Adolescence and youth in both rural and urban Kenya access new information, values and ideas through ICT. This project will leverage mobile technology and sms messages to establish an interaction system where teenage parents receive three sms per week with psychological, social and financial solutions. And especially the ability to ask and receive answers that they don't dare to ask for cultural and stigma reasons. We shall impact up to 1000 teenage parents in Kenya within 3 months.
Teenage parents face pressure and stress in balancing their transformation to adulthood, parenting and their careers. They must provide greater support for their children while they themselves may feel alone and excluded.They in turn develop psychological turmoil and feel rejected by their respective societies. This project seeks to optimize the opportunities offered by telecommunication networks and coalitions by using the benefits of new technologies to change interest to solution seeking.
A pilot scheme consisting of a platform for sending text messages to a base of 1000 telephone numbers registered by teenage parents will be established. A manual subscription option will be allowed by sending sms with the word WELLBEING to a short number to be determined. Three posts will be sent weekly with questions welcomed in order to generate opinion and know those aspects of interest in teenage parenting. Facebook will be a channel for publishing extended answers to the day's questions.
Information will be shared beyond 1000 teenage network of contacts, increasing interaction among young people and improve sexual and reproductive health information. The teenage parents will participate in knowledge fair events and be able to advocate for issues within and beyond their traditional local limits and quickly transmit new information through online tools. Teenage parents will use the benefits of new technologies to change its challenges to solutions.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
