AT-Info-Map TOT workshop

27 July, 2017

The two-day SAFOD's Training of Trainers (TOT) workshop for Country Field Officers or Admins from Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and South Africa ended on Thursday, 27th July 2017 in Boksburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. These were Admins for the Assistive Technology Information Mapping project (AT-Info-Map).

The training was part of the scaling up of the project from Botswana where it was being piloted for one year to four more countries aforementioned. Following the training, the participants were feeling confident and prepared to roll of out the At-Info-Map project in their respective countries.

The Assistive Technology Information Mapping project (AT-Info-Map) is funded by the Google Impact Challenge as one of the ‘big ideas that will use technology to expand opportunity and independence for people with disabilities’

This project is led by The Southern Africa Federation of the Disabled (SAFOD) in partnership with AfriNEAD, University of Washington, and Dimagi

This ambitious 3 year project has developed a mobile data system that is used to capture, organize, and map the current availability of AT in 10 countries in Southern Africa, so as to help with connecting persons with disabilities to the available AT near their community. Through this mobile data system, SAFOD and its partners aim to inform AT designers, producers, service providers, and policymakers about the local availability of AT so that they can influence the increase in access to AT for people with disabilities.

The project also seeks to support key actors in identifying AT needs. Key actors include public AT providers (clinics, community health centers, secondary and tertiary hospitals, schools), civil society, government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), disabled people organizations (DPOs) and businesses.

Having completed piloting the project in Botswana, most particularly in Gaborone and surrounding outskirts, for one year, SAFOD has rolled out the project in five countries this year, and plans to roll out to a further five countries next year to make a total of ten.

The TOT workshop therefore intended to build the skills of the Country Admins who had just been recruited to be able to enter and review data while raising awareness about the At on their respective countries.