The Young Africa Live SRH chatbot was developed by Reach Digital Health with support from the Elton John AIDS Foundation to provide accessible, relatable and reliable information and pathways to services for young people.
Covering a wide range of topics in a chatty, non-judgmental manner, the chatbot content is carefully crafted for delivery on WhatsApp.
The chatbot was first launched in South Africa as part of the National Department of Health supported B-Wise cluster of youth SRH services.
All the chatbot content and assets are freely available for you to adapt and use.
The chatbot was initially designed for South African youth, aged 15-25. The content was developed for delivery over WhatsApp in English.
Users were asked a range of profiling questions during onboarding. They would then receive daily nudges to access memes, quizzes, stories and topics.
Users were able to reach out to a counsellor, browse topics, or ask a question at any time through a menu.
The content has been created to be:
Substance, tone and format are tailored to a youth audience.
We use quizzes, stories and engaging retention strategies to keep users coming back.
The content can be updated, localised and refreshed for use in any context.
The messages are kept short so they can be read quickly and easily on a mobile phone. By frontloading key messages, brevity is balanced with the need for extra info.
You can access the repository freely under a creative commons licence and can adapt and localise the content and assets as needed.
The repository includes:
10 quizzes
150+ topics
2 serialised stories
200+ push messages
100+ social media assets
The repository does not include the build elements of the chatbot, such as:
onboarding flows
surveys flows
risk profiling flows and algorithms
content flows
ask a question functionality
call a counsellor functionality
If you wish to access any of these additional components, please let us know and we'll attempt to assist.
The chatbot implementation in South Africa was evaluated with pre and post surveys and interviews. It demonstrated a significant positive impact on the sexual and reproductive health knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of young users.