2010

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2008

Mobile Researcher

posted by Tom Farrar on May 14th, 2010

Africaid has just began field research for a study that has been in the making for over a year. After so much buildup and anticipation it is great to finally get things rolling! As the WhizzKids United Health Academy in Edendale will open its doors on June 1st, we are carrying out a baseline survey of a random sample of primary and secondary students in Edendale schools. In this way we hope to produce scientific evidence for the impact of the Health Academy, as well as identifying the needs of its target population so that we can better serve them.

The field researchers are Ms. Lungile Maziya, a research nurse from Edendale Hospital, and Ms. Zanele Khanyile, our own M&E Facilitator. Both of them are a lot of fun to work with, and are great at communicating with the kids.

One of the coolest things about this research is the way we collect data: kids enter the survey on mobile phones! Each question pops up on their screen and they choose their answer. Once they are finished, they hit "Submit" and the survey is instantly uploaded to our supplier′s server over the cellular network (and deleted from the phone)! This method has several advantages:
- No data entry!
- Environmentally friendly (no printing, no stapling, no paper waste)
- Data is more secure
- Respondents find the survey more engaging
- Best of all, respondents have greater privacy during the survey, as a phone screen is much easier to shield from prying eyes than a sheet of paper. If you imagine 40 kids in a cramped classroom answering the question, "How many sexual partners have you had in the past 6 months?" you will understand how important this added privacy is.

I am very grateful to Medical Research Council for their generous support by purchasing 50 Nokia handsets and allowing us to use them for research. The "Mobile Researcher" software and technical support has been provided by Clyral Creative Studios (). We are also thankful to the ten schools in the sample who all readily agreed to participate in the study at such a busy time of year!

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Clarence Primary School, Questionnaire pilot

posted by Tom Farrar on August 17th, 2009

Sanibonani sizwe (Hello world),

In Oli′s absence you′ll be hearing from me the next couple of weeks. We have been running WKU Life Skills Football Training at Clarence Primary School (the site of our head offices) for three weeks now and have completed three sessions: The Goal (which discusses the importance of goals to give purpose both to the game of football and to life), Obstacles-HIV (which talks about obstacles that stand in the way of goals, in football and in life, with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS as we must know all about the opposition in order to defeat it!), and Tactics - Make a Plan (in which kids develop a strategy for remaining HIV-free!)

It is going great, the kids at this school are very receptive and easy to work with. One of the activities in the third session was designed by myself, called yellow card - red card. It draws an analogy between a yellow card in football and being HIV positive, and between a red card in football and getting full-blown AIDS. I was worried that the analogy was too complicated to resonate with the kids but it actually worked quite well in this instance. They were really able to pick up on the point that being HIV positive is not "game over" but that you have to change your lifestyle, eating healthy and taking treatment, just as a footballer with a yellow card must change his tactics and play more conservatively to avoid getting a second yellow which equals a red - just as, if HIV progresses to AIDS, your immune system can no longer fight off infections and very soon it is game over.

Furthermore, we stressed that in life, no one blows a whistle and tells you that you have HIV - you have to get tested before you can know your status.

The programme is not running at the school this week because our staff are really busy with other things. Marcus and Paul are in Malmesbury (near Cape Town) this week training 20 youth workers recruited by Wester

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