water

In the Spirit of FailFaire: Maji Matone. Time to Embrace Failure, Learn, and Move On

Posted by KatrinVerclas on Dec 14, 2011

Editors Note:  We started Failfaire almost two years ago to create a space where it was ok to be honest in our field of "tech for social change," and admit that many projects that we all undertake do not succeed.  Today is yet another Failfaire here in New York where practitioners come together to discuss how and why our projects failed.  We will be writing about this tomorrow to give you more on the #fails presented, but in the meantime were absolutely astounded today to see the following blog post from Daraja about their Maji Matone project. It takes guts (and foresight) to admit so publicly that this project has not succeeded. We wrote about Maji Matone here before. The project was designed to provide local accountability for water services by way of local, grassroots monitoring via SMS. The post below was oroginally published on Daraja's blog here and is reposted here with Daraja's gracious permission.  We are grateful for the post, and for the honesty.  

Maji Matone hasn't delivered. Time to embrace failure, learn, and move on 

It is no secret that Daraja's Maji Matone programme has not lived up to expectations. In particular, despite considerable resources spent on promotional work - printing and distributing posters and leaflets, as well as extensive broadcasts on local radio - we haven't had the response from the community that we had hoped for.  A six month pilot in three districts resulted in only 53 SMS messages received and forwarded to district water departments (compared to an initial target of 3,000). So we've made a decision - to embrace failure, learn and share lessons from the experience, and to fundamentally redesign the programme.

Admitting failure in this way is easy to support in theory, but much harder to do in practice. It may be accepted practice in the for-profit world, but it's uncomfortable for a donor-dependent NGO. Would it be easier to continue half-heartedly with a programme that isn't working or close it down quietly and hope that nobody notices? Of course it would. But those approaches would not benefit anyone, wasting money and missing out on valuable opportunities to learn. So we're taking a different tack, embracing and publicising our failures, and trying to make sure we (and others) learn as much as possible from the experience

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FLOW: The World Bank and Water Point Mapping in Liberia

Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Sep 12, 2011

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FLOW: The World Bank and Water Point Mapping in Liberia data sheet 1801 Views

(This piece was originally written by The World Bank; it is republished here with permission)

Basic Information
Website URL: 
http://www.waterforpeople.org
Organization involved in the project?: 
The World Bank
Project goals: 

The goal of the project was to create a baseline map of water points in Liberia, using data collected from the Android mobile application FLOW.

Brief description of the project: 

The Water and Sanitation Program (WSP), working with UNICEF and USAID, assisted the government in mapping improved water points in rural Liberia, as well as sanitation in nearby schools, using FLOW. The purpose was to gather information for investment planning, in connection with the preparation of a poverty reduction strategy.


A total of 150 local enumerators were trained in using FLOW-equipped Android phones, provided with motorbikes, and sent out across rural Liberia. Approximately 7,500 improved water points were mapped.

Target audience: 

The target audience is the government of Liberia, as the collected data on water points will be used to assess the areas and regions that need water service improvements most immediately.

Detailed Information
Length of Project (in months) : 
1
Status: 
Ended/Complete
What worked well? : 

The project mapped roughly 7,500 water points in a one-month time period, with a group of 150 contributors participating in the project.

Using mobile phones allowed the data to be automatically mapped using GPS, saving time and eliminating potential transcription errors.

What did not work? What were the challenges?: 

Some challenges included:

  • limited electricity, which made chargine the mobile phones difficult
  • limited network connectivity, which meant that the data collectors had to sometimes come into the office to transfer the data rather than sending it from the field
Links to any evaluations/reports/research: 
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSIT... 


 




  
Maji Matone: Using Mobiles For Local Accountability (and Flowing Water)


Posted by AnneryanHeatwole on Jun 15, 2011


When it comes to water, every drop counts. When a local waterpoint malfunctions or dries up, it’s important to get the problem resolved as quickly as possible. That’s where Maji Matone, a water monitoring and civic participation project in Tanzania, comes in.
 
Run by Daraja, a Tanzania-based NGO, Maji Matone asks villagers to report outages in their water systems via SMS. Daraja employees read through the SMSs, then pass along the information to the local district engineer. The project is currently being piloted in three different districts. Each district has a local engineer responsible for the water infrastructure. If reports continue to come in and no action has been taken, Maji Matone turns to its media partners in order to publicize the lack of action.

    

            

                            

        







 

        
      
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			Maji Matone: Using Mobiles For Local Accountability (and Flowing Water) data sheet 3611 Views			
		

	
	
							

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Animation without Borders: Mobile Cartoons as a Teaching Tool


Posted by MelissaUlbricht on May 14, 2011





 

        
      
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Animation without Borders: Mobile Cartoons as a Teaching Tool data sheet 4808 Views

	
A team of scientists, animators, and educators are working together to create animated videos that can be sent and downloaded to mobile phones around the world. The animations can be done in any language, are targeted toward low-level literate learners, and convey methods to obtain safe water in Haiti or  techniques to farm effectively in Africa, and concepts such as value in a marketplace exchange.


This University of Illinois project is called "Scientific Animation Without Borders", or SAWBO, for short. The project started about a year ago. As the team delivers the animations via mobile phone and other mechanisms, they also hope to deliver a more collaborative and bottom-up approach toward effective educational materials.


MobileActive.org spoke with university faculty and graduate students to hear more about animation, education, and mobile technology.
Basic Information

      
Website URL: 

    

            

                    http://susdeviki.illinois.edu/...        

        





      
Organization involved in the project?: 

    

            

                    University of Illinois        

        





      
Project goals: 

    

            

                    
Short-term goal: Working with educators to help them to demonstrate teaching concepts using visual aids. A longer-term goal is to develop a library of animations with easier access to a wide audience.

        

        





      
Brief description of the project: 

    

            

                    
A team of scientists, animators, and educators are working together to create animated videos that can be sent and downloaded to mobile phones around the world. The animations can be done in any language and are targeted toward low-level literate learners.

        

        





      
Target audience: 

    

            

                    
The target audience is low-level literate learners.

        

        






Detailed Information

      
Status: 

    

            

                    Ongoing        

        





      
What worked well? : 

    

            

                    
Animation is a cost-effective approach to creating multiple language versions of content. The team is able to tap into a volunteer network of translators at the university. The online library allows for peer review of the concepts and content.

        

        





      
What did not work? What were the challenges?: 

    

            

                    
One challenge is that for mobile delivery, access is dependent on bluetooth technology and video-enabled phones.