inSCALE Mobile Technology - enhancing community health worker performance and motivation

In Uganda 154 children under the age of five die every day from diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria. The Ministry of Health is using volunteer community health workers, known locally as village health team members (VHTs) to reduce child mortality in the country.

Stephen Alinaitwe, a VHT from Kirimiya village, says he feels lucky to have received a mobile phone from the inSCALE project intended to make his work easier. Using the phone he is able to share his data at the end of every week, speak regularly and for free to his supervisor and VHT colleagues; and use innovative tools such as a respiratory timer for pneumonia to improve his performance. Stephen receives weekly and monthly feedback on his phone, thanking him for his hard work and reminding him how important his job as a VHT is. This feedback, he says, is invaluable.

"I would go as far as to say that these phones can even save lives," said Edmound Kertho, the Malaria Consortium inSCALE project manager.

Country: Uganda

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