100 Messages and the Internet in a Box
Update 2022: the Internet in a Box is no longer available for purchase, but we’re really proud of the work that went into the project. We are always excited about new approaches to communicating health messages in families and communities.
We are super excited to be involved in the Internet In A Box South Asia. It launches TODAY! (10th, April 2018.)
What’s all this about?
The Mother and Child Health and Education Trust and the Wiki Project Med Foundation have launched an off-line distribution system for medical & health content in a collaboration called Internet-in-a-Box. The IIAB is a mini-computer with a mobile hotspot that generates a Wi-Fi signal and enables content distribution in places where access to the Internet is limited, controlled or simply unavailable. The IIAB is just $30:
Why were we asked to contribute?
The Mother Children Trust invited us to contribute our 100 Health Messages for Children to Learn and Share plus list of different activities linked to each of our 10 topics that children can do to understand, take action and reflect on the messages and topic. Read more here about how we develop our health messages.
All we had to do is translate the messages into as many of the 22 Indian languages as we could before launch! To do this we worked with Translators without Borders. We managed FIVE for the first release of the IIAB and we are working hard to complete the full set!
- Hindi
- Urdu
- Punjabi
- English
- Bengali
When we have the translations completed, the messages and activities will be available from our website too and we hope that all the languages will be available on the IIAB version 2.
You can get the messages in English in a booklet form here or read them all online now here.
How will these messages and activities be used?
Health educators use these health messages to structure health education activities and projects in their classrooms and to stimulate discussions and other activities. For example, after learning a message about proper hand-washing, children can ask each other and their families, “what are the reasons people in our family and our community find it hard to wash their hands properly?” Children chatting about this issue and learning how they might solve problems and become agents of change themselves is the real value of each health message. So the health message is a doorway to discussion and action.
Parents ask their children to memorise the messages. Children create actions to go with each message to help them memorise the messages. Small prizes are used to reward children who have learned AND shared a message with others. For example, a ribbon or piece of coloured fabric are given as prizes. Children tie these to a stick and enjoy creating a colourful Rainbow Stick to show which messages they have learned and shared.
About Translators without Borders
Translators without Borders works with Children for Health to ensure simple and clear global health messaging reaches millions of children in India, in the languages that they can best comprehend.
Translators without Borders envisions a world where knowledge knows no language barriers. The US-based non-profit provides people access to vital knowledge in their language by connecting non-profit organizations with a professional community of volunteer translators, building local language translation capacity, and raising awareness of language barriers. Originally founded in 1994 in France as Traducteurs sans Frontières (now its sister organization), Translators without Borders translates more than eight million words per year. In 2012, the organization established a Healthcare Translators’ Training Center in Nairobi, Kenya.
More about The 100 Health Messages for Children to Learn and Share
The messages have been created by us! Children for Health, a small NGO based in Cambridge in the UK. Children for Health works with health education partners all over the world. Children for Health does 10 topic focussed campaigns each year. During the two remaining months we focus on new topics such as preventing anaemia, well-being and resilience and lifeskills. We are beginning to work with partners on messages and topics that can help prevent non-communicable diseases notably:
- Preventing the start of or stopping smoking;
- Improving the diet; and
- Physical activity!
