More Digital Solutions
We have launched other apps and digital solutions for specific situations, and each one shows a little more about how we have trained our team to see problems and find creative answers!
“I arrived to the meeting bashful because thought Equip Mozambique was tiny compared to the other organizations, but I realized that what we had accomplished was so much more than I had imagined!”
-Ebel Chimunthu
AIDai
Relief in the midst of disaster
Cyclone Idai was a Category-3 hurricane that devastated our whole region of mid-Mozambique in March 2019. It was the deadliest natural disaster of the year, with over 1,200 deaths from the storm and the floods.
Relief organizations poured into the area to try to bring help: doctors would meet under canopies for pop-up clinics to treat the wounded, trucks would open up the back to distribute food, schools would be converted into shelters for those who lost their homes. The problem was that many times, these relief efforts were very hard for people to locate because their setups were temporary and always moving.
In the midst of that challenge, and even without consistent electricity and internet, the Equip Mozambique Tech Team quickly created and launched this app, called AIDai, with a live map that showed survivors where they could the relief they needed.
"I got to take part in a meeting between huge international organizations like the United Nations and Red Cross, and when I arrived I felt so small! I thought, 'Who here has even heard of Equip Mozambique?' Then much to my surprise, the director of the World Food Program stood and said that AIDai was so helpful that they were using for many disasters, even beyond our cyclone! I arrived bashful because thought we were tiny, but I realized that what we had accomplished was so much more than I had imagined!" -Ebel Chimunthu, former leader of the Tech Team
Relief organizations poured into the area to try to bring help: doctors would meet under canopies for pop-up clinics to treat the wounded, trucks would open up the back to distribute food, schools would be converted into shelters for those who lost their homes. The problem was that many times, these relief efforts were very hard for people to locate because their setups were temporary and always moving.
In the midst of that challenge, and even without consistent electricity and internet, the Equip Mozambique Tech Team quickly created and launched this app, called AIDai, with a live map that showed survivors where they could the relief they needed.
"I got to take part in a meeting between huge international organizations like the United Nations and Red Cross, and when I arrived I felt so small! I thought, 'Who here has even heard of Equip Mozambique?' Then much to my surprise, the director of the World Food Program stood and said that AIDai was so helpful that they were using for many disasters, even beyond our cyclone! I arrived bashful because thought we were tiny, but I realized that what we had accomplished was so much more than I had imagined!" -Ebel Chimunthu, former leader of the Tech Team
Kultuare
Helping churches in the pandemic
The Covid-19 pandemic affected Mozambique as well, and all churches were forced to close completely for several months in 2020. When the government finally allowed them to reopen, it was with very stiff restrictions on mask wearing, sanitation standards, building capacity, social distancing, and contact tracing. The latter proved to be a huge headache for churches, as they were required to register every person who walked in the door, and not just their name, but their age, address, contact information, and several other points.
Two of our workers, Alex and Felizardo, served on their churches' registration teams to write all these details down on paper for every person who walked in the door, and they found it to be extremely time-consuming and cumbersome. They saw this problem and both thought, "Could we create an app for this?"
They pitched their idea to the Equip Moz leadership for a church registration app, and they received full approval to develop and launch the app, which they completed in only 3 weeks! This took the time needed to register all incoming church attendees from up to 1 hour of handwriting down to about 10 minutes of quick digital work.
Two of our workers, Alex and Felizardo, served on their churches' registration teams to write all these details down on paper for every person who walked in the door, and they found it to be extremely time-consuming and cumbersome. They saw this problem and both thought, "Could we create an app for this?"
They pitched their idea to the Equip Moz leadership for a church registration app, and they received full approval to develop and launch the app, which they completed in only 3 weeks! This took the time needed to register all incoming church attendees from up to 1 hour of handwriting down to about 10 minutes of quick digital work.
HLink
Health referrals that work
In 2020, our Tech Team was able to participate in a global Hackathon initiated by MIT that called for teams to create ideas to help African health systems through the Covid-19 pandemic. Our team noted the extreme difficulty in finding help and resources like tests and treatments when they were scarce. To make matters worse, there is almost no communication between health institutions like the hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies, so if one place cannot help someone, they don't know where to refer them to with any certainty that they would be helped at the next place. As a result, many sick people are sent on a wild goose chase from one clinic or pharmacy to another looking for help or specific medicines, only to be turned away repeatedly.
HLink is a system for the health community to keep better track of their inventory with connection to other locations as well, so that if they can't help, at least they will know with certainty who can. While the original inspiration came through the pandemic, this was a much deeper issue that affected people's interactions with the health community long before that, and continue to be a constant frustration until a better system is implemented.
HLink is a system for the health community to keep better track of their inventory with connection to other locations as well, so that if they can't help, at least they will know with certainty who can. While the original inspiration came through the pandemic, this was a much deeper issue that affected people's interactions with the health community long before that, and continue to be a constant frustration until a better system is implemented.
See Our Other Apps
