Amref Health Africa

JIBU

Common challenges faced by nurses in Africa include acute shortages, skills mix imbalances, retention, motivation, and limited access to education and training. To tackle these issues, an African-led NGO based in Kenya, is using innovative approaches to build the capacity of health workers through radio, eLearning and m-learning.

In 2013, Amref, in partnership with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, Rutgers, the Nurses Council of Kenya, and several training institutions for nurses, implemented Jibu, a mobile learning solution to support the professional development of nurses and midwives. Jibu is Swahili for “answer” and the mLearning application, primarily aimed at capacity building, offers a cost-effective way to make continuous education and collaboration widely available to nurses and midwives through their mobile phones.

With support from the Elsevier Foundation, Jibu was able to ramp up from pilot to full scale project. During phase 1 in 2016, over 10,000 nurses and midwives in 3 countries enrolled onto the application, signaling a strong desire among health workers to access credible, up-to-date learning materials. In 2017, Phase 2 focusing on improving the app, content development, the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) framework, learner enrollment and support, monitoring and evaluation; and international knowledge sharing and visibility.

Our goals

• Increase access to information and learning materials.
• Support the adaptation of the CDP framework for mLearning.
• Measure the effect of using mLearning on training and practices of nurses and midwives in Kenya. An integral resource in this process is the Innovate for Life Fund, which helps to tackle the alarming health challenges in Africa by promoting technological solutions that play a major role in overcoming this issue.

 

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