IFRC: Phone campaign sends messages of hope in Haiti
by Will Rogers, Irish Red Cross
The Red Cross Red Crescent is bringing life-saving health information to the survivors of the Haitian earthquake through a partnership with a local telecommunications company.
Haitians can now call a free mobile phone number to receive updates on Red Cross Red Crescent work to stop the spread of diseases in the many camps set up to shelter those who lost their homes in the 12 January disaster. These include a measles vaccination campaign and efforts to prevent acute diarrhoea.
The information line has been set up by the Haiti National Red Cross Society, the Irish Red Cross and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) in partnership with Haitian telecommunications firm Voila.
Segun Solanke, CIO of Voila Haiti, says: “Working with the Red Cross Red Crescent has allowed us to help get information out to people that will save lives, using technology to bring health messages directly to the people.”
A SMS is being sent out to more than 1.2 million Haitians to inform them about the new service. In the future, the information line will offer information on HIV prevention, condom distribution locations as well as water and sanitation information.
IFRC emergency health coordinator Panu Saaristo described the information line as a great step forward.
”We are now able to disseminate information directly to beneficiaries and know they will receive and understand it,” he says. “We know it works because people are turning up in Red Cross Red Crescent hospitals showing us the texts and asking to get vaccinated.”
The Red Cross Red Crescent information line follows another innovative move by the IFRC and Voila, a SMS campaign that has delivered crucial health messages to 1.2 million phones. The campaign, which has already delivered more than 7 million text messages, is expected to run for another three days.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Nelson Castano, IFRC emergency operations coordinator. “The importance of communicating with beneficiaries has never been so important as in this disaster, and we have to keep moving with these innovations and get as much relevant information out to the people as we can.”
The IFRC is now looking at different ways to use technology to deliver vital information to beneficiaries, including the possibility of using SMS to carry out cash transfers for grants schemes.
The IFRC is working in close collaboration with CDAC, a working group on Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities that brings together leading relief agencies as well as media development organizations to maximise aid effectiveness, accountability and transparency to those vulnerable to or affected by crisis. The group includes the Thomson Reuters Foundation, Internews, UN-OCHA, Merlin, BBC World Service Trust, Save The Children, Irish Red Cross and British Red Cross, and is now working on the ground to deliver crucial information to the people of Haiti.