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BSR and Tomorrow Partners Launch New Tool to Educate Women on Health Issues in Developing Countries

June 14, 2011

San Francisco—Last week in Jakarta, Indonesia, BSR’s HERproject launched the HERproject Toolbuilder—a web-based application to create training tools for factory- and farm-based health education in developing countries. The Toolbuilder, created by BSR and design firm Tomorrow Partners, provides local partners in Bangladesh, China, Egypt, India, Kenya, Pakistan, and Vietnam with a web-based platform for creating culturally specific material on a variety of women’s health topics.

HERproject links international companies to local nonprofit organizations to bring health awareness and services to female workers. The initiative uses a peer-to-peer education methodology, which is both cost effective and takes advantage of existing peer networks to spread information. Peer educators are trained by local HERproject partners and are then given the information and tools to train their peers. In the past three years, HERproject programs have reached more than 100,000 women in factories worldwide.

“Due to high levels of illiteracy in some of the HERproject countries, we became aware of a significant need for illustrative training tools that peer educators could use to explain difficult and often sensitive topics,” said Racheal Yeager, HERproject Manager.

The HERproject Toolbuilder:

• Contains a collection of approximately 200 hand-drawn illustrations on topics, including: general, reproductive, maternal, and mental health; nutrition; family planning; and harassment.
• Provides two tool formats: posters or flipcharts. Flipcharts are commonly used as educational tools among highly illiterate populations.
• Allows users to save and share files within the global partner network.

“With the Toolbuilder, we wanted to create a user-friendly, collaborative platform that would enable HERproject to build capacity, expand its reach, and increase its impact,” said Gaby Brink, Founder and Executive Creative Director of Tomorrow.

“Before the Toolbuilder, our team was forced to download images from the internet, many of which were more relevant to Western audiences than Indian women,” said Dr. Bobby Joseph of St. John’s Medical College in India. “With the new Toolbuilder, we now have more than 60 Indian-specific illustrations on the topics we teach.”

Anyone can experiment with the Toolbuilder on the HERproject website, but only contracted HERproject partners can export and use the tools that they create. Eventually, BSR hopes to make the Toolbuilder openly accessible to help companies around the world provide health trainings to their female workforce.

“We have long supported HERproject,” said Stan Wong of the Levi Strauss Foundation. “With the recent commitment by Levi Strauss & Co. to embed the Millennium Development Goals into its global vendor relationships, we are excited about the Toolbuilder’s promise as a vital resource to help women factory workers throughout the company’s supply chain take charge of their health.”

The Toolbuilder was developed with generous support from Tomorrow Partners, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, Sappi, and the Levi Strauss Foundation.

Test the Toolbuilder at www.herproject.org/toolbuilder. For more information, contact Racheal Yeager or Gaby Brink.

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