Publishers of Where There Is No Doctor launch iPhone app and “Digital Commons”
Annemarie ter Veen
Hesperian Health Guides, publisher of the landmark book Where There Is No Doctor, is launching a new suite of digital tools designed especially for community health workers and trainers. The Hesperian Digital Commons provides free access to life-saving health information in 26 languages, and empowers communities to become producers of health materials that meet their needs rather than consumers of one-size-fits-all content.
Responding to and leveraging the explosion of digital technology – particularly mobile phone technology – even in the world’s most remote areas, the Digital Commons features an interactive Safe Pregnancy and Birth iPhone app in Hesperian’s friendly, accessible style, along with a HealthWiki well-suited for slow or intermittent internet connections. And, after decades of hearing stories of health workers cutting and pasting text from the health guides and tracing illustrations to create posters and flyers, Hesperian and technology partner UnaMesa have made thousands of line drawings available in a searchable online image library and developed a free on- or off-line layout program.
All tools and resources are available through Hesperian’s website: www.hesperian.org/digital-commons/ and the iTunes Apple Store: http://tinyurl.com/6toftv6.
Please distribute widely!
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Dorothy Tegeler
Editor, Updates and Spanish editions
Hesperian Health Guides
1919 Addison Street, Suite 304
Berkeley, California 94704
tel: (510) 845-1447 x 200
fax: (510) 845-0539
dor...@hesperian.org
www.hesperian.org