Some app designers are now thinking beyond the traditional targets for their products and are focusing on how technology can help the poor instead.
As we’ve pointed out, Significance Labs sponsors three-month fellowship for entrepreneurs and software engineers as develop technology that serves the poor. (Twenty-five million American families live on less than $25,000 a year, yet 80 percent of low-income Americans own some kind of mobile device, according to Significance Labs’s website.)
One tool that reaches low-income Americans is Text4Baby, which can help expectant low-income and teenage mothers give birth to healthy babies, writes Jill Duffy for PC Magazine.
Text4Baby is a free service that sends pregnant women and new moms text-sized bits of wisdom and advice to support their health and parenting skills. The messages, which are available in either Spanish or English, are also tailored according to the zip code of the mother and the due date of the baby or age of the child.
The texts include health notices, such as the importance of cooking meat thoroughly and wearing a seat belt, descriptions of symptoms that shouldn’t be ignored and developmental updates as the baby grows. Texts also inform pregnant women when to schedule their next prenatal appointment and ask about blood tests they took in prior appointments.
These small, regular reminders, such as, “Even if U feel great, a pregnant woman needs checkups with a Dr./midwife (CNM/CM). For help with costs, call 800-311-2229,” can be a powerful tool for women with limited resources and support. Text4Baby messages also include information to help women access the necessary healthcare.
Tamara Grider, the director of marketing and communications for Text4Baby, says that while the service isn’t exclusively for low-income mothers, “We do put effort into [reaching them] and that includes women who are low-income, women who are African-American and Hispanic. We definitely have a target audience because we know where the need is the greatest, for one, and because of the infant mortality rate among ethnic groups.”
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition runs Text4Baby and collects no information from users beyond their zip code and the baby’s due date. It’s anonymous and easy to use for anyone with a cell phone — regardless of manufacturer.
Users can benefit from a number of special programs, such as a current promotion that offers free flu shots for all Text4Baby users at RiteAid.
Grider tells Duffy that the reminders help because lower-income people “have a lot to worry about. A lot of our moms who are low income or younger moms, for them it’s kind of like insurance: ‘I don’t know what I don’t know. But if I need to know something, Text4Baby is going to tell me.'”
It all adds up to a tech solution that is GR8 for low-income moms.
MORE: Where Helping the Poor Comes Before Innovating for the Privileged
Tag: mothers
When Families are Separated Because of Criminal Acts, This Technology Keeps Everyone Connected
Sure, there’s the adage, “distance makes the heart grow fonder.” But anyone who’s been in a long-distance relationship can attest that maintaining the connection is difficult — and a lot of work.
That’s particularly true of incarcerated parents who are separated from their children.
But a pilot program in Philadelphia is working to change that. For almost a year now, Riverside Correctional Facility (which houses about 800 women) has been allowing supervised video chats between inmates and their children.
This increased ability to communicate not only has the potential to enhance prisoner morale and family cohesion, but it also allows the parent to have more say in decisions regarding her kids. All of this is very much needed, which is obvious from this staggering statistic: Since 1991, the number of children with imprisoned mothers has doubled, according to Next City.
More families could soon benefit from this program, says Jessica Shapiro, DHS chief of staff in Philadelphia, and the technology could even spread nationwide this summer.
With the huge increase in incarcerated mothers, video chatting has the potential to revolutionize and greatly improve the childhood of those affected. Although parents in prison cannot be physically present with their children, and in many situations, social workers have to get involved, this technology does allow for more involved parenting and better outcomes for the family as a whole.
One family recently used a video chat to hold a “family team conference,” notes Shapiro. “A mother and grandmother who were both incarcerated, [and] the children and grandchildren were able to attend the conference at DHS,” she said. “The conference was so emotionally powerful for all parties that the facilitator had to actually stop the conference several times.”
While videoconferencing should not replace vital, in-person visits between inmates and their children, it does have the ability to increase communication, something that the general prison population needs— cutting down on wait times and keeping families better connected.
