Students use tech to fight abuse in daladalas

Modesta Joseph is a 15 -year-old girl who studies at Kisutu Girls Secondary School in Dar es Salaam. The first time Caloryne Ekyarisiima met her was in August 2014 when she was introducing Apps & Girls coding club in Modesta’s school. Modesta hardly knew how to code or use a computer, therefore  she joined the club. It was obvious she wanted to do something for her community, but she did not know what, when and how she was going to do it.

“After attending just a few sessions, Modesta created her own website to give voice to students who are harassed and abused by bus conductors while using public transport in Dar es Salaam. 

With her idea she entered Apps & Girls Annual competition 2014, and one of 38 participants, Modesta won the 3rd prize,” says the director of the Apps and Girls.

“Today her idea has turned into a live website – www.our cries.com, which has collected 200 reports from students, and has recieved very promising support for her project from SUMATRA. She was also shortlisted by Ashoka – the world’s most prestigious network of social entrepreneurs – to attend an event in Nairobi,” noted Caloryne who is the founder of Apps and Girls. Strengthened by her successes, Modesta has now set up her own organisation to become self-employed. She feels she has found her way to contribute to her community – through technology.  She does not want to get employment but to create it.

Modesta can now create employment, solve community problems and build an innovative generation that would make Tanzania a better place.

Speaking to Success, Modesta said Our Cries is a system working to end students’ humiliation and harassment by individuals in different sectors. “Our Cries has started with public transportation where students don’t have equal rights to good transport, and they are usually harassed, abused by daladala conductors and drivers,” she says.

Our Cries gives voice and opportunity to these voiceless students as it provides a web-based system for them to report the harassments, humiliations and abuses (CRIES) they face from bus operators anonymously.  And later all those reported incidences are forwarded to Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (SUMATRA) and Police for further action. We are still working on our partnership with different potential government institutions and private companies in Tanzania.

How does it work?

Students can report their cries through a web-based system. And for those who do not have access to internet they can report through normal SMS and Our Cries Boxes.

Our Cries boxes are made from wood which will be placed in several secondary schools for students to submit their cries on paper.  The cries collected through OUR CRIES BOXES AND SMS will be entered into the  system by data entrants. Later the cries are forwarded to SUMATRA for further action accordingly. The system has also started a petition to end all these cries, people are called upon to sign the petition and end students’ cries.

“Our cries manage free expression of students as students report their CRIES anonymously. But in case the student wants us to assist him/her with legal aid, He/She should provide his/her name and contacts for us to help him/her.

But also, Our Cries is applicable since both students with an access to internet or no acess can report their cries. Without forgetting that Our Cries is a system changing solution as it will change community attitude (regarding petitions) that “seats are only reserved for adults to seats are for everyone,” says young Modesta.      

How it started

Modesta was one among many students who joined Apps and Girls Coding Club at Kisutu Girls Secondary School in 2014, where the role of Apps and Girls was to teach girls how to code with the big mission of breaking the gender gap in ICT. Girls were supposed to learn coding and then to think of a problem which faces their community and then think of a solution as in how can coding knowledge be used to help the community. That is  when she thought of helping students including herself.

How far  it has gone and awards

As Our Cries manages to do the hosting of the website, it has received numerous reports from different students.  Using the awarded fund, Our Cries has managed to buy necessary equipment such as laptops and smart phones and develop more of Our cries boxes to be placed in various schools. At 15, MOdesta has won several innovation awards and rubbed shoulders with some tech gurus as well. She has lao managed to travel courtesy of her innovation. 

She  came 3rd at 2014 Apps and Girls Annual Competition. ( Number  3 among 21 projects of 2014)

She also took the fourth position     in Innovation Fund grant by TANZICT.

Her innovation also won her a trip to Finland to attend SLUSH, an event where startup founders, social innovators and world technology talents converge annually.

What she achieved

Slush is a  focal point where tech talents meet with top-tier international influencers, investors and media.

As a young social entrepreneur from Tanzania who is committed to helping her community. She attended SLUSH with the aim of creating new network and through this network she learned new things.  Sharing expirience with other successful entrepreneurs from other countries also helped her to boost her understanding on social entrepreneurship and how she can work to make her initiative better.

“I aimed at looking for relationship with global sponsors and partners who attended, and also met other social innovators who are mostly focusing on children and education. Attending SLUSH helped me realise that there are people out there who are willing to listen and help mostly when you are doing something great to help your community. And age does not matter at all so long as you can be creative,” she says.

“As one of my mentors, Wilhelm Oddo usually says,  the world is full of answers, what you need to do is to press the correct button with the correct question. I learned a lot from my fellow Tanzanian delegates especially from those I shared a room with,” she said.

She added that they didn’t hesitate to correct her whenever she was wrong and also shared their experience with her since from when she started.

“It was very encouraging, inspirational and motivational to me. Moreso, I was really inspired with other startups by the zeal, innovations and marketing strategies they used to sell their unique products and learned a lot from them. Being at SLUSH 2015 has increased my network, knowledge and experiences from other startups. All these have widened my understanding about entrepreneurship,” says Modesta.