Youth Participation in ICTs for Health Development - Groups - Action Tools

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From:	"Shalala Oliver Sepiso" [ profile ]
Subject:	Shalala's Answers to Week 4 Questions
Sent:	Aug 21st, 2007 - 03:55:47

	My name is Shalala Oliver Sepiso from Zambia and I am the Executive Director of Rescue Mission Zambia, a pioneer youth NGO that mainstreams ICTs into programmatic work and has reproductive health and HIV/AIDS as central working areas. Question 1. How do we make sure that youth and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS issues are included in development plans? + This can only be ensured if youth are represented at all levels of the National Response to HIV/AIDS. In Zambia this means that Youth should be represented at the Community level, District Level, Provincial Level, National Level and special structures such as the Board of the National AIDS Council and Country Coordinating Mechanism for the Global Fund. + Further there is need for declarations and results from meetings that youth convene to be encoporated into the mainstream meetings. This is in luine with government promises such as those made in Agenda 21, CRC, WPAY, African Youth Charter etc. + Lastly, the review of Strategic Plans of Action for the national Response should be done with all stakeholders so that youth issues and other related issues for the minorities are included in the main plans. Question 2. Which youth and Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS issues should be included in local and national development processes? There is need for local solutions to be found for local problems and so generalisations for youth problems or issues that should be considered worldwide would not be valid here. However, youth participation in the planning, implementation, M&E and restrategising of the Plans is cardinal for the ensurance of the success we so much crave in this sub-sector of Health. To however try and answer the questions, issues of Prevention from Infection from HIV, Access to ART, Social Transfers as a mitigation and Solution to Social Effects of AIDS and as an Economic Solution to the Prevention of HIV Infection is also key. Question 3.* * What role can young people play to facilitate the use of ICTs in influencing the mainstreaming of ASRH/HIV/AIDS issues and concerns into national development processes? Firstly, youth can play the role of advocates for the use of ICTs. Secondly, they should be social-entrepreneurs who come up with innovate ICT solutions for the Health sector and indeed the the HIV/AIDS subsector. This is because youth have less responsibilities and they can take risks in coming up with these solutions which in term help the whole community. Thirdly, youth xcan study about current trends in the ICT sector and see how these can help solve the problems faced in the Health Sector and indeed the HIV/AIDS sector. This will involve researching, training, Strategic Technology Planning, Benchmarking, software development, deployment of infrastructure etc. Youth are already doing great things out there. It is just a matter of asking for them to showcase this. Question 4. Which ICTs do you see as "on the cutting edge" or have great potential in AFRICA with regards to health particularly + From my experience, the cutting edge technologies which have a potential of influence on the Health secto are CD ROM, Mobile Phone Technologies and Web 2.0 technologies. + I disagree that Radio and TV have the potential because I think their potentials have already been met and I doubt that there is gonna been much new stuff or services or usage that can change attitudes or dynamics of meeting people. + Mobile phones are all over the place and so if fully utilised, their sheer affordability, easeness for deployment almost anywhere in Africa means that they are a force to reckon with. With SMS and voice recording, thiese can be used to record content in the field which can the be sent by 3G to web-blogs on health. Vice versa, we can us the tags for seraching content online and use voice programs to read the web content to the mobile phone user who then can get responses from the web easily despite not having GPRS etc. +CD ROMs are very handy where there is not connectivity but content is need for publishing. Issues of innovation and creativity being stifled by patent laws can be sold by such attribtution licenses like Creative Commons and this can gives as a tool which can be deployed all over Africa. We Zambian youth are already trying something here. +Web 2.) tools have a way of bringing us together and maimising the impct of web tools in the sector. Usage of such tools like Chisimba and Joomla, the former being the product of African developers at University of Western Cape, allows us to collate, repackage and disseminate content to the people out there on Health and HIV/AIDS. I am currently attending a Regional Portal Workshop in Johannesburg where this is being demonstrated and I already have ideas on how we shall deploy this in Zambia in out HIV/AIDS work as youth. -- Shalala Oliver Sepiso Project Manager - Zambian NGOs eRiding Project Former National Coordinator - YouthIT, Entrepreneurship and HIV/AIDS Project www.rmz.interconnection.org www.eriding.org.zm (Cell) +260 977 930 921 (Fax) +260 211 25352 ssepiso (at) gmail.com ssepiso (at) yahoo.co.uk http://shalalaoliversepiso.blogspot.com/ http://sepiso.wordpress.com http://sepiso.tigblog.org/ !DSPAM:46c9ff6b36935871418449!

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