IICD, Vodafone and dance4life seek 4 Dutch young professionals to support a project that takes place in rural Northern Ghana and aims to reduce teenage pregnancies, STDs and HIV aids by using mobile phones. Over twenty percent of the Northern Ghanaian teenage girls is either pregnant or already has a child. STDs and HIV/Aids are also a problem in this region. Youth often lacks right information and knowledge about reproductive health.

At this moment, the project supports youth by training youth leaders to educate their peers. They also get access to ICT centres of the rural health clinics where they work from. This programme is supported by IICD and Cordaid through the Connect4Change Consortium together with local partner ACDEP. With the support of IICD, Vodafone Foundation and dance4life, mobile phones will be used to better reach youth with information about health and sex. Via mobile quizzes, text messages and a mobile encyclopedia, over 5000 young people will be able to get more information about sexual reproductive health.

Vodafone’s World of Difference programme supports IICD for one year by giving a paid job to four young Dutch experts to assist in the implementation of the project in Ghana. Interested young people, can register and find more information via the website WorldofDifference.nl between September 17 and October 31 2012. The winners will be announced and will travel to Ghana in February 2013

In a project team, the selected candidates help to create a mobile application that will support the young people. The project team consists of a social media specialist, an IT-specialist, a marketing specialist and a youth worker. They are supported by Vodafone, IICD and dance4life. For more information, please go to http://bit.ly/RZJmZD