1. DIGITAL VISION
SMS FRONTLINE
ARMENIA
Piloted in April-June, 2010
Continued in October-December, 2010

2. The project was incorporated into Oxfam GB
Armenia development programmes –
Health Rights for All,
Disaster Risk Reduction,
and
Sustainable Livelihoods
THE AIM OF THE PROJECT
IS TO BUILD SMS FRONTLINE SYSTEM AS A
CAMPAIGNING, ADVOCACY AND AWARENESS
RAISING TOOL IN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES

3. OBJECTIVE
To pilot SMS frontline as an awareness raising
and capacity building tool to increase resilience
and reduce vulnerability of local communities
on natural disasters, and support them to
establish a culture of safety and resilience
through knowledge and skills in DRR initiatives

4. Implementation strategy
Ist stage – preparatory, one month
• Signing contract with Telecommunication Company on service
provision
• Creation of data base of project beneficiaries
• Identify and hire expert on First Aid (FA)
• Development of FA SMS training course
IInd stage – awareness raising activities, two months
• Delivery of messages in Vayots Dzor region (32 messages on
FA, each working day, about 700 beneficiaries)
• Overall 46000 messages on health rights and FA have been
disseminated to 2000 beneficiaries in 80 communities.

5. WHAT WENT WELL
• We succeeded in introducing SMS technology as
an effective awareness raising tool. Ministry of
Health and other international organization
currently use SMS alerts and messages to increase
the awareness of population on health rights
related issues in Armenia.
• Our regional partner organizations - Health
Foundations of three regions incorporated this
innovation into their activities.

6. WHAT WENT WELL
• We get about 85% positive feedback from project
beneficiaries about effectiveness of SMS
messaging.
• We have registered success stories where due to
messages violated health rights have been
restored.

7. RISKS and LIMITATION
Ignorance of SMS because of lack of interest
towards new technology
 Beneficiaries hard to read SMS text since the text
is in Latin letters
Number of characters in SMS text should not
exceed 160, in part of Sender - 11

8. LEARNINGS and RECCOMENDATIONS
• There is a limited access to any information in
rural communities (newspaper, TV, Internet) and
almost 100% access to mobile network, thus SMS
can serve as an important tool to ensure
information flow to isolated communities
• SMS messaging can serve as effective tool for two-
way communication

9. LEARNINGS and RECCOMENDATIONS
• Do explain beneficiary why we need his/her mobile
phone number (database collection)
• Do not bombard and irritate people with messages
• Do not give people ambiguous information
• Provide opportunity for feedback
• To ensure that the phone numbers of local relevant
authorities and other stakeholders are included into
database

10. PERSPECTIVE
To establish SMS frontline as a two-way
communication
To use SMS frontline as an awareness raising,
alternative tool for distant training, consultation
on basic rights
To advocate for further usage of SMS messaging
by Government for awareness raising purposes

11. THANK YOU