A Turn.io-powered chat service is helping The 1000 Days Fund end stunting in Indonesia by giving community health workers a go-to place to find training materials as well as take a certification course – both of which will help improve data, impact and outcomes across Indonesia. The focus of the chat service is on “upskilling” more than 1.5 million community health volunteers across the country.
What is stunting?
According to The 1000 Days Fund, Indonesia, a G20 nation, experiences a high prevalence of malnutrition and is among the five countries with the highest number of stunting cases in the world. UNICEF defines stunting as: “The failure to reach one’s potential for growth – is caused by chronic malnutrition and repeated illness during childhood. It can permanently limit a child’s physical and cognitive capacity and cause lifelong damage.”
About The 1000 Days Fund
The 1000 Days Fund was created as a bold approach to invent and test innovative, cost-effective solutions to help end stunting in Indonesia. The fund is relentlessly committed to improving maternal and newborn health outcomes for the poor and marginalised. It partners with governments to build capacity and works closely with communities to deliver high-quality maternal and newborn health care, address the root cause of stunting, train providers, and advocate for national and grassroots policy change. The programme aims to document, disseminate and enable replication of successes in stunting prevention.
Why 1000 Days?
The 1000 Days Fund deploys innovation to improve antenatal practices in the first 1,000 days, from pregnancy to two years of age. The first 1,000 days is a critical time to enable children to develop their mental and physical capacity to lead healthier and more productive lives.
The Solution
Launched on January 23rd 2022, CeTing is the go-to bot for community health workers to find training materials and a certification course to help improve data, impact and outcomes across Indonesia.
The chat service was built for community health workers, but can also be a tool for everyone, from young adults to grandmothers, ultimately anyone trying to learn everything they can about the first 1,000 days of life. It builds on some of the work already being done by The 1000 Days Fund to deliver vital information and improve maternal and newborn health outcomes for the poor and marginalised.
Through WhatsApp-based conversations, CeTing makes it easier for Community Health Workers to improve their skills and Puskesmas health workers to get Smart Charts wherever they are, increasing public knowledge about ways to prevent stunting. CeTing can reach Community Health Workers, Puskesmas health workers, parents, and caregivers of children everywhere in Indonesia.
Impact and Scaling
The 1000 Days Fund has trained over 5,000 community health workers in the last 24 months with the goal of tackling the problems no one else wants to face. And with 1.5 million community health workers out there, the potential for CeTing to turn the tide on stunting and improve antenatal outcomes at all levels is undeniable.
The fund sees creating the chat service as “an excellent technology investment for the communities we serve in smartphone access and good networks as well as opportunities for CeTing to be adopted on a national scale by the Ministry of Health and the National Population and Family Planning Agency (BKKBN).
“Given the strong consensus that stunting and chronic malnutrition remain the top obstacles to growth here in Indonesia, I’m glad The 1000 Days Fund is standing by children and mothers for the long haul, and helping awaken more interest in training and certification as a driver of women’s empowerment at the village level.” Says Maritta C. Rastuti, Director of Communications
Key learnings from the development of the CeTing chat service for the Chat for Impact Community:
Plan ahead – set your audience list, provide a focused topic and set the learning goals
Test – do initial testing before rolling out and be aware of continuous improvement, be it with content, bugs, and error fixing. Through our experience, it is best to test directly with your audience, and then you have a better idea of their journeys and pain points
Map the entry points – we increase visibility through the existing WA group and provide the wa.me link
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