Local-Language Information for Health and Empowerment
Communities can “make more health” with accurate and accessible health information on how to address common health problems and organize for better health. Hesperian will dramatically increase the reach of proven health resources such as Where There Is No Doctor by making them available in multiple languages via an innovative digital platform. This platform includes Hesperian materials in English, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Kannada, Lao, Khmer, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Filipino, and Urdu through language hubs (mini-websites) co-hosted by Hesperian and its translation partners in many countries. The platform also includes an Adaptation Tool and a Library of 10,000-plus images which will enable users to excerpt and customize materials for local uses and cultural settings.
About You
About You
First Name
Edith
Last Name
Friedman
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Hesperian Health Guides
Organization Website
Organization Phone
510-845-1447
Organization Address
1919 Addison Street, Suite 304, Berkeley 94704
Organization Country
United States, CA, Alameda County
Country where this project is creating social impact
United States
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Local-Language Information for Health and Empowerment
What change do you want to bring to the world?
Communities can “make more health” with accurate and accessible health information on how to address common health problems and organize for better health. Hesperian will dramatically increase the reach of proven health resources such as Where There Is No Doctor by making them available in multiple languages via an innovative digital platform. This platform includes Hesperian materials in English, Arabic, Haitian Creole, Kannada, Lao, Khmer, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Filipino, and Urdu through language hubs (mini-websites) co-hosted by Hesperian and its translation partners in many countries. The platform also includes an Adaptation Tool and a Library of 10,000-plus images which will enable users to excerpt and customize materials for local uses and cultural settings.
What are the primary activities of your project?
1. Creating content for 20 bilingual language hubs (English + local language):
— Convert translated Hesperian material into lightweight wiki-based format for digital distribution
— Increase range of Hesperian materials in local languages (translate new resources)
2. Building out our beta-tested Adaptation Tool
— Incorporate feedback from grassroots partners around the world
3. Building capacity of translation partners to co-host and maintain language hubs
— Technical support to develop and maintain language hubs
— Training on how to use and encourage users of language hubs.
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
All Hesperian materials are created together with grassroots groups who will use them. Through a rigorous process of field testing, groups give feedback that makes our materials uniquely relevant to the needs of poor and marginalized populations. Our partners have translated our health guides into more than 80 languages.
Hesperian’s innovative language hubs and tools allow users to easily access and adapt information in their own languages, or move between languages for training or relief work. (see videos) Up-to-date health information can be shared in diverse communities worldwide.
This innovation will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of health outreach and training in settings worldwide. For example:
A volunteer health worker in Haiti creates Haitian Creole handouts about cholera prevention and treatment:
“I just wanted to send a quick email saying how impressed I am that Hesperian sent out free pdf files of "Where there's no doctor" and other healthcare information in Haitian Creole. In this time of crisis for the people of Haiti, it's great to see an NGO putting people's needs before profit.”
A health educator teaches Burmese health workers using culturally appropriate Hesperian images:
“We showed the downloaded drawings from Where There is No Doctor and taught with the help of a Burmese translator while the students followed in their Burmese copies of Where There Is No Doctor… These volunteers will go where no one else dares and provide a service no one else can. Where There Is No Doctor provides a clear road map for effective action.”
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
Hesperian’s resources are used in over 80 languages in 221 countries and territories around the world. Our core community includes local health workers, teachers, pastors, mothers and other leaders active at the grassroots in both poor urban and rural areas, primarily in the developing world. We also collaborate with international aid workers, medical missionaries, Peace Corps volunteers, and staff from a broad range of health and social justice organizations. Our health guides are essential tools for millions of people across Africa, Asia, and Latin America, as well as a growing number of underserved groups in the United States. Hesperian’s materials are downloaded and distributed widely by community-based organizations, ministries of health, and larger aid and development organizations.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Sarah Shannon arrived as a volunteer in the Salvadoran refugee camps of rural Honduras in 1981 with one suitcase and a copy of Hesperian’s book Where There is No Doctor. Building from the information in the book, Sarah trained health workers, administered refugee health programs, and co-founded a non-profit to teach people with lower literacy skills accounting and administration skills in Honduras and El Salvador for the next 15 years.
