Public Health Awareness Tools

An Innovative Approach is Developed

The Somali Response Innovation Lab (SomRIL) began leveraging our network before a confirmed COVID-19 case in Somalia. Working with various innovators, we developed public health messaging in local Somali languages to reach across the country through a network of partners. By March 2020, the RIL had four videos in wide circulation that the RIL's innovation partners produced on a pro-bono basis. The videos were the first Somali language public health tool for the country. As a result, these materials circulated widely, and the RIL found itself at the forefront of a public health awareness campaign for Somalia.

A co-creation process was used to gather input from the government, humanitarian actors, the private sector, donors, and academia to inform the videos and the distribution. The focus was to bridge global and local expertise, quickly determining local needs and priorities, and contextualize inputs from these actors into the execution. Additionally, by involving actors in the video development, they became vested in its success and supported the wide endorsement, adoption, and dissemination across Somalia.

The approach utilized by the RIL in Somalia was turned into a framework that could be replicated for other responses - the Adaptive Response Messaging (ARM). Humanitarian actors in Yemen approached the Somali RIL to replicate this approach in a small-scale pilot that was completed with wide success in December 2020.  The content has been endorsed by the Somali government (Ministry of Health). It can also be found in the official Repository of COVID-19 Resources under the joint coordination body between the Ministry of Health and the UN, the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) taskforce.

Due to RIL's early mobilization of ARM, the materials have been widely shared on social media, through official communication channels, embedded into digital beneficiary registration processes, audio clips used as pre-recorded messages for COVID-19 hotlines, television, and much more.

Innovators, Videos, and Channels

RIL supported the development of messaging tools through three main partners:

OGOW EMR: A Somali health-tech start-up with an Electronic Medical Records platform incorporates a Somali language public health library. The RIL supported them in developing videos targeted to adults and health care workers. 

• COVID-19 Awareness

• Basic Protective measures against the new Coronavirus:

  • Protecting our communities and elders

  • COVID-19 Self-Assessment tool

  • PPE (medical and cloth masks)

  • Islamic Burials

  • Nutrition and dietary diversity

  • Business continuity (under development)

  • Vaccine awareness (under development)

Poet Nation Media: The RIL partnered with education-entertainment innovators, Poet Nation Media, to build off their early childhood education program called Geedka Mooska. Together, we developed a segment called Hiddo & Hirsi – the Protector Twins. These twins envision themselves as superheroes protecting their community from the Coronavirus and show how they deal with closed school challenges, psycho-social and mental health awareness, gender inclusivity and handicap representation, and much more! The stories creatively wove together Somali folktales and proverbs and gave them a fresh spin on current events. 

• Episode 1 – wearing a mask

• Episode 2 – do something to keep your minds busy

• Episode 3 – Wash your hands

• Episode 4 – Physical distancing

• Episode 5 – Emotions and feelings

• Episode 6 – Learning at home

• Episode 7 – Vaccine awareness (under development)

As part of this initiative, a case study video was also created to provide some background on the process: Behind the Scenes of Hiddo & Hirsi.

IMS Radio Ergo: RIL is partnering with International Media Support (IMS), which runs the Radio Ergo platform in Somalia. This short-wave radio broadcast covers the entire Somali-speaking region, and their partnership with 18 local FM partners rebroadcast their programs. Together we have developed a radio drama that will entertain listeners and address COVID-19 related subject matter.

• Scene 1 – Clean hands

• Scene 2 – Cover your cough with a bent elbow

• Scene 3 – Don't touch your face

• Scene 4 – Keep a safe social distance

• Scene 5 – Stay at home, if you can

• Scene 6 – What to do with symptoms of COVID-19

• Scene 7 – Is it flu, or is it corona?

• Scene 8 – Keep your cough and sneeze to yourself

• Scene 9 – Keep your distance to prevent COVID-19

• Scene 10 – When to wear masks and gloves

• More episodes were broadcast on the radio: click to view

Somaliland specific video: To address concerns from the Somaliland Ministry of Health, the RIL worked with Somaliland actors Shaqadoon and HarHub to develop a Somaliland-specific message. 

• COVID-19 is Still Posing a Risk: click to view

Analytics of Public Health Videos

The videos have been disseminated near and far in Somalia, as well as beyond the countries borders. Here is the breakdown:

• The videos were widely shared over social media across Somalia and even reached Somali-speaking regions in Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Yemen. 

• The radio drama was broadcast via the Radio Ergo short wave radio platform (along with rebroadcasting from their 18 local FM partners), covering up to 60% of the Somali-speaking region.

• The videos' scripts were well researched by professional and reputable sources and used as public health tools and training (i.e., training COVID-19 call center staff).

• The Cash Consortium embedded one of the videos into their beneficiary registration process.

• Hiddo & Hirsi was broadcast on local TV.

• Videos shared by numerous social media influencers and had a combined estimate of 1,000,000 views.

Given the nature of developing open-source tools, it is hard to know the full scale of other actors' adoption and usage. The RIL will continue to evaluate the effectiveness of this campaign and approach (ARM) in 2021.