Urban informal communities were among the hardest hit due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown. EHSAS (Empowerment, Health and Sexuality of adolescents), a programme at SNEHA (Society for Nutrition Education and Health Action), works with young people from these communities to improve their health and wellbeing. Since the lockdown prevented in-person interventions, the programme strategised to connect with the tech-friendly target group through smartphones. Most of the programme activities were conducted online. Individual and Group education sessions were conducted using Google Meet and WhatsApp calls. Participants were supported to prepare audio podcasts and video clips relevant to the programme, which were circulated to other young people in the community through WhatsApp.
A major drawback of this strategy was that not all participants owned or could access smartphones.
To overcome this challenge, the EHSAS Programme came up with a solution – A ‘smartphone library’ from which participants could ‘borrow’ a smartphone as and when required from a smartphone volunteer living in the area.
There were multiple learnings during and after the implementation of this idea. Tap the link to know about them.
