The Lwazi Community Communication Service: design and piloting of a voice-based information service
Abstract
We present the design, development and pilot process of the Lwazi
Community Communication Service (LCCS), a multilingual
automated telephone-based information service. The service acts as
a communication and dissemination tool that enables managers at
local community centres to broadcast information (e.g. health,
employment, social grants) to community workers and the
communities they serve. The LCCS allows the recipients to obtain
up-to-date, relevant information in a timely and efficient manner,
overcoming the obstacles of transportation, time and costs incurred
in trying to physically obtain information from the community
centres. We discuss our experiences and fieldwork in piloting the
LCCS at six locations nationally in the eleven official South African
languages. We analyze the usage pattern from the pilot call logs and
thereafter discuss the implications of these findings for future
projects that design similar automated services for serving rural
communities in developing world regions.
URI
http://ra.ethz.ch/CDstore/www2011/companion/p433.pdfhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/221023834_The_Lwazi_community_communication_service_Design_and_piloting_of_a_voice-based_information_service
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/26545
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