U Afya – Every1Mobile

Every1Mobile empowers people in low-income communities to improve their quality of life using the mobile phone they already own.  Our community-facing mobile-websites and apps encourage real-world behaviours that improve well-being; change harmful social norms and deliver interactive, hyper-localised learning experiences.

U Afya, is our digital behaviour change platform which has empowered over 10,000  young mothers and mothers-to-be across Kenya to improve their own and their families health and wellness outcomes.  

On U Afya, women connect with their peers in a supportive community, engage with interactive learning content, build their confidence through sharing their own experiences, and are motivated and supported to practice real world health and hygiene behaviours including hand washing with soap, balanced nutrition and menstrual hygiene. 

When COVID-19 hit, we leveraged U Afya to deliver a rapid community-level response through delivering COVID-19 specific learning content and training women to become volunteer Behaviour Change Ambassadors in their communities who share information and advice on COVID-19 prevention. 

Despite COVID-19 lockdowns and movement restrictions we have been able to continue our programme delivery, monitoring and evaluation.  Our digital approach enabled us to work remotely, share accurate information quickly, adapt content as the pandemic evolved and engage communities safely and at scale.  

Our impact so far includes:

• Over 10,000 women are members of our U Afya digital behaviour change platform. 
• Over 2,250 women completed our e-learning course on household hygiene practices.
• Over 2,900 women completed the ‘10-day Handwashing Challenge’ which encourages regular handwashing  with soap.
• Over 1,500 women became volunteer COVID-19 Prevention Ambassadors protecting themselves, their families and their communities from COVID-19.
• Over 9,100 real world COVID-19 prevention actions were reported by women on U Afya, such as installing handwashing stations in public places or teaching neighbours about handwashing with soap.

As COVID-19 continues to restrict face-to-face interaction the need and demand for accessible digital solutions has never been greater.  U Afya demonstrates a scalable, impactful and cost-effective digital solution to tackle social injustice and empower low-income communities with the knowledge, confidence and skills to change real-world behaviours and could be replicated across a wide range of social impact areas.