Mayange is a cluster of 10 small villages some 40km south of the Rwandan capital, Kigali. The people who live here are mostly those who returned following the genocide in 1994. The area was one of the worst-hit locations during the violence, and in addition has suffered years of poor rains and failing harvests. For these reasons, it was selected for the Millennium Villages project, a partnership between Columbia University's Earth Institute, Millennium Promise and the United Nations Development Program.
The aim of the Millennium Villages initiative is to help rural communities in Africa lift themselves out of poverty. Ericsson, which is partnering with the project, is launching a pilot scheme for a mobile-learning project, which is designed to deliver mobile healthcare education. In the future, healthcare workers will be "taught" through the use of mobile phones.
In the Mayange pilot scheme, which was initiated in November 2007, healthcare workers are using regular GSM mobile phones to access a specific mobile curriculum of healthcare advice aimed at caring for newborn babies and their mothers. The m-learning content has been specifically formulated for healthcare workers of diverse educational backgrounds, and was accessed over an Ericsson EDGE network. The user would log on to a specific web portal, then download the required course, which would then be stored in the handset until needed. For the pilot study, the information was pre-loaded into the handsets.
"Providing content is not rocket science - anyone can do that," says Paul Landers, strategic project manager for Ericsson Global Services. "But we add value to the process, with an architecture that enables us to push training to specific mobile users, then track and manage the content across various audiences and groups." If successful, the initiative could lead the way for a wide range of mobile healthcare, education and general business programs.
The m-learning environment also brings a measure of interactivity with other people through collaborative services. This can be used to good effect, particularly where healthcare services are being offered. One development of the pilot scheme program would be to use the service in the event of a complication during birth. For example, the birth could be photographed or filmed, and the data sent either to a central healthcare center for advice, or to specific websites for learning purposes.
The pilot scheme has been welcomed by Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. As the scheme transfers from pilot to long-term project, it is envisaged that information will be made available both in a range of local languages and in a graphics-only form, to increase availability of the information.
Elaine Weidman-Grunewald, director of corporate responsibility at Ericsson, says: "Our commitment to the Millennium Villages project allows us to apply our core technology for social, economic and environmental benefits. Our approach is not one of charity, but rather to use our core technology for the betterment of society, and to support local sustainability initiatives such as Millennium Villages."
