This phase of product development will have the following outputs: 1. We have designed and produced a digital SRH and employment skills education package; 2. We have developed an online/SMS resource hub and clinic finder; 3. We have designed provider training and decision tools and an SMS referral platform.
With the continued co-design and collaboration of Rwandan youth and providers, we developed a suite of digital and SMS tools to help train youth in entrepreneurship, sexual health, and healthy relationships. Our program supports youth to set future goals; access training on employment and life skills; provide accurate, user-friendly information about sexual health and rights; and connect youth to a local clinic via a SMS hotline for SRH services. Cybergirl/Cyberboy Rwanda serves as an aggregator of and connection to other partners in Rwanda offering job training, mentors, and job listings, and will provide practical training on the foundational skills of employment such as interviewing, resume writing, and self-esteem. Our Cybernurse companion tools, funded by USAID, will train providers to offer high-quality services and support unbiased, empathetic care.
Over the past year and a half, we’ve been designing the program in partnership with Rwandan youth and their communities. Using an HCD approach we’ve run multiple interviews and co-design sessions with over 400 youth, parents, health care providers, community leaders, teachers and employers. Early on we learned a lot about not only young people’s needs around sexual health, but the broader reality of their lives, dreams and what they hoped for in their future. This was the foundation of our design.
In 2017, we will be presenting our work to date at the American Public Health Conference 2017, the World Congress on Adolescent Health 2017, the USAID Global Innovation Conference 2017, and YTH 2017. In future, we plan to disseminate this work via academic journals, sector meetings and international conferences (International Conference on Family Planning 2018, American Public Health Conference 2018, Global Digital Health Forum 2018, World Congress on Adolescent Health 2018, and YTH Live 2018). We will also be disseminating and sharing our progress and questions with youth stakeholders who have co-designed this project regularly via WhatsApp groups, Twitter and our Facebook page. We will also pitch the digital and SMS product to our current implementation partners in other countries such as Pathfinder and PSI, as a tool that could be adapted and scaled to other countries. We have shared details and learnings of the project with other funding and implementing partners working in East and West Africa.
As a final step in our research/development phase we will be prototyping tools with providers in May 2018. We will launch a full pilot of the Cyber Rwanda program in late 2018.
