An Integrated Communication Delivery System for COVID-19 in Schools

A single communication delivery mechanism is suggested in understandable vernacular language to be delivered in real time through Mobile App to the students and children, to the school administrators, teachers and staff and to the parents, caregivers and community members to make information available in school settings.

Dr. Aditi Munmun Sengupta, MBBS, MS, FMRC, MRSB, Harvard Medical School Post Graduate Association Member.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has evaluated that COVID-19 (coronavirus) can be identified as a pandemic while the virus has now spread to over 205 countries and territories.

 The shielding of children and educational facilities from the COVID-19 virus is extremely important. Safeguarding is necessary to avert the possible spread of COVID-19 in school settings. Care must also be taken to keep away from defaming students and staff who may have been exposed to the virus. Our solution will  help in gathering information and facts about COVID-19 which will help to cut down the fears and anxieties of students encompassing the disease. The project will also provide the basic and appealing idea to the school administrators, teachers and staff, food handlers, parents, caregivers and community members as well as children in promoting safe and healthy school environment even being not present physically in school.  

The project will provide answers to the questions of the school children about COVID-19. It will also provide the basic and appealing idea to the school administrators, teachers and staff, food handlers, parents, caregivers and community members as well as children in promoting safe and healthy school environment even being not present physically in school during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Being global citizens, children and young people are a resource for change as they assume the role of caregivers, scientists and doctors in the future. The present crisis should not destroy the next generation of hope; rather provide an opportunity to help the younger ones to learn benevolence and increase the resilience to lay down a safer and continuing care community. Gathering information and facts about COVID-19 will help to cut down the fears and anxieties of students encompassing the disease. They will develop better ability to tackle the carry over effects in their lives. The project will also provide the basic and appealing idea to the school administrators, teachers and staff, food handlers, parents, caregivers and community members as well as children in promoting safe and healthy school environment even being not present physically in school.

Early learning in India is a nascent, largely untapped market that is witnessing tremendous growth. There is no better time than right now to join us on a journey to build, shape and transform learning outcomes for hundreds of millions of Indian children foundationally. Our research was focused on an indigenous mobile app Kutuki made in India for preschool learning. We wanted to use this principle to build a mobile app in vernacular language with data from COVID-19 that will be implemented in school settings. Education will encourage students to become advocates for disease prevention and control at home, in school and their community by talking to others how to prevent the spread of the disease. It is expected that this effort will provide the necessary tool to keep the children updated about the recent happenings so that they are at par with the proceedings across the globe from the safety of their homes.

Our app is planned for use by school children,also the health infrastructure side information for the school administrators, teachers and staff about disease spreading, its symptoms, good health behaviors, nearest test centres, vaccine information and encouraging students to prevent and address stigma. The third facet will be for parents, caregivers and community members about how to monitor child’s health, how to teach model hygiene practices for the children, how to deal with the stress reactions, and to prevent stigma and then to support school safety efforts.This along with the use of vernacular language will help to bridge the knowledge gap between the children and the adults and build innumerable connections with a better social impact and best practices.In our preliminary research we focused on personal safety mainly, health resources, educational resources,financial access and inclusion.In the future our focus will be on improving the app quality and performance.

Increasingly, the opportunity provided by apps to generate awareness for local as well as global issues and to foster advocacy is getting noticed. For example, ‘Share The Meal’ developed by the World Food Programme, has raised over $13 million from more than one million users since it was  launched in 2015.

In the world scenario the data on social impact user needs shows strong country by country diversity. For example, Mexico and Brazil strongly over index on personal safety issues, and Japanese users are least likely to report a social impact need over index on having experienced an emergency.

     In our study in India we included  the social impact parameters like personal safety issues(percentage population was 23% as compared to percentage who used mobile was 44%), health resources(19% percentage population vs.40% who used mobile apps),educational resources (12% percentage population vs. 47% using mobile apps), financial access (18% in population vs. 52% in mobile app), some other life needs(2% in population vs. 53% using mobile apps),those who experienced none (38% in population and 33% for mobile app users).In this era of COVID-19 pandemic it is the insight of the grave situation that is inspiring us to develop this novel app solution.

The immediate barriers we are envisaging in our projects are infrastructure challenges and cost. We are lacking IT infrastructure as our research group focusses on basic science research. We will need to collaborate with laboratories with IT facility to give our project a shape. During our preliminary research data collection regarding COVID-19 we faced the children asking pressing questions about the disease which led to this idea of knowledge dissemination.

The second is cost effectivity. We have calculated the cost of the initial setup which goes to 10 lakh INR in the startup. Then we’ll require manpower to develop the project followed by its publicity to get it accepted by the school authority. In the initial phase we have to deliver this app free of cost to the schools, but later if we can get donations from school authorities that will be helpful for the growth of the app.

University of Calcutta, Kolkata, India.

The Trinity Challenge platform will help us to establish industry and Government collaborations for launching of the mobile app for the school children.

The funding process and the availability of both revenue and capital funding can create a barrier to the effective design, implementation and maintenance of the research project at hand.

1 year funding: 10-15 Lakh INR

Matching partner organisation (cash and in-kind)

Partner organisation minimum cash contribution of 20 percent

Two rounds per year (May and October)

The award money can help to enable significant improvements in the way in which local authorities can manage, and overcome, funding barriers.

There should be a concurrent rise in efforts to strengthen infrastructure needed to promote research in developing and low-income countries like India.The Trinity Challenge will bring forth the research ideas and will foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and partnership with influential stakeholders.

We want to have The Trinity Challenge Member Organisations in our support group.

The initial spark of this research started from a few questions asked  by school children about COVID-19 pandemic. It is not only important to have good ideas but also important to develop them. The Trinity Challenge platform helped us to prune our research question and to determine the effectivity of the research project. With the help of this platform we want to bring our research question in the forefront of the Government so that the necessary actions are taken for the implementation. Being global citizens, children and young people are a resource for change as they assume the role of caregivers, scientists and doctors in the future. The present crisis should not destroy the next generation of hope; rather provide an opportunity to help the younger ones to learn benevolence and increase the resilience to lay down a safer and continuing care community. In the broader sense if this project becomes successful this will lead to a policy making impact of paramount importance with sound evidence.