Information provides real benefits for drought-hit communities and ActionAid alike
Late last week, ActionAid won a Technology4Good Innovation Award for their work using FrontlineSMS to communicate with staff and communities in Isiolo, Kenya, during the response to the recent drought in the Horn of Africa. Together with our partners, Infoasaid, who supported the deployment, we are very proud to be associated with their ground-breaking and crucial work. Bravo ActionAid! Below is an extract from a blog post describing the programme... Read More
Why Version 2? The story behind the FrontlineSMS redesign
The team on the launch day - final hours! Photo credit: RickRoxburgh.com Three weeks ago, FrontlineSMS launched its first new full release in over a year. Today, we’re releasing version 2.0.2, which includes useful bug fixes and small tweaks to the functionality that make it even easier to use. You can expect regular releases from us from now on, with new features coming out every couple of months. Check out our launch blog post, and our Version... Read More
New Resource: Using SMS as an Effective Behavior Change Campaigning Tool
Photo: Text to Change Behavior change campaigning is inherently interactive. In order to encourage positive behavior change it is important to not only push campaign messages out to people, but to listen to the responses. To run a campaign which has a real impact, you need to listen to ensure you’re being heard. This is one of the main reasons why SMS – as a widely accessible and inherently interactive communications channel – is an... Read More
Planet Text: How SMS is Changing the World
Recently a fun infographic was shared with the FrontlineSMS team, which visually explores the impact SMS is having across the world. Check out the description and the infographic itself below. Try looking up the average human attention span over the last decade — you’ll likely notice that it has decreased significantly. With the advent of the Internet, a near golden-age in video game design, and the proliferation of mobile devices,... Read More
Supporting Education through SMS in Kyrgyzstan
IREX is an international non-profit organization working on education, independent media and civil society development. Recently, they have been using FrontlineSMS as a tool for efficient management of their Global Connections and Exchange (GCE) and Digital Youth Dialogue (DYD) programs in Kyrgyzstan. In this guest post IREX’s Myahriban Karyagdyyeva and Tynchtyk Zhanadylov explain how their use of FrontlineSMS is making a difference in their... Read More
Combating food insecurity in Northern Kenya
infoasaid is a consortium of Internews and the BBC World Service Trust. The objective is to improve how aid agencies communicate with disaster-affected communities – the focus is on providing humanitarian information. The emphasis is on the need to deliver information, as aid itself, through the most appropriate channels. In this guest blog post first published on their website, infoasaid highlight some of the innovating approaches they... Read More
Future proofing child protection in Benin
Regular readers of the FrontlineSMS blog may remember the FrontlineSMS case study we published last year, documenting Plan International‘s project on SMS Reporting and Tracking of Violence against Children (VAC) in Benin. In this re-post, from Linda Raftree’s blog Wait… What, Paul Goodman talks about the tools he is using to support Plan Benin for more effective and sustainable programme management. There is more on the overall... Read More
Learning more about FrontlineSMS users: Results from our first ever survey!
Offering FrontlineSMS as a free software download has proved a successful way to help many non-profits; but it’s an approach that doesn’t come without its challenges. There are many cases of our software having a positive impact on people’s lives which the FrontlineSMS team and other FrontlineSMS users remain oblivious to. At the end of 2010 our software had been downloaded 12,500 times and was being used in 60 countries across the world. Yet... Read More
FrontlineSMS:Legal – Running Justice’s House
By Sean McDonald. Re-posted from FrontlineSMS:Legal blog “Every day, dozens, if not hundreds, of people line up in front of each Justice House, seeking help to resolve life’s challenges. They wait, patiently, for hours, to approach the information desk, where they receive a simple intake form (name, age, gender, address, mobile phone number, cause of complaint, etc.). This form is then handed back to a lone information desk attendant,... Read More
Plan International case study: helping children report abuse in Benin
We’re delighted to announce the publication of the first in our series of in-depth case studies of FrontlineSMS implementations, from Plan International, documenting their work in Benin to develop and pilot a Violence Against Children SMS helpline. Linda Raftree, who many of you will know as @meowtree on Twitter, has written extensively about the programme on her blog, but the case study tries to pull out a bit more of the institutional processes... Read More
