The project “Enhancing Access to Health Education via Audiopedia” was awarded to our partner Red Aid Nigeria as part of the EU/BMZ #SmartDevopmentHack at bridging the health and development information gap among illiterate women and girls in Nigeria through the use of smartphones to access audio messages. Its implementation comprised a pilot phase and a 2nd phase.

While broadcasting is the transmission of information to a large group of people and geographic area for instance through radio or television, narrow-casting targets a much more select, defined group and can be done fully offline through devices such as solar audio players or loudspeakers. 

To increase awareness on COVID-19, substance abuse and mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) amongst refugees and those in the host communities TPO Uganda adopted the use of the solar-powered MP3 Audiopedia devices as part of the innovations to ensure continuity.

Unlike commercial radio, community radio works with local communities and helps in catering their specific needs and necessities and works as an innovative tool in bringing social change. Community radios can cover a wide range of topics, including literacy, numeracy, health, farm production, housing improvements, family and personal relationships, sport and leisure. 

If you have created educational audio content for your community, you will most likely want to disseminate it among your beneficiaries. Ideally, you do this through communication channels such as WhatsApp. However, in some cases it is useful to use printed materials such as posters or stickers to distribute a specific internet address where people can access the audio information you created.

Education has always been entwined with class, gender, and ethnicity. Nowhere is this relationship more prominent than Sub-Saharan Africa. According to a UNICEF study, Guinea, the Central African Republic, Senegal, Cameroon, Benin, Niger, and Rwanda are the countries that spend the smallest percentage of public education spending on the poorest households. All of these countries spend 10% or less on educating the poorest households while dedicating 30% to 50% of their public education funds to the wealthiest households.

Many organizations and governments seek to achieve female empowerment through education. Although it is not the only means of achieving it nor the only one stakeholders should be focusing on, it is certainly an important aspect of female empowerment and a powerful tool for change, especially because it allows women to gain access to knowledge that will help them in the agency processes that play a big role in empowering women (Kabeer 2005, 16).

Using your own audio messages in combination with Audiopedia's content can be a good idea if you want to build a digital community outreach for your NGO. In combination with WhatsApp, it can become quite a powerful tool.

Qwifi streams audio to local mobile phones using Wifi and an accessible UI.

The goal of SDG-4 is to achieve inclusive and quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. By 2030, gender disparities in education should finally be eliminated, and equal access to all levels of education should be ensured for both boys and girls. Affordable and quality technical, vocational and tertiary education, including university, should be accessible for really everybody, including persons with disabilities.