AudiencScapes

As mobile operators build infrastructure and upgrade services, a newcomer launches a free SMS service. If subscribers are willing to put up with ads at the end of their messages, that is. As texting has gotten more expensive in the country, this new product could fill a need. Tawanda Karombo reports.

Anyone worried about HIV or AIDS in South Africa can now chat directly with a trained counselor using a mobile phone. The service not only uses a form of communication already popular with young people, it is affordable and very private.By Paromita PainSouth Africa is in the midst of an HIV/AIDS epidemic; the rate of infection is among the highest in the world. Young South Africans have been hit particularly hard by the epidemic, young women especially. Some estimates indicate that as many as one out of three women under age 25 are living with HIV. To offer these youth and young adults support and information about living with HIV, a mobile phone-based counseling service was launched last year called RedChatZone.

Domestic workers and day laborers in Los Angeles are using the tools of journalists to broadcast reports on issues that affect them. The project Mobile Voices/VozMob has created an open-source platform where workers-turned-bloggers publish reports by mobile phone.By Paromita PainMuch is written about low-wage workers and immigrants in the United States. Not as much media is created by low-wage and immigrant workers. An initiative in Los Angeles is giving low-wage workers and other underrepresented communities the tools for reporting the stories of their lives. One recent report shows day laborers passing the time waiting for jobs by singing and entertaining each other.

Refugees United helps people displaced by war, disaster or political repression track down their loved ones. Operating mostly in Africa, the relatively young NGO recently announced a platform using mobile phone technology to connect refugees. Dinfin Mulupi interviewed Refugees United’s co-founder and Managing Director Christopher Mikkelsen.By Dinfin MulupiThe concept for Refugees United grew out of an encounter Christopher Mikkelsen and his brother David had five years ago while working on a documentary about integration in Denmark. They met an Afghan refugee named Mansour living in Denmark, who was looking for his brother, from whom he had been separated for 6 years. To help Mansour track down his brother, the Mikkelsen brothers embarked on a 10-month ordeal.