In 1996, Sarah joined Hesperian as Executive Director. She pioneered the collaborative resource development model that is now the cornerstone of Hesperian’s health resources. Under Sarah’s leadership Hesperian has worked with hundreds of grassroots groups around the world to create and distribute 11 guides that provide knowledge and inspire action on women’s health, health worker training, dentistry, environmental health, midwifery, and rehabilitation of children with disabilities, among others.
Sarah’s vision has been to expand the range of ways our information can reach diverse audiences – from the most geographically remote to the wired urban. In keeping with this vision, Hesperian is working to deliver multilingual health content on a continuum that encompasses print publications, web-based digital content that can be adapted easily, radio, and mobile platforms. All these channels support use of Hesperian’s trusted source material for local outreach, education, training and organizing efforts for improved community health.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
With over 3 million copies in circulation in more than 80 languages, the World Health Organization has called Where There Is No Doctor “arguably the most widely-used public health manual in the world.” Hesperian books do not sit on shelves but are used, shared, copied and adapted as the centerpiece of community organizing efforts worldwide. We expect that community health workers will use the material newly available on the Digital Resource Center to educate, inspire, and organize for more health and health justice around the world.
Hesperian measures success through periodic formal impact studies with academic partners, ongoing anecdotal feedback from the people who use our books globally, and tracking downloads information from our website. In the last 12 months, over 1 million unique visitors from 221 countries or territories downloaded one or more of our resources in English or Spanish.Recent impact studies of our books by Johns Hopkins and New York University teams show that for every “single” Hesperian book distributed in the developing world, an average of 60 lives are positively affected as people use and share the material. The 3 million copies of Where There Is No Doctor alone have impacted over 180 million people for better health.
Local-Language Information for Health and Empowerment is a project in process, to be launched in October 2011. Once launched, we will measure success by tracking unique visitors and users of the digital platform, number and reported uses of digital and downloaded information, and field assessments of the use of original and adapted content. Based on past use metrics for print and downloadable versions of our guides, we believe our material on the new digital platform will reach over 500 million people in the next three years.
How many people have been impacted by your project?
More than 10,000
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
Winning entries present a strong plan for how they will achieve growth. Identify your six-month milestone for growing your impact
We will add 4 additional language hubs with Hesperian content in local languages to be co-hosted and maintained with international partners.
Task 1
1. Identify and recruit additional translation partners who wish to make local language health resources available digitally and building their international presence.
Task 2
2. Work with partners to build bilingual hubs that serve their local communities and Hesperian’s international audiences.
Task 3
3. Train partners in maintenance of new sites.
Identify your 12-month impact milestone
We will identify and implement pilot revenue streams for translations partners. We will add 5 more language hubs to the digital platform (for empowering health information in 21 languages total).
Task 1
1. Explore and assess potential revenue streams including print-on-demand and fees for institutional access.
Task 2
2. Implement pilot revenue effort(s).
Task 3
3. Revise plans as necessary for ongoing implementation.
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
As more languages are added, refinements will be made to the digital platform tools. Connections between the language hubs and the adaptation tool will be strengthened. Hesperian will also explore opportunities for making content available via mobile phones. Currently Hesperian is working on creating content modules for small-screen navigation in English. Within a three-year window, we hope to solicit language partners to do the same in their local languages.
Systems will be put in place to recruit and train local partners who will maintain and curate additional language hubs (up to 40 languages).
Revenue streams as envisioned within the first year of development will be put in place and functioning smoothly, supporting the work of local language partners and Hesperian.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Lack of internet access and computer literacy in remote communities is a significant hurdle. We plan to target community health groups who serve poor and remote areas with training programs for our tools that can then be implemented and shared by community health workers in their constituent communities.
