VoiceIT

Gender-based violence negatively impacts on the health, rights, psyche and economic status of the survivors, with those in fragile and conflict settings more susceptible to abuse. WHO declared Gender-based violence as a global pandemic that affects 1 in 3 women in their lifetime. According to UNODC (2022), more than 5 women are killed by someone in their own family every hour. 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are victims of sexual assault before the age of 18 (CDC). UNFPA also reported that about 31 million additional cases of gender-based violence were projected to occur due to the prolonged COVID-19 lockdown. In Nigeria alone, 31% of women aged 15-49 will have experienced sexual abuse (NDHS, 2018). These are further exacerbated by poverty, harmful gender norms practices or stereotyping, patriarchy, war and conflict, as seen in most northern parts of Nigeria and some African countries. Sadly, behind these gruesome statistics are the faces of human beings- vulnerable children, young and adult women, people with disability, and adolescent girls and boys. Despite increasing technology penetration and use, many survivors still don’t know where to seek help or report. So many GBV cases go unreported, and even when they do, victims face stigma and discrimination and don’t get justice or needed healthcare services that will enable them to heal. Additionally, due to weak health systems, reported cases of violence/abuse are still been manually documented at health facilities. This process is cumbersome, prone to errors and grossly inefficient. Lack of effective technology-driven data reporting and collection processes leads to inaccurate data that will aid evidence-informed decision-making, program design and interventions, especially in underserved communities and fragile contexts like Nigeria.

VoiceIT (www.voiceit.africa) provides a secured, trusted and easy-to-use digital health platform that helps survivors/users to timely report cases of violence/abuse and connect with verified healthcare providers, organizations, expert mental health counsellors through their mobile phone (SMS, web, app). Besides, young people can access verified and preventive-focused resources (text, short videos) on gender norms, consent and Sexual and reproductive health to build their capacity, chat or connect with verified experts- Doctors, psychologists or trained mental health counsellors, share their stories and engage with a role model/survivor. Furthermore, VoiceIT is giving power and voice to young people, especially young and adult women, adolescent girls and boys, in a way that is confidential, non-judgmental and non-discriminatory. VoiceIT also aggregates and provides real-time AI-driven gender-disaggregated data and analytics to help improve reporting, health service uptake and evidence generation for policy and program planning.

VoiceIT has 5 major features (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.world.fi.voiceit):

• Report Case- where users can anonymously report cases of violence/abuse and attach any evidence (audio, video)
• Organizations- a directory of various trained service providers where users can easily search and connect with providers nearest to them
• Consultants/Experts- users can book sessions with trained experts such as Doctors, Lawyers, Psychologists, Counsellors, Law Enforcement Agents etc.
• Knowledge Hub- users can access verified resources/information on gender norms, sexual and reproductive health, consent etc, both in text and short animated videos
• Web data dashboard where reported cases can be visualized in a gender and location disaggregated format, infographics, charts for actionable insights and decision making

VoiceIT serves vulnerable adolescent girls and boys, young women and adult women, including those in underserved communities and fragile contexts such as conflict and IDP camps; individuals and corporates who require digital mental health and safeguarding services for their staff can also leverage VoiceIT technology. VoiceIT will help increase reporting of GBV cases, which naturally would have gone unreported, especially among vulnerable individuals and communities. VoiceIT aim is to reduce the incidence of violence through its prevention-focused information while improving health outcomes and productivity of survivors of violence. In addition, VoiceIT will help improve efficiency within the health system by providing a digital platform for health workers to effectively document reported cases of violence as against the current paper-based form, which is cumbersome, prone to errors and grossly inefficient. The paucity of reliable data also exists to enable decision-makers to plan and design policies, guidelines and programs that will positively impact on the health and wellbeing of survivors.

Many cases of violence go unreported across communities due to lack of effective digital reporting platform like VoiceIT. This could have an untold impact on the survivor as most survivors will not access needed healthcare services in a timely manner in a way that is confidential, non-discriminatory and non-stigmatizing. This could further predispose many to more violence, preventable conditions like HIV and STIs, early pregnancy, mental health problems, injuries and sometimes death.

The impact of VoiceIT is enormous, as it has the potential to transform the healthcare system at scale. VoiceIT will give power and voice to adolescent girls and boys, young and adult women in a way that protects their rights and ensures unrestricted access to healthcare services via technology. With increasing technology penetration, users can safely report cases of violence and connect to needed services and experts at the click of a button. Healthcare workers will be more efficient by jettisoning the paper-based reporting system to a more efficient, easy-to-use, data and technology-driven platform that allows for easy collection, verification and quality data for effective planning and decision-making.

