800 Women Every Day

One of the first things I see as I walk into the Allversity office every day is our bright, red wall, filled with statistics relating to our four action areas: entrepreneurship, rights, agriculture, and health. As a developmental psychologist and a woman, I find myself returning again and again to the statistics on maternal and infant health around the world.

Every day, 800 women die during pregnancy or childbirth and 8,000 newborn babies die during their first month of life. 3 million infants die every year - mostly due to easily preventable or treatable causes such as infections, birth complications, or prematurity complications. This is a huge number that is often invisible to those of us living in Europe or the industrialized world, because 98% of those deaths happen in developing countries. Yet as global citizens, there is no excuse anymore to sit back and let this happen.

Together with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the international charity Save the Children recently released their 2013 report on the State of the World's Mothers. While great strides have been made in improving the health of the world's mothers and children, the report makes clear that there is still so much work to be done.


Dhaka, Bangladesh. UN Photo/Kibae Park

The study makes five recommendations for improving the health of mothers and newborns. Among these recommendations, one word keeps popping up: Education.

"Educated girls tend to marry later and begin childbearing later in life, when their bodies are more fully developed. They are also more likely to make healthy choices for themselves and their babies."

"Basic education for mothers about the importance of proper hygiene, warmth and breastfeeding for newborns. Increasing the use of these practices can prevent up to 3 out of 4 newborn deaths."

"New frontline health workers, [midwives, and birth attendants] need to be recruited and trained, and those who are already practicing need opportunities to update and improve their skills."

At Allversity, we hear these recommendations loud and clear. That's why we're proud to be partnering with the award-winning Global Health Media Project to spread the word about their short, accessible training videos. With courses like Newborn Care for Professionals, Family Planning, and Child Nutrition, Global Health Media is a vital resource to front-line professionals, parents, and students around the world. They work every day to put critical information into the hands of those who need it most.

As we roll out of beta mode and get ready for our launch, we are working hard to make this information accessible offline, taking advantage of explosive growth in smartphone usage. Downloadable courses can reach anywhere a trainer can travel, internet connectivity or not. There is still much work to be done- translating courses into other languages, creating new segments to address other aspects of human health.

To see how you can get involved, check out our feedback and support link. Consider making a small donation to support our work, or donate to Global Health Media. The solution to this problem is out there. Together we can make it happen.

Author: Sabra Melamed, Fundraising and User Experience Specialist at Allversity.org

Breakfast with a Side of Soil

This morning, accompanied by a butter croissant and a mug of freshly brewed peppermint tea, I set about my work for the day: watching videos. On the menu, a 15 minute and 46 second video about composting.

Whilst crunching down on my delicious baked good I learnt that there are 10 steps to composting. I learnt that there is a layering technique used by composters to ensure balance between carbon and nitrogen deposits in the heap, a balance essential to produce the most fertile compost. I learnt that there are “red wrigglers” (or slimy worms) and microorganisms that work hard to break down household waste into fine, dark, healthy soil; and I learnt that with the help of nature and a bit of patience it’s possible to turn arid or semi arid soil into rich dark fertile soil that can sustain food production.

I learnt all of this from a video accessed for free on the internet created by Garden Africa. The video is the first created as part of a series on sustainable farming techniques. It is designed to teach small scale farmers how to optimise their soil by creating environmentally non-degrading, resource conserving, technically appropriate and economically acceptable farming systems.

Garden Africa is part of a new movement towards the use of online videos as part of  training courses. Online learning resources are fast becoming the new platform for organisations to exhibit their material in an open and vastly more accessible medium. For instance, Garden Africa estimates that their online videos reach an audience three times the size of their more conventional methods of training.

The videos are based on the idea of the “living classroom” that practices ‘learning by doing’, a process of hands on learning engaging pupils with both issues and solutions in tandem. There is little innovative about this technique, it seems like something humans have practiced for millennia; however, innovation lies in the medium. Garden Africa have taken an ancient concept and updated it for the modern era.

A recent internal study showed that the knowledge gained from watching the videos went up from an average of 24% knowledge about compost, to 78% after watching the video. This was further increased to 92% knowledge when the film was accompanied by a trainer. Even more staggeringly though, when asked about practicing the techniques shown to them, over half (56%) said that they would take up the techniques shown to them. This went up to 92% when the video was accompanied by training. Clearly, there is a place for online learning in demonstrating skills based training.

In his 2006 study on the effectiveness of video learning for skills based teaching, Paul Van Mele pointed out that the best case examples were videos that took inspiration from in depth local interactions and multi stakeholder consultations. This ensured that the videos were regionally relevant and geared towards issues and solutions that were both locally doable and locally inspired. Garden Africa’s regionally relevant technique uses a well known ‘storytelling’ device widespread in the intended area that livens up the dialogue and further engages the viewer.

Allversity will soon be creating its very own videos for various subjects. In this pursuit, it is of significant value that the materials be as effective and culturally appropriate as possible. Our brand new entrepreneurship course, planned for development in Kenya in the coming year, will be the first created of its kind at Allversity. We will be taking inspiration from our partners at Garden Africa and Global Health Media Project to produce regionally relevant, engaging material for the next generation of entrepreneurs in Kenya.

The course will incorporate practical information in how to set up and sustain your own business, as well as fostering client and investor networks and helping your business bloom. The course is aimed at passionate innovators both young and old who want to set up their own business, but just don’t know where to get started. As well as this, we hope to have a collection of real life examples from entrepreneurs in Kenya who can tell their own fascinating stories.  

Skills based learning has traditionally been practiced rather than preached through traditional mediums of workshops and one to one training. However, with new developments in universal access to video content on the web, there is no longer a reason for it to stay that way. Demonstrations of skills are not only possible in person but also now on your PC, smartphone or laptop.

As for my own experience this morning, I hope to be in that 56% of people who watch the video and take up practical action in composting, though that is a tale for another time.

Author: Ysanne Choksey, Project Manager at Allversity