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Introduction |
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| In Bangladesh, the literacy rate is around 60% which is lower than many countries. |
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This is a significant problem of transferring information through traditional media like newspapers, journals, internet web sites most of which are in English. And a serious topic like Healthcare should be understood by the receivers clearly. This problem may be overcome by using graphical interfaces and using interactive multimedia objects which will not require the viewers to read. They can view the contents in a effective way and listen to the accompanying sound & voices. They can also interact with the contents very easily.
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| Grameen Communications thought this can be a new way of communicating with the people living in rural areas who are mostly illiterate and needs to be aware of health related issues to have a better life opportunity. |
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The project has 3 specific objectives |
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The project is providing the following services, which can be treated as a milestone for providing the benefits of information technology to isolated regions:
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To develop a multimedia based educational software for the public health care of the rural people |
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To create awareness and provide education on infectious diseases to the rural people, using the software |
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To help and train rural doctors and health workers through the content of the software |
Grameen Communications, partnered with 2 Japanese companies, NEC and Marubeni Corporation to develop the project. The partnership was to share technology part of the project. NEC technical team worked side by side with GC team to develop the story boards, contents, multimedia components like animations, character definitions, sound and voice creation etc. The Government of Japan, through its Embassy in Dhaka has provided a grant assistance to develop and implement the project.
The software currently contains information on 4 infectious diseases: Tetanus, Diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Each disease contains has the following set of information:
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Summery |
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Symptoms |
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Route of Infection |
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Prevention |
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First Aid |
The development of the software has been completed successfully and being demonstrated to different rural health centers through conducting workshops. Rural people are observed to be keen to know the important health related issues, which they were not aware of before. GC believes, the project will bring benefit to the rural people as the contents will transfer information on how to live safely and in a better way.
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