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Since the threats of a global pandemic, and now that it is a reality, Waliku has been in active communication with our school-community partners about COVID-19. Through our established WhatsApp groups with school administrators, teachers and the district education office, we have been conveying important messages and latest information about the disease from the WHO, the Indonesian Government and other trusted sources. School administrators and teachers, using their Waliku phones and free credits are communicating with school-families about important preventive hand- and respiratory- hygiene measures, social distancing and illness prevention and control.
Sumba Barat schools have been closed since 23rd March 2020. While this public health measure has been disruptive, the local government and its partners from NGOs and civil society are doing everything to mitigate its effects on children's learning and well-being. After a year of Waliku’s proof-of-concept in Sumba, Indonesia, our team found the need to further customize Waliku. In developing version 2 of the Waliku system, we are turning to human-centered design to achieve our goals. We empathized with the users, mainly teachers, the school administration and the district education office, then we analysed their needs and found opportunities to integrate Waliku more with their daily needs. Currently, we are in the midst of prototyping our Version 2 solution which will provide enhanced tools for schools to manage school absenteeism and their reasons. On the 9th of March, we organised a workshop to gather inputs and feedback from school teachers, principals and IT operators on Version 2 mock ups. Their enthusiasm showed, as they gave their opinions readily during the workshop through various design games and activities as well as through a digital survey.  |
