Marie Stopes - WorkerHealth Program USAID
Research, Design, and e-Learning for Workers’ Health in Cambodia
Marie Stopes’ WorkerHealth program, funded by USAID, helps women in garment factories to understand family planning and sexual reproductive health. Through research and design, we developed appropriate tools for them to support their WorkerHealth Champions.
The garment factory industry in Cambodia
In Cambodia, women make up the majority of the workforce within the garment factory industry. Most of these women are under 30 and so having an understanding of sexual reproductive health is especially important. Marie Stopes were working in garment factories, implementing their WorkerHealth programs alongside USAID and the Cambodian government, to enable the women to understand and benefit from sexual reproductive health information. Marie Stopes had chosen some of the production line managers to act as WorkerHealth Champions and facilitate these health conversations. Our challenge was to research and identify new innovative ways in which Marie Stopes could provide high quality support for the Champions.
Research: Understanding factory dynamics
Firstly, we wanted to research and understand the dynamics within garment factories. We did this through a series of onsite factory visits, engaging with existing stakeholders (factory clinics, community clinics and the factory management and HR) through a series of group sessions and human-centred design activities. With so many stakeholders involved in this program, these sessions helped us to understand how they interacted with each other in regard to providing health services for the factory workers as well as seeing how we could make the systems they have in place work more effectively to meet the needs of the Champions.
Communicating information through digital platforms
We ran HCD sessions with the Champions to dive deeper into what they did on the production line, to see who they talked to and how they communicated health information with each other in and outside of the factory. We focused on the aspect of communication within the factory to see what digital tools would be appropriate for them. We discovered that the Champions had created large-scale Facebook messenger groups where they shared health information, asked questions and could interact with other factory Champions. Our research would inform our design approach in developing products that would be useful to the Champions and help reduce the barriers between young women on the production line and them accessing the type of sex reproductive health service that they needed.
Prototype: Designing to user needs
Based off the findings from our research and through user-centric design methods, in the early stages of prototyping we set about mapping the needs of the Champions and connecting these to possible solutions that could come alongside what the Champions were already doing. We developed a flashcard system for Champions to use as a tool for their health training sessions with young women on the production line. The flashcards contained illustrations and questions on a number of topics which could be used in the form of a game or teaching exercise that helped Champions teach sexual reproductive health to these young women. Our first product prototype was a tool that allowed Marie Stopes to communicate with Champions and also acted as a digital portal for their training content. We took Marie Stopes’ existing learning resources and turned them into e-learning modules that Champions could complete. They could then share that information with fellow women within their messenger groups. By integrating the tool into Facebook Messenger, Marie Stopes could answer questions and provide updates without the Champions having to learn a new platform. Once we had completed a product prototype, we facilitated a TOT with Marie Stopes’ technical staff to walk them through how to use, manage and update the digital platform.
Robust design methods are key to success
When evaluating projects, we can always find things that we’d have liked to do more of. This project with Marie Stopes and USAID was a good opportunity for us to learn how to optimize and work within a situation where there is limited access to a wide range of stakeholders. We found we were able to identify and map the barriers women face in accessing good health practices while navigating a complex network of institutional interests. At a time when the concept of design thinking was emerging, we designed and created working product prototypes and handed them over to Marie Stopes to carry on iterating as needed. We were constantly reminded of the importance to design where people are at rather than where we’d like them to be and in doing so, we came away very proud of what we achieved in such a short space of time.
MSI Reproductive Choices
- Research
- Design
- Development