MORE: Born in Prison Herself, She’s Helping Women Break the Incarceration Cycle
How Jobs Give Low-Income Mothers More Than a Financial Boost
Are young children better off when their mothers stay home or when they go to daycare? It’s a question that has been hotly debated for decades and will likely never be settled, but a new study by Boston College researchers suggests that low-income kids with working mothers perform better in kindergarten than their counterparts whose mothers stay home.
The study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, followed 10,700 children born in 2001, and found that when low-income mothers returned to the workforce before their babies were nine months old, their children performed better in standardized tests of reading, math and vocabulary in kindergarten. When low-income mothers returned to work when their kids were between 9 months and two years old, their children had fewer behavioral problems in kindergarten, according to teacher surveys.
Meanwhile, children of middle-income women showed no significant difference in behavior or cognitive abilities whether their mothers stayed home or not, and the kids of high-income mothers showed a slight decrease in ability when their mothers worked. Prior studies of kids born in the 80s and 90s had suggested some negative effects of childcare across all income levels.
Caitlin McPherran Lombardi, lead author of the study, told the American Psychological Association: “Different cultural attitudes, more readily available and higher-quality child care and more fathers participating in childrearing are other possible reasons for the difference.”
She also noted that continued employment seems to make a big difference in the low-income mothers’ lives too—58 percent of mothers in the study returned to work by the time their child was 9 months old.
“Most mothers today return to full-time work soon after childbirth, and they are also likely to remain in the labor market five years later, suggesting the employment decisions soon after childbirth are pivotal to determining mothers’ long-term employment,” she said. “Our findings suggest that children from families with limited economic resources may benefit from paid maternal leave policies that have been found to encourage mothers’ employment after childbearing.”
MORE: A Safe Childcare Option for Low-Income Parents Working the Night Shift
Providing Assistance to “the Forgotten Heroes of America” is Top Priority for This Veteran
Even if you’ve had lots of bad luck come your way, there’s probably someone out there that can top it. Captain Jaspen Boothe of the Army National Guard is one of those people.
While this single mother served in Iraq in August 2005, she lost everything back home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. And the hits didn’t stop there.
The very next month, she was diagnosed with “aggressive head, neck, and throat cancer,” according to her website. As a result, she could no longer be deployed overseas and needed a job to support her young son and to pay for her medical care. She inquired about around about assistance, but was told that there aren’t any organizations dedicated to specifically helping female veterans.
While undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer, Boothe managed to keep a position in the Army Reserves. Once she felt better, she joined the Army National Guard, in which she now serves, based out of Washington, D.C.
Now that she had climbed back on her feet, Boothe wanted to do something to help other female veterans caught in difficult circumstances. So in 2010, she founded the nonprofit Final Salute, Inc., with the goal of housing homeless female veterans. “When Americans think of veterans, they’re only thinking about the men. Women veterans are the forgotten heroes of America. A lot of them have fallen on hard times,” Boothe told Denise Hendricks of HLN Morning Express.
To date, Final Salute, Inc. has helped 200 veteran women and their children, and now runs three transitional homes for them in Alexandria, Virginia; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Columbus, Ohio. Through its S.A.F.E. program (Savings Assessment and Financial Education), the organization assists women vets achieve financial stability and offers emergency assistance, and through its H.O.M.E. initiative (Housing Outreach Mentorship Encouragement), it offers housing assistance and help with food, diapers, and other essentials.
“We are not a pity party environment. We give you all the tools that you need, but your success in this program is up to you.” Boothe’s tireless efforts, she said, are “the right thing to do as an American and the right thing to do as a soldier.”
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
The World’s Most Difficult Job and 4 Other Videos That Inspired Us This Month
You can not take any breaks, you are constantly on your feet and during the holidays your workload doubles. Watch an interview for the world’s most difficult job and four other videos that inspired us this month