Physical Health Guinea Project #17834

Info Saves Lives: Ebola Outbreak in West Africa

by Internews

Project Report | Jan 11, 2016
Guinea - Ebola-Free; Update on Dashboard

By Amanda Frankel | Project Leader

The Humanitarian Dashboard

The last known Ebola victim in Guinea recovered last November, signaling the end of the Ebola crisis - not just in Guinea - but across the entire region. After waiting the recommended 42 day incubation period, Guinea has been declared “Ebola-free.” Sierra Leone was declared Ebola-free on November 7^th, and Liberia is on track to be Ebola-free on January 14. Health officials are hopeful that no new cases of this deadly virus will develop in the region. Your partnership helped us to get the news and information about the disease and how to prevent it, through traditional media channels, door-to-door outreach, SMS and more, while also enabling us to launch the “Humanitarian Information Dashboard” and the Rumor Tracker, which was critical in helping to quickly collect data about rumors and misinformation surrounding the disease and using the appropriate channels to dispel them. Now, Internews is focusing on helping communities recover.

Special Update: The Humanitarian Dashboard

The Humanitarian Dashboard is here! We’re pleased to announce that the prototype for the Dashboard was completed a few months ago. The “Dashboard” prototype, designed for low bandwidth and with a responsive design interface, was created using funds from GlobalGiving to simplify and automate the flow of information in the context of the Ebola outbreak. (it works like a “Tweet Deck” for humanitarian information)

The prototype was tested in a country field office in Liberia during the Ebola outbreak. Here’s an overview of what we created and learned in the process.

Model: The Humanitarian Information Dashboard

The Humanitarian Information Dashboard detects trending issues and conversations in targeted local communities, and identifies rumors, misinformation and information needs as they arise. The software is designed to work with outreach workers from partner organizations and other stakeholders, as well as local journalists, who are trained and mentored by Internews staff to report and respond to rumors and information gaps through various channels including SMS hotlines and information helpdesks.

Information entering the system is categorized and tagged against a variety of metrics including urgency, relevance and location. The Dashboard can also track relevant Facebook groups, hashtags on Twitter, news feeds and influential bloggers, including those from the diaspora, mapping these online conversations and triangulating with the information received from outreach workers, journalists and the community.

The information gathered and processed by the Dashboard is fed back to the humanitarian community in a weekly update that highlights trending issues by community or area, identifies the most prevalent rumors and concerns, provides insights into local and social media coverage, and provides recommendations for addressing the information needs and gaps identified. These updates are compiled and edited for distribution targeting both the local media and locally based humanitarian actors.

Internews will help translate the rumors into relevant story-ideas supporting local media to turn these rumors into appropriate media-outputs, while encouraging local media to become more inclusive and improve participation, to have them fully play their role as “mediators” between the affected community and the humanitarian actors (including local government). The Dashboard will facilitate direct two-way communication with communities, journalists and outreach workers who submit queries to the system. If a rumor or information request is submitted and categorized by the system and a verified response exists, a response via SMS or email is triggered to the user. Eventually the system should direct users to a detailed recorded response generated by journalists and other community leaders and made available to users through a mobile handset.

Experience teaches us that during a time of crisis, when information overload - including information campaigns set up by humanitarian partners - is combined with huge information gaps, presentation is a key-element to make sometimes dry and technical information accessible to large audience. That’s why we aimed to make the Dashboard as easy-to-use, responsive and comprehensive as possible for those using the software.

Why the Dashboard is so valuable

During the development of the prototype, we learned a lot about what makes the Dashboard great and what we can do to improve its effectiveness during the next humanitarian emergency.

