ITRealms
ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Airtel Nigeria are partnering to expand
their collaboration across all 36 states and FCT in Nigeria, reports ITRealms.
The accord, ITRealms
learnt, allows UNICEF to tap into Airtel’s mobile services to make health,
education, child protection and community-focused content available to Airtel
customers across the country. Through improved connectivity, more Nigerians
will have free access to mobile applications and services developed by UNICEF,
such as U-Report.
UNICEF
Representative in Nigeria, Jean Gough, said “UNICEF is committed to providing
innovative solutions towards better delivery of services and social change.
This partnership with Airtel has the potential to empower millions of Nigerians
through access to information and with opportunities to help them transform
their societies.”
U-Report, which Nigerians could belong to by texting the word ‘JOIN’ to 24453, is a free innovative SMS-based platform that empowers
Nigerians to participate and engage in policy-making and governance and to
access real time information on key social issues. The platform,ITRealms also reports, was launched officially in
Nigeria on 29April, 2015, has over 400,000 registered users, making Nigeria the
leading U-Report platform globally, among 16 other countries that are running
the same application.
According to UNICEF, about 15 million text messages were sent and
received through the U-Report platform while the country battled Ebola in 2014,
ahead of the official U-Report launch this year. The awareness messages and
real time responses via SMS and on the U-Report Social Media platforms sent out
during the Ebola outbreak were able to combat rumours about mythical remedies
such as bathing with hot water and salt and taking bitter kola to cure the
disease. U-Report participants were informed about how to identify the disease,
and how to keep safe.
The support provided by Airtel, ITRealms learnt, has enabled U-Report to grow into a vibrant tool to
empower Nigerians. UNICEF said it looks forward to continued collaboration
and expansion, striving to achieve its target of 1 million U-Reporters by the
end of this year.
ITREALMS ... everything news digitally!
No comments:
Post a Comment