The Yabelana (“to share”) system is the first of its kind and uses technology to provide Eastern Cape residents with easily accessible information on their mobile phones.

Prof Darelle van Greunen, director of the Centre for Community Technologies at Nelson Mandela University, said the app was designed in collaboration with North West University.

South Africa is currently in a three-week lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19. President Cyril Ramaphosa has declared a national disaster and the army has been deployed to enforce strict lockdown rules with the police.

According to lockdown regulations citizens are only allowed to leave their homes either to work in essential services or to buy food and a few other basics, medicine or access medical assistance.

The Centre for Community Technologies assisted in the multimedia design and the preparation of training material for the app.

“We took over the custodianship of the app,” Van Greunen said. The project is currently active in the communities of Ikageng, Promosa, Lokaleng and Sharpeville.

“Given the current situation, it will be rolled out in the Eastern Cape and service providers in the province are encouraged to register on the app,” she said.

“Users can search and find service providers in any category, make contact with them and provide feedback about the service provided. This encourages citizen participation and accountable service delivery. Yabelana is context specific, and gives a wide range of information, from health care and social services to councillors’ contacts and events.”

Van Greunen says service providers and citizens can benefit now by putting their services on the app and allowing citizens to see which providers are open and can be of service during lockdown.

“In so doing, it will minimise risk as citizens will know which service providers closest to them are operational. It will also allow them to be in contact with the service providers to establish whether they have what the person is looking for.”

The app can be downloaded from Google Play or the App Store.

“Service providers are then required to register and promote their services,” Van Greunen said.

The Centre for Community Technologies last month won the United Nations Economics Commission for Africa Innovation Award for best innovation with the highest social impact for Ncediso, an app that gives assistance to health workers to diagnose and refer patients for common illnesses and provide first aid.

Earlier this month Dr Imtiaz Sooliman from Gift of the Givers said they are using the Vula app to enhance their response to the virus crisis. The app has 11,000 registered medical professionals linked to it nationwide.

“Within 10 minutes of a positive case, we can be informed of what intervention is required from anywhere in the country,” he said.

He added that medical professionals are also using the app to obtain items in advance as many of their facilities are poorly resourced. DM