The Dashboard is more efficient

Reduced manual effort of day to day tasks around information flows and analysis (we used to create these reports manually and feed them back into the media and to humanitarian responders, and this simplifies and automates the process)
Improved team coordination opportunities
Improved usability and ease of system use contributing to increased productivity

The Dashboard is more effective

Increased analysis capability by field teams
Improved data or information validity through increased data handling, machine processing and improved accessibility to information
Improved information visibility within teams
Improved opportunities for communication of complex information issues tailored to core field partners and user groups
Improved information reliability and associated trust

The Dashboard is beneficial to the wider humanitarian emergency response sector

Data to support learning between disasters
Opportunities for learning through pattern matching and trend analysis from one disaster area to another
Improved information visibility and communication within and by Internews
An improved ability to identify and share learning, data and tools across the humanitarian emergency response sector in an open and transparent manner
Tools to support publication of data and lessons learned to support others working in the humanitarian emergency response sector

Next steps…

We also developed the architectural design and technical implementation of the REST API - a significant foundation for future developments of the Dashboard based on robust scale and connectivity infrastructure. The most important aspect of the Dashboard is that it can be quickly adapted and customized to respond to future humanitarian emergencies. The next step is to scale this to another location and humanitarian context. We’re currently seeking funding to bring this valuable tool to serve our Humanitarian Information Service project for Mediterranean Refugees we’re calling “News that Moves.” The service provides a daily bulletin of key updates in Arabic, Farsi, English and Greek - of both macro (policy-related) information and hyper-local information about humanitarian services and local conditions, threats, border conditions in countries along the route. We are also tracking information needs and sharing it with the media and the wider humanitarian community. With the right partners, we’re hoping the Dashboard will help simplify and automate this process, as well as detect rumor and misinformation that is often leading refugees astray or into the path of danger.

Thank you again for your support. We learned a lot during the testing of the dashboard, and we’d love to share them with you. Please reach out and contact us if you’d like to learn more or if you would be interested in partnering with us in the next phase of this project.

Amanda Frankel (afrankel@internews.org)

The Humanitarian Dashboard

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Sep 1, 2015
Information Saving Lives in Liberia

By Amanda Frankel | Project Leader

"DeySey" Rumor Tracker flow chart

Thanks for your support! Here’s an overview of our project since you helped us to launch it back in late 2014, from the ground in Liberia:

In late 2014 Internews established the “Information Saves Lives” program in Liberia. Its aims were to investigate and respond to public rumors about Ebola; to train and empower journalists to report accurately about health issues; and to stimulate the exchange of information in response to the urgent Ebola health crisis. Our project has worked to strengthen the flow of information between the public, humanitarian agencies, and the media in Liberia. In particular, through the publication of the newsletters, we have sought to strengthen the quality of communications about humanitarian activities to local media while building their capacity to gather, analyze, assess and report accurate and timely Ebola-related information. In this way Internews has ensured two-way communication and provided Ebola-related information to affected populations, with the support of donors like you.

“DeySay” SMS Rumor Tracker:

Through local media, and through messaging campaigns initiated by governments and international organizations, information on the containment, spread and treatment of Ebola is being provided, but Internews understands that in emergency environments like this one, it is not enough to simply deliver information – one must also listen and respond to the needs and concerns of the affected populations. We call this “two-way communication” and it gives community members a voice while also allowing local media, governments and humanitarians to have a better understanding of the information needs of the community. To be able to do this quickly Internews developed a solution through the “DeySay” SMS system which uses text messages to monitor, track and report on rumors relating to Ebola across different counties. Internews, with technological support from UNICEF, set up DeySay to provide a service to both the media and the social mobilization groups. We partnered with the Liberian Red Cross Society, Project Concern International, UNICEF, Women Campaign International, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and UNMIL/Human Rights and Protection Section (OHCHR-UNMIL/HRPS) and the Liberia Peacebuilding Office - Early Warning and Response Working Group to try to detect rumors in time and to address them as they arose. The SMS tracking tool sorted through the conversations and rumors being reported from communities by community health workers, and a weekly newsletter informed local media and humanitarians of the key information trends in their counties, with suggestions as to how to address misinformation and rumor. Many thanks to Reverend Sumo for his support of Internews and our work.

Training and mentoring journalists:

Another element of the “Information Saves Lives” project has been providing support to the most committed journalists through a series of small grants, training and mentoring opportunities. Selected individual journalists and local media houses located throughout the country were thereby given support to produce content aimed at responsible health reporting in the context of the current crisis. The training and mentoring that Internews implemented since the launch of this effort was aimed specifically at encouraging the production of more quality news, current affairs and documentary material in print, radio, and video related to the Ebola crisis. While some of the training and mentoring sessions were held at the participating media houses, others were hosted at the Internews offices in Monrovia. Humanitarian Journalism Trainers and guest presenters worked intensively with the selected journalists. In addition to improving basic journalism skills, these sessions focused on equipping the journalists with accurate and up-to-date information regarding the Ebola outbreak and related psychosocial health issues and helped them to connect with experts and other reliable sources to aid their reporting in future. As part of these training workshops, Internews collaborated regularly with members of the humanitarian and NGO communities who have been willing to address our participating journalists on issues related to the Ebola crisis.

