How Mobile Technology Is Bringing Trauma Relief After Ebola

SINGULARITY HUB   by Nathan and Elie Calhoun                                                   June , 2015

....the promise of mobile technology is that we can connect the farthest, most remote corners of the globe to the Internet—where a treasure trove of information and applications can be had nearly for free.

 For aid workers, this technology is proving a powerful, even revolutionary tool.

We hope our new community mental health app will demonstrate a new depth of potential impact.

When we started designing our psychosocial services app for Liberian communities recently ravaged by Ebola, we thought we’d first need to justify the very idea of focusing on mental health in a country facing so many pressing concerns.

The health system in Liberia confronts massive challenges. When hospitals are non-existent or seriously under-staffed, when malaria is endemic and young mothers die during childbirth—it can be tempting to ask people suffering from trauma to simply “toughen up.”

But as we’ve gathered our research and begun strategizing the mobile app, we’ve found prominent and trend-setting evidence that psychosocial support is no longer being neglected in the context of the world’s poor and vulnerable communities. This is a game-changing shift.

Starting this year, the World Bank and Japan are generously funding a multi-layered, multi-year program that specifically targets individuals who worked in traumatizing jobs during the Ebola outbreak. (You can read more about it here.) USAID is exploring the merits of funding similar programs and even the World Economic Forum has convened a Council on Mental Health and Well Being that seeks to put mental health on the economic development agenda.

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http://singularityhub.com/2015/06/07/how-mobile-technology-is-bringing-trauma-relief-after-ebola/