A potential barrier to the smooth functioning of this project is the political, economic and natural disaster challenges that some of our partners face that may affect their ability to co-host hubs in their languages. Hesperian hopes to provide technical support that minimizes disruptions caused by extraordinary events in other countries.
Fundraising for this free access channel continues to be a challenge in the current economy. However, Hesperian has a range of vigorous fundraising strategies and a 30-year track record of keeping our materials available and updated,and we are confident of developing revenue streams and strategies that will continue to make this material accessible to all regardless of ability to pay.
Tell us about your partnerships
Initial development of the digital platform has been funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation. The University of California at Berkeley’s International Computer Science Institute has worked with us to convert our digital book files into a wiki-based format, and to build a system for cross-language searching in multiple languages. The UnaMesa Association has helped us design the new digital platform.
Hesperian has longstanding relationships with the Peace Corps and CORE Group, who will help us scale up digital distribution. Many of Hesperian’s national, regional, and international partner organizations who use and translate our materials have also signed on to field test the new digital tools, review new health content, and maintain and curate language hubs to support local health outreach. These include Jagruti and CHETNA (India), the Arab Resource Collective (Lebanon), Likhaan Center for Women’s Health (Philippines), AMDV (Honduras), ASECSA (Guatemala), RHEST (Nepal), and Partners in Health (US, Haiti, Central and Southern Africa).
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$100,000‐250,000
Explain your selections
Development of the project has been supported by foundation grants and individual donor contributions. Partner individuals and NGOs in the US and in many countries have contributed over 20,000 volunteer hours to help us develop, field test and refine the new digital tools. We are seeking funding for the next phase of the project from businesses as well as national governments.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
• Support development and launch of more language hubs (up to 40), and work with partners to format content for digital access in these additional languages
• Provide training and technical support to community-based partners who will become self-sufficient in site maintenance
• Support community-based partners to become financially self-sufficient through implementation of revenue streams identified at the 1-year mark.
• Continuing to improve the Adaptations Tool, and develop more templates for easy customization of content
• Build and test the Health Materials Exchange, so users can easily post and share their own health materials for others to use
• Build and test a function that enables partners to share their own illustrations and expand the collection of motivating, community-oriented illustrations in the Image Library
• Continue to explore making our content available on mobile phones.
Challenges
Which barriers to health and well-being does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Lack of access to targeted health information and education
SECONDARY
Limited human capital (trained physicians, nurses, etc.)
TERTIARY
Limited access to preventative tools or resources
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
By providing communities with accurate, empowering health information in their local languages, Hesperian’s project empowers people to take action for health. When people have access to information they can understand and apply to their own social, economic and cultural situations, they can serve as community health workers to improve the health of those around them. And when people are empowered to act, they are better able to educate and organize their communities to tackle the underlying causes of poor health and advocate for the tools and resources they need.
How are you growing the impact of your organization or initiative?
Please select up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
SECONDARY
Grown geographic reach: Multi-country
TERTIARY
Leveraged technology
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
All of these activities are current and related to our project Local-Language Information for Health and Empowerment. We will launch these "complementary services," to expand our reach to multiple countries, via our pilot digital platform in October 2011. Leveraged technology is the underpinning of this project for scaled up distribution of empowering health information.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
Technology providers, NGOs/Nonprofits, For profit companies, Academia/universities.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
Working with community based and international health organizations, and with our academic partners, has helped us develop the technological infrastructure for our innovation, and ensured that it will work for the communities we serve. Collaboration with NGOS and nonprofits has and will continue to help us improve distribution of our resources to rural or marginalized communities. Partnerships with for profit companies will provide sponsorship for building out our digital resources and scaling up digital distribution.
 | 35 weeks agoEdith Friedman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 35 weeks agoEdith Friedman updated this Competition Entry. |
| 35 weeks agoEdith Friedman submitted this idea. |