VoiceIT has a diverse team of competent, experienced, motivated and qualified individuals. Our team expertise cuts across product design, R&D, business development, content and marketing professionals who understand the community we serve. We didn’t just design VoiceIT for our users, but we designed it with them. That means we understood the pain point of our target users and worked with them using a human-centred design approach to provide a solution that meets their needs. We have used several engagement strategies and dialogue with target users and community members to ensure buy-in, product market fit and ownership of our solution. As the co-founder of VoiceIT, I have worked in several vulnerable communities in Nigeria and provided access to a range of healthcare and social services, especially for adolescent girls and boys, young and adult women, and survivors of GBV. This placed me and my team in a better position to better understand the problem, needs and solutions for our target beneficiaries.

I also belong to the State and National Gender Technical Working Group and community protection committees that champions the right and health of vulnerable populations.

I have engaged our target population through various fora such as the adolescent boys and girls club, caregivers forum, stakeholders forum, town hall meetings, in-depth interviews etc, and feedback from these robust engagements have been incorporated into the design of VoiceIT. Part of my team members has also conducted a study (in press) on Gender-Based Violence with the aim of providing relevant data, policy recommendations and solutions to tackle the problem which affects the vulnerable population. Previously, I have worked for over 5 years as the Program Manager and Gender Lead for a local Community-Based Organization on a project supported by USAID. Through the project, I led and designed gender-inclusive programs that provided access of more than ten GBV survivors to critical health and social services across violent hot spots in Agege LGA, Lagos State. Additionally, I ensured access of over 500 adolescent boys and girls, including young women to verified preventive GBV, mental health and sexual and reproductive health information in a way that is age-appropriate, engaging and educative. These beneficiaries have gone on to educate their peers and community members further.

About 100 users

VoiceIT is applying to Solve to be able scale our services to potentials users across fragile context- conflict and humanitarian settings, IDP and migrants camps, healthcare facilities. The community of social impact leaders that Solve provides will enable me to receive personalized support (monitoring and evaluation, legal, financial, coaching etc), learn, grow, forge long lasting relationships and network with potential partners within and outside of US. These partnerships will aid our expansion efforts and working with organizations with similar vision and goals. The funding and investment will enable me optimize VoiceIT platform for scale, develop, test and launch new features as well as hire more top talents to support growth in other countries. I will be nurtured by the powerful network of impact minded Solve team across diverse industries and sectors. The leadership and strategic advice from world leading experts will help shape my leadership journey to become a successful social impact entrepreneur. The opportunity to pitch VoiceIT before expert judges and exposure to media will further build my confidence, and pitching skills and increase visibility for the work we do at VoiceIT. Being able to receive training in monitoring and evaluation will be vital to introducing and mainstreaming impact measurement practice within our work. I will contribute to the program by sharing ideas, practising constructive conversations and disseminating skills that I have gained when working with underserved and fragile communities in a developing context like Nigeria. I will be bringing lots of motivation and enthusiasm to the program.

VoiceIT provides innovative mobile technology solution that enables users (adolescent boys and girls, young and adult women, migrants, displaced persons etc) to be able to report cases of GBV and connect with relevant organizations, health services providers, resources and experts at the click of a button. Many cases of GBV go unreported as people do not know where to go to or seek help most especially in underserved communities, fragile context where victims face discrimination, stigmatization, poverty, power imbalance, injustice, gender stereotype among others. But with VoiceIT, that narrative is changing as we are placing the right technology platform in the hands of those that need it the most. Also, at healthcare facilities, reported cases of GBV are documented in papers, making the work of healthcare workers cumbersome, prone to errors, time-consuming and sometimes most of the data can be missing. However, with VoiceIT, healthcare workers can transition from paper-based recording to a more secured, trusted and easy-to-use digital technology built to enhance their efficiency. This will further strengthen health infrastructure and ensure real-time disaggregated data on the various forms of GBV are current and available for decision, actionable insights and policy making. Large quantities of data can be analyzed using AI for better data preparation, visualization and forecasting to understand patterns, improve response and service delivery. VoiceIT also ensures less visible and vulnerable people make their voice heard, have access timely healthcare and social services as at when needed

