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The World Internet Resources for Education and Development (WiRED) in collaboration with Global Strategies for HIV Prevention (GSHP) will install Community Health Information Centers in five locations in Kenya. The test project will provide communication and information resources to improve local health care and to help prevent the spread of AIDS. WiRED will furnish hardware, Internet connections (where practicle), comprehensive health-related software libraries and extensive training. Researchers at Claremont Graduate University will conduct research to determine program effectiveness and to help refine procedures for a later expansion of the program.
HIV/AIDS, perhaps the world's most serious public health problem, has especially hit hard the developing countries of Africa. Treatment and management of the disease have been addressed by numerous international governmental and non-governmental entities but there remains an immediate need for information and education at the grassroots level.
As the project is implemented, WiRED and GSHP will offer information and communications resources for physicians and other health care providers, students and families through an initial network of five Community Health Information Centers (CHIC) to be located in the cities/towns of Kilifi, Kisumu, Kajiado, Nairobi and Butala. Each center will be managed by WiRED-trained local organizations already in place to fight the AIDS epidemic.
Each CHIC will receive computer networks complete with CD-ROM-based interactive AIDS prevention programs and extensive medical reference libraries. Because many local communications facilities in Kenya are limited, the communications technologies will vary from site to site. At locations where Internet Service Providers (ISP) are available, the Internet connections will use modem connections. At sites lacking ISP service, WiRED will provide Bushnet e-mail service using short wave radio. Where neither ISPs nor short wave is available, the CHICs will focus on the CD-ROM based libraries.
The initial effort, now underway, is to select and train local project coordinators in the operation of the equipment, software and tutorial delivery. WiRED trainers will assist in the operation of each site until local coordinators can assume full responsibility for sustained operation. The programs at each site will be closely monitored by WiRED and Global Strategies personnel to insure a successful operation.
Program content will be developed in collaboration between U.S. and African health care officials and local health care providers, educators and officials. Physicians will be able to access technical information, caregivers will garner information directly relevant to meeting the specific needs of patients and educators, and young people will obtain age-specific AIDS awareness and prevention information. Though health related topics will drive the program, the CHICs will provide other information and services in response to local needs.
WiRED and its partner, Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, will hold training workshops in mid-January, 2002. The Centers will be installed by the end of January and fully operational by early February. The initial surveys and other research activities will begin at that time.
In a recent speech, WiRED ExecutiveDirector, Dr. Gary Selnow, said "This project's main goal is to help diminish the immediate health problems, but we also believe that the open access to information and the free exchange of information will give individuals the power to confront the seemingly insurmountable problems caused by the isolation they experience every day."
WiRED is a San Francisco-based, non-governmental, non-profit organization whose mission is to bring the vast information resources of the Internet to the troubled regions of the world through partnership with the people of those regions.
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