Since January I have been working on a social impact project called ChatSalud, which was started by a group of Peace Corps Health Volunteers. I can't take credit for the innovative idea as that was all health volunteers, but I was asked to get involved in ChatSalud to leverage my finance background and sort out the project's finances.
ChatSalud is a free and anonymous text messaging service to educate rural and urban Nicaraguans on safe sex practices, HIV AIDS prevention, and reproductive health in rural areas via text messages. One thing that was surprising to me when arriving to Nica is that everyone has a cell phone, whether they have electricity or not. It’s pretty common to bum electricity off a neighbor or business to charge your cell phone and everyone has one. There fore about 90% of Nicaragua can be reached via their cell phone and have service to access ChatSalud. Users text a message to the mainframe and then receive a menu with a list of topics they can read about via text. The user and system keep going back and forth in a "pin-pong" like fashion until the user is satisfied with the information. Of course these text messages and mainframes cost money so we have been working on getting investors to buy in. We believe this system will be extrememly successful given that one of the largest barriers to sexual health education is “pena”. This Spanish world does not directly translate well to English, but basically means embarrassment. Nicaraguans don’t like to talk about subjects such as sex, sexually-transmitted diseases, or contraceptives. Also most rural Nicaragua communities are so small that every one knows everyone’s business. If a young girl were to walk to the health clinic, every one in her town would know and possibly start roomers. We hope ChatSalud’s anonymous system, to the point that we can’t even see the number texting in to the system, will help break down this barrier known as pena.
ChatSalud is a free and anonymous text messaging service to educate rural and urban Nicaraguans on safe sex practices, HIV AIDS prevention, and reproductive health in rural areas via text messages. One thing that was surprising to me when arriving to Nica is that everyone has a cell phone, whether they have electricity or not. It’s pretty common to bum electricity off a neighbor or business to charge your cell phone and everyone has one. There fore about 90% of Nicaragua can be reached via their cell phone and have service to access ChatSalud. Users text a message to the mainframe and then receive a menu with a list of topics they can read about via text. The user and system keep going back and forth in a "pin-pong" like fashion until the user is satisfied with the information. Of course these text messages and mainframes cost money so we have been working on getting investors to buy in. We believe this system will be extrememly successful given that one of the largest barriers to sexual health education is “pena”. This Spanish world does not directly translate well to English, but basically means embarrassment. Nicaraguans don’t like to talk about subjects such as sex, sexually-transmitted diseases, or contraceptives. Also most rural Nicaragua communities are so small that every one knows everyone’s business. If a young girl were to walk to the health clinic, every one in her town would know and possibly start roomers. We hope ChatSalud’s anonymous system, to the point that we can’t even see the number texting in to the system, will help break down this barrier known as pena.
We have already had buy-in from a company called CRONOs who
has sponsored servers for the mainframe.
Also one of the largest cellphone service providers Claro has agreed to
sponsor all incoming and outgoing text messages, which alleviates a huge
expense. Several Nicaragua universities have provided student programs to help set-up the system and keep it running in a sustainable manner. The next step was to meet with NGOs in Nicaragua that work in the health, women's rights advocation, HIV AIDS and technology sectors. To name a few that were present: Red Cross Nicaragua, Pro Mujer, ASONVISIDA, Teran Foundation. We met a the Word Bank where Nishant(ring leader) presented ChatSalud and how we hope to launch a three month pilot to start. Everyone was extremely receptive and thought it was a great idea! We formed committees to share responsibilities such as management, content development and advertising as we want this project to eventually be owned by Nicaraguans, not us volunteers. It was amazing to see about 30 of Nica's most influential business men, NGOs, and academics gathered around an oval table at the World Bank! It's been amazing to be a part of something so entrepreneurial and innovative in the social sector. Sadly I won't see the project all the way through since I will be leaving soon for grad school, but I hope that I find myself looking at a similar opportunity to get involved in the future in the social impact space.
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