Some of the issues that we have covered include: the re-opening of schools, the ongoing vaccine trials, the psychological impacts of Ebola, Ebola waste management, safe burials, reproductive health, issues of accountability relating to the Ebola response, as well as the recent reappearance of the virus and the admirable efforts to contain it. Internews has also developed and maintained excellent partnerships with various Liberian media civil society organizations. This includes a strong consultative relationship with the Press Union of Liberia, contributing to the judging of the Annual Press Union Awards and collaborating on a number of trainings and roundtable discussions. During our time in Liberia, Internews has also cochaired the Ministry of Information and Cultural Affairs and Tourism working group.

A strong, connected network of journalists fighting misinformation about Ebola

The Local Voices Liberia network is one of the most prominent achievements of these efforts. Despite the odds, these journalists have formed an inspiring, optimistic and enterprising network of media professionals that represent all the counties in Liberia, and who have bonded over their motivation to publish good Liberian journalism around the country into the future. While their efforts are entirely initiated within the group, Internews is pleased to endorse their aspirations and encourage you to visit localvoiceslliberia.org regularly, to see their publications.

The Humanitarian Information Dashboard:

We are getting so close to finalizing the prototype for the Humanitarian Information Dashboard, which will work like a “Tweet Deck” that monitors, tracks and reports out on information flows across all platforms and where all aid agencies, governments, local media groups can participate and benefit from. Our project in Liberia will be the testing ground for the development of the platform, and we hope that once the platform is ready this will become a standard tool that humanitarian organizations, digital volunteers, and local media will be able to use in a variety of situations.

The ability to be able to use and monitor different tools, like mobile phones, mobile apps and social media is becoming more and more important as the ability to collect information on the ground becomes more difficult due to insecurity, structural issues, geography and so on.

To respond to this, Internews is extremely proud to deploy an innovative solution through the creation of a Humanitarian Information Dashboard thanks to funding coming from Global Giving, Google and the Rubin Foundation.

Thank you again for your support. It’s so important that we continue to remain vigilant against this disease, and allow journalists to do the work of informing and empowering communities with information vital to their health and livelihoods.

Links:

What I Learned About Ebola, from a Liberian Think Tank

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May 14, 2015
Liberia: Ebola Free

By Amanda Frankel | Project Leader

Credit: 2015 by UNICEF/CC

Over the weekend, the World Health Organization officially declared the country Ebola- Free after 42-consecutive days of no new cases. The WHO says this is a “monumental achievement for a country that reported the highest number of deaths in the largest, longest, and most complex outbreak since Ebola first emerged in 1976.”

There is a long way to go. In the coming months, people will continue to have an acute need for news and information, as children return back to school, survivors re-integrate into communities, and the country’s health systems start to address the challenges of catching up on routine vaccinations (measles, polio) and attending to the many other medical needs (malaraia, TB, HIV treatments) that were put on hold during the Ebola outbreak. And in Guinea and Sierra Leone, the threat of Ebola remains – we know from experience that just one new case has the potential to flare up a new wave of infections – that’s why we won’t stop until we get to zero cases in the entire West Africa region, where the outbreak has hit communities the hardest.

In spite of the challenges that remain, this is a tremendous milestone in our fight against this disease. Take a moment to reflect on your personal contributions to helping to combat Ebola. Your rapid response to our request has made an incredible, life-saving impact. Your donation to Internews allows us to get on the ground quickly to get information out to the individuals and families faced with this crisis. It’s enabled people to make better, more informed decisions about their health, and their lives – including knowing the symptoms, where to access aid, and what to do if they need medical attention. It was all possible because of your support.

Thank you again for your contributions – we look forward to updating you as the situation progresses.

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