What we do

• Text to Change (TTC) sets up complete SMS campaigns for partners in Africa and South America
• TTC uses mobile phone technology to send out and receive information to educate, engage, and empower people on wellbeing related issues 
• We combine the increasing growth of mobile telephony with the need for better healthcare, innovative education, economic development and transparency
• TTC creates innovative mobile telephony based concepts and is specialized in interactive and incentive based text message programs
• We are working hard to make life saving knowledge easily available to the general public and especially to community and family level caregivers
• Participants in our campaigns can win prizes such as airtime, mosquito nets, mobile phones, football jerseys and radios, which results in high responses
• Sustainability and scalability are integrated in the implementation of our projects, which is done by innovative public private partnerships

Approach

Text to Change is predominantly focused on SMS as it stands out as having several advantages: cost-effectiveness, scalability, convenience, broad reach and widespread popularity in the developing world. Moreover, all basic phones are able to receive SMS. To overcome the illiteracy barriers we make use of Interactive Voice Response services (IVR) as well. Participation is fun, free, informative, easily accessible, anonymous and above all it can be life saving. More about TTC    

Facts and Figures

There now are over 5 billion mobile phone subscribers; over 70% of them reside in low- and middle-income countries. Using mobile phones has proved to be a highly effective tool to inform people of the choices available to them. Communities benefit from TTC’s service as they receive information, pose questions and send back answers without being charged. TTC has been able to show clear results in terms of high response rates and uptake in health services varying from 35% to 200% at partnering clinics by using SMS. 

We implement a wide variety of projects such as workplace based SMS programmes addressing sexual behavior, price information systems for farmers, data collection in conflict areas, campaigning for improved school quality and reduced teacher absenteeism and programmes aimed at medicine adherence and targeting health issues like HIV/AIDS, malaria and reproductive health. More about TTC's projects

Partners

With a four year successful track record, TTC has experience in working with both the public and the private sector. Among Text to Change's partners and clients are the UN (Unicef, ECOSOC and GIVAS), governments (USAID, German, Dutch and English Ministries), NGO’s (Family Health International, Cordaid, IICD, Warchild, HIVOS, Twaweza), universities (Johns Hopkins (USA), Makerere (Uganda), University Utrecht (The Netherlands)), companies (Kakira Sugar, IBM, Microsoft, PWC, Clifford & Chance, Merck) and major mobile providers (Orange, Airtel, MTN, Vodacom). More about TTC's partners