Our impact goals for the next year is to

• Optimize our product (VoiceIT) for scale and add 2 additional new features
• Expand to impact 250,000 users across different vulnerable communities, organizations and fragile contexts in Nigeria
• Establish partnership with 5 sub-national governments to adopt and deploy VoiceIT across healthcare facilities
• Content translation of information on VoiceIT to local languages- Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo and Pidgin
• Partner with 5 corporate organizations to deploy VoiceIT for staffs to report cases GBV, sexual exploitation, harassment
• Train 50 young people and 50 parents on prevention strategies of GBV including the use of VoiceIT

Over the next 5 years, our impact goal is to

• Scale VoiceIT to 4 additional African countries
• Serve over 5 million users across diverse communities, contexts and organizations
• Translate VoiceIT content into 3 other African languages
• Form partnership with at least 30 organizations including universities
• Ensure partnership with all the 36 subnational governments and FCT in Nigeria
• Develop and launch our panic alert feature
• Hire and retain top talents across the different countries we work

I plan to achieve these impact goals by developing a measurement and tracking framework to assess progress and achievements made on these goals. Furthermore, I will be leveraging on the support, collaboration and partnerships made during the Solve program to fast track the achievement of these goals.

I am measuring progress towards VoiceIT impact goals by

• Tracking the number of active registrants and users of VoiceIT
• The proportion of new reported cases of GBV disaggregated by sex and location
• The proportion of new users connected to health, social services and experts
• Number of partnerships secured
• Number of healthcare facilities and organizations using VoiceIT and distribution
• The proportion of users who used the resources on VoiceIT to make informed decision

Scaling up innovative technology platform as VoiceIT, especially in underserved communities and fragile contexts, is central to our theory of change. A Gender Based Violence free generation is possible if we deploy technology to aid real-time reporting and access to differentiated healthcare services, including mental health services, provide accurate prevention-focused information in a way that is engaging and educative, place the right technology tool in the hands of those that need it the most to make their voice heard regardless of where they live, colour of their skin, economic or social status. We will be on the path to eliminating all forms of violence against women, girls and boys, including fast-tracking the achievement of gender equality goals. The population will live a healthier and more productive life while health systems infrastructure will be strengthened and data available for effective decision making

The core technology that powers VoiceIT includes the following:

Mobile App with Panic Button: The mobile application includes a panic button feature, allowing users to quickly seek help in emergency situations. The app also provides information on nearby safe spaces, support organizations, and legal resources.

AI-powered Chatbot: The application has an AI-powered chatbot that can engage with users, provide support, and answer frequently asked questions about SGBV. The chatbot offers resources, guidance on reporting procedures, and emotional support, ensuring accessibility and availability 24/7.

Anonymous Reporting System: The anonymous reporting system allows survivors to report incidents of SGBV without revealing their identity. This can encourage more survivors to come forward, ensuring their safety and reducing the fear of stigma or retaliation.

Digital Evidence Collection: VoiceIT has a secure and encrypted platform that allows survivors to securely upload and store evidence such as photos, videos, or text messages. This ensures the preservation of critical evidence while maintaining the survivor's privacy.

Geo-Tagged Safe Spaces: VoiceIT has a database of safe spaces such as shelters, counseling centers, and medical facilities, with the locations geo-tagged on a map. This enables users to easily locate and access nearby safe spaces in times of need.

Four of the seven team members of VoiceIT are women from diverse cultural and social backgrounds. At the core of our work is the quest to promote gender equity. We have developed key workplace gender diversity, equity and inclusion policies that protects the interests and rights of our staff and clients.  Working with several underserved and marginalized groups, we have institutionalized gender equity and inclusion practices as well conduct trainings and retraining of our staff.  This ensures we attract staffs or partners who holds dear to heart the principles of gender diversity, equity and inclusion at all times. 

B2B: we offer corporates our platform to deploy VoiceIT within their organizations

B2C: we offer services to the middle to high-income individuals who want to speak or book sessions with our on-boarded experts

B2G: We sign premium contracts with national, sub-national and local governments to deploy VoiceIT across healthcare facilities for healthcare workers

Our plan to become financially sustainable includes:

• Licensing fees to organizations and healthcare facilities
• Securing grant funding to drive our social impact mainly for the vulnerable communities and fragile settings
• Attract investment to create jobs, retain talents and scale our product to other countries
• Strategic Partnerships with Government
• Research and Training on the use of technology to prevent and respond effectively to cases of GBV