Dreams - Thina Abantu Abasha
Challenge
How might we educate South African adolescents and young girls with knowledge, skills and confidence to take control of their lives through a mobile experience?
Outcome
We created the Thina Abantu Abasha app, a web-based app that uses uses video games and peer to peer learning to engage our audience and meet them where they are: on mobile channels.
The approach
The TAA app is a web-based, immersive learning and gaming experience for South African adolescents and young girls aged between 12-24 years old, created in collaboration with Johnson and Johnson Global Public Health.The app was inspired by the Thina Abantu Abasha peer-to-peer community program and its “Sister Pack” curriculum developed in 2018 by Johnson and Johnson Global Public Health, in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
The app, like the community program, provides girls with the knowledge, skills, and confidence they need to take control of their lives. There are games, tutorials and activities on goal setting, puberty, sexual and reproductive health, contraceptive choices, and HIV.
By creating a mobile-first experience, we are meeting girls where they are, in the visual language that forms their everyday lives. The TAA app has the potential to empower and engage millions of adolescent girls.
A series featuring fresh, fun and relatable content about the ins and outs of having a safe, healthy sex life.
Much of the content from the Sister Pack is repackaged through short, punchy, TikTok style tutorial and testimonials by former TAA youth leaders and other young girls.
Personalising the Journey
Users create their own identity and choose an avatar from among the many original illustrations that reflect South Africa’s rich diversity. Similarly, there are self-affirmation nudges and goal setting activities that allow users to personalise their experience while encouraging future-minded behaviours.
Sista Stories
The TAA app is anchored around Sista Stories, a multilevel, mobile quest-based game. The game is set in a fictional South African township where players, through their avatar, are given quests based on the knowledge and skills they have acquired through their journey. Users navigate through a vast world of characters and places to fulfill their mission. During pre-testing, Sista Stories exceeded expectations for user engagement and entertainment value, in addition to building and reinforcing skills.
VIDEOS
A library of stories that educate on contraceptive methods that can be used amongst the target audience: Injection, the Pill, IUD, Implants, Emergency Contraceptives and Abstinence
*Actors playing roles for the app
LEARNING VIDEOS
Much of the content from the Sister Pack is repackaged through short, punchy, TikTok style tutorial and testimonials by former TAA youth leaders and other young girls.