Communication/Media Platform

Provide a very low-cost, automated reminder/drug-dispensing machine through "missed call" signals that also allows phone calls between patients and clinics, free of charge to patients, in order to enable patients to manage their disease effectively.

Integrating early child development in home-based environmental interventions in rural Peru

Thula Sana was an early parenting intervention project in South Africa, which improved mother-infant interaction and infant functioning. Professor  Mark Tomlinson (Stellenbosch University) and colleagues will be investigating the long-term benefits of this intervention, which could significantly help efforts to reverse the loss of human potential in children living in poverty.

iDE, a Winnipeg based non-profit organization that supports business opportunities in the developing world, will work with Nepali small business owners and local entrepreneurs to scale up the production, marketing and sale of simple latrines, using a novel approach successfully demonstrated in Cambodia and Nepal: marketing simple, low-cost toilets as a status symbol and sanitation as an affordable source of pride.  “The traditional approach – standard public health messages coupled with giveaway programs that sideline local businesses – is not working”, says Stu Taylor, iDE’s Director

This project aims to pilot-test the OSITA (Outreach, Screening, and Intervention for TraumA for Internally Displaced Women) project in Colombia —  a country with 5.4 million internally displaced persons due to armed conflict.  In the capital of Bogota, 70% of IDPs are women and children, including many indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombians, living marginally and at high risk of anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.  Supported by mobile phone app, OSITA will train community health workers to screen for and refer severe cases of mental disorders.

In Peru, the national HIV prevention strategy is focused on referrals by educators to local health centers for testing. It is estimated that less than half of the gay community has been tested for HIV and many of them are unaware of their status. A team at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia is developing a platform that sends tailored text messages promoting HIV testing at a health centre. The team aims to reach men visiting niche websites and encourage them to join existing health centre users receiving text reminders about HIV testing.

Improving access to high-quality treatment and rehabilitation services for people with mental disorders in India

Ending the restraint, seclusion, neglect and abuse — physical, sexual, and emotional — of mental health patients is the goal of a project in India’s Gujarat state nominated for a Grand Challenges Canada grant of up to CAD $2 million.

Jamaica has the world’s third highest homicide rate (53 per 100,000), with Kingston’s inner-city communities socially isolated by violence and gangs.  In collaboration with a government-run Community Mental Health (CMH) program in two inner-city communities, this project will target high-risk Grade 3 students, and the wider youth and adult populations with a Community Engagement Cultural Therapy (CECT) program.  The effort involves group discussion of painful issues and uses drama, song and dance to translate and help express concerns.