Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) has launched a mobile data system called CommCare to provide information on the availability or lack of Assistive Technology (AT) for people with disability across the country.
By Kennedy Nyavaya
ATs are a wide range of technology products and services that are used by people with disabilities to help them work, play, learn, live in their communities and these include prostheses and orthoses, hearing aids, vision (spectacles, magnifiers), reading and environmental modifications for people who use wheelchairs.
The application will help capture, organise and map current provisions of AT, feeding into the information mapping (AT Info-Map) which is already underway.
In an interview, SAFOD country field officer Patience Muronzi said the information from the project would help different stakeholders working in the sphere of technologies equipment modelled to ease the lives of persons with disability.
“The idea was inspired by the need to bridge the information gap because some don’t know what AT is available, while others are not sure how to access it in the Southern Africa region and there is inadequate availability of low-cost and appropriate AT in Africa,” said Muronzi, adding that marginalised communities would be their main focus. “Our hope is to reach out to everyone, get everyone who is doing something registered and get the application to everyone who needs AT and for service providers to know specific needs to provide for.”
According to a research done by the University of Washington, only 5 to 15% of people with disability and in need of AT have access to it worldwide.
“When doing campaigns in the disability movement, at times you meet people not directly in your line of work and sometimes you do not know where and who to refer them to, so the application allows you to get all the information in one place and that includes contact details,” she said.
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After a pilot project proving significant feasibility in Botswana in 2016, the project has since been scaled up to other Sadc countries, including Zimbabwe where it was launched on Friday in Harare.
Although the application is currently only compatible with Android, other people can access the information as it will also be automatically uploaded on a website.
SAFOD is a disability-focused network engaged in coordination of activities of organisations for persons with disabilities in the Southern Africa.
