be the first time SMS-based contests is being conducted nor the first time SMS or mobile phone is being used on health care, Rikka believes it would be the first time that the SMS will be used to deliver medical messages to the youth, especially in this part of the world.

The objective of the eQuest, according to Les Baille, the Chairman of the Safaricom Foundation Trustees ( a local subsidiary of the Vodafone, UK) , is to increase youth engagement and participation in thinking about issues around HIV and AIDS through an exciting, fun filled youth friendly contest and event.

The eQuest contest

The contest will be conducted in three 4-week cycles in three separate geographical areas of Kenya, mainly the Coast, the Western and the combined Nairobi/Central/Eastern Provinces, three of the hardest hitregions of Kenya with the HIV And AIDS scourge.

The final two-day cycle dubbed eQuest Dash will be national and end with a mega event lasting one day titled eQuest Electric.

With 52 Short Messages Texts, SMS questions, eQuest is an SMS based question-and -answer treasure hunt contest in which participating youth will find and submit answers.

Questions will be focused on HIV prevention, living with HIV, stigma and care and support but will be linked to youth role models and personalities in music, sports, politics, movies, fashion and entertainment.

A total of sixteen questions per cycle will be released during each of the three cycles of the contest period. Four additional questions during the eQuest Dash will be used to select winners for the grand prize.

Answers would be embedded within a paid for editorial column that will appear once every week in the national newspaper every Sunday and also within sponsored FM radio station programmes during the contest period.

To find answers, contestants will have to read the paper and listen to the FM radio channels. Prizes would be given out monthly based on performance to the 16 questions issued out.

In order to publicize the contest further there will be an eQuest anthem on the subject of Listen, Look, Learn and Play-against AIDS by the Vumilia group, who besides Nonini there is Mercy Myra, Attitude, Jua Cali, Bamboo, Tattu, Chihuahua and K-South Flava.
(Source: AF-AIDS, 8 march 2005).

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