How the Echo platform helped drive and monitor behavior change amongst low-income teenage girls
“The Echo platform allowed us to monitor and verify the impact of the Sheosk Project. The impact data demonstrates that girls have different preferences, and thus the importance of educating and offering girls a choice. We will use these findings to continue pushing for access to information, knowledge and informed choice.” — Gerda Larsson, Co-founder and Managing Director, The Case For Her
Background
Kenyan girls miss four days of school every month, often due to pain connected to their menstrual cycle, lack of sanitary products and lack of knowledge about their period. This problem is acute in low-income settlements, where sanitary products are costly and hard to find, school facilities are inadequate, and health education is poor.
In 2018, The Case For Her (TCFH) partnered with Echo Mobile to pilot new ways of addressing these access and awareness problems. The “Sheosk” pilot included a training program for girls at low-income schools and the distribution of sanitary products to kiosks in the surrounding areas.
But how to know whether these efforts actually influenced the girls in need? Enter the Echo platform! To verify behavior change, assess girls’ ability to pay, and monitor their product choices, TCFH turned to the platform’s powerful SMS features and the expertise of Echo’s Deployment team.
Project design
Through their partner organization Femme International , TCFH trained 443 girls from 14 schools on three menstrual products that were then stocked at nearby kiosks: disposable pads, reusable pads, and menstrual cups.
During registration, each girl was surveyed on what products they typically used, if any, then trained on each product’s respective benefits. Girls were encouraged to engage their parents/guardians, then visit a local kiosk to purchase whichever product most appealed.
To measure the impact and sustainability of this message, TCFH gave the products real value — pricing them in the kiosks at KES 250 (USD 2.50). However, TCFH also assured the girls that they would be reimbursed via M-Pesa (mobile money) as soon as they registered their purchase.
This product registration and instant mobile reimbursement would be made possible via SMS from the Echo platform.
Enabling, monitoring and verifying behavior change via SMS
Working with Echo Mobile’s Deployment team, TCFH created an automated SMS purchase and reimbursement experience that was entirely free and took each girl less than two minutes.
Using the platform’s product and keyword features, TCFH also made it so that girls were not required to own a phone or use a particular phone number. This was essential for engaging low-income youth, who rarely have their own phone and use friends’ or family members’ instead.
Girls who were convinced to raise funds and purchase a product sent a single, free SMS containing the word “Girl” upon doing so. Each girl then received an SMS asking for their personal keyword, which they had chosen during training. The Echo platform instantly verified each unique keyword to confirm that the purchaser had been trained by TCFH.
If verified, each girl received a second SMS prompting her to enter a simple but unique code, which was listed on the packaging of her product under a scratch-to-reveal sticker. The Echo platform then instantly compared that code against a product database, verifying its validity and type. If verified, the platform immediately transferred KES 250 via mobile money to the girl.
Evaluating the Sheosk pilot
During the Sheosk pilot training, baseline data showed that girls predominantly used disposable pads, as these were often the only products available in local kiosks. Only 5% used reusable pads or menstrual cups.
After the Sheosk pilot, the Echo platform data showed that the training and accessibility had changed this purchasing behavior and preferences:
- 25% of girls who were trained purchased and registered a product.
- Just 46% of girls who purchased and registered a product bought disposable pads
- 51% of girls who purchased and registered a product bought reusable pads, up from less than 5% prior to training.
TCFH then used the Echo platform to conduct an SMS survey with the 111 girls who had purchased and registered a product, seeking to understand their choices.
Over 97% of girls who completed the follow-up survey said they would recommend the product they bought to friends and relatives, and for a variety of reasons, with the majority citing cost:
Conclusions and Next steps
Generally speaking, the pilot data collected by TCFH through the Echo platform suggests that consumer education and access can have a social impact! And that this impact can be monitored and verified via low-cost, high-access channels like SMS.
When girls were provided with knowledge of and access to products that would benefit their health and education, many were compelled to raise the money necessary to try them. Moreover, most of those girls tried new products, even when those most familiar to them were also available.
Specifically, most chose a reusable option over a disposable one. TCFH believes that this may indicate a preference for reusable pads, or that this new reusable option presented an affordable way to acquire a backup for future times when disposable pads are not available.
Whatever the case, these findings through the Echo platform provide an early confirmation that there is indeed a gap for low-income girls in Kenya, but also an opportunity — that girls are likely to work with their families to invest in products that will benefit their health and education.
Taken a step further, perhaps if these reusable options can be made more regularly available to girls in low-income settlements, school absenteeism can be reduced.
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Want to learn more about the Echo platform and how it can help your behavior change monitoring and evaluation initiatives?
Contact us at info@echomobile.io
