A new cellphone application aims to get ordinary citizens gathering the data needed to tackle Makana's water problems.
A new cellphone application aims to get ordinary citizens gathering the data needed to tackle Makana's water problems.
It’s happened to all of us who have lived in Grahamstown: turn on the taps and instead of clear water, muddy sludge pours out.
When it happened to Debbie Coulson one evening, she decided she’d had enough.
“I remember being incredibly irritated one evening as I ran a bath for my baby and the water was muddy. With a background in monitoring government accountability and a degree in Participation, Power and Social Change, I knew we, as Grahamstown residents, had to engage meaningfully with Makana if we wanted things to change, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it.”
She shared her thoughts the following day over lunch with a friend, Hannah Thinyane, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Rhodes University whose main areas of academic interest are in ICT for development and mobile computing.
Thinyane asked the question that would begin a three-year, Ford Foundation-funded MobiSAM research project: what if residents could use mobile phones to engage with Makana over water issues?
The project, which is based at Rhodes University, partners with Grocott’s Mail and Makana Municipality, and works in collaboration with other roleplayers such as the Institute of Water Research, the Kowie Catchment Campaign and the Pharmacy department at Rhodes University.
The MobiSAM application Identifying trends in water outages – location, duration and frequency – provides a basis for further investigation into their causes, and thus the possible solutions.
The MobiSAM application was adapted from a mobile polling application that allows individuals to use their cellphones to voice their opinion or provide information in any number of polls, from identifying or ranking their most pressing needs to reporting on service delivery problems or on the quality of delivery.
The MobiSAM application’s web-based front end enables users to take part in polls without having to install software onto their mobile handset.
This ensures portability across different handsets and ease of update of client software. By including location information (collected through user profiles), results of polls are able to be collated and visualised by geographical region.
Water in Makana
Although there are multiple ways in which MobiSAM can be used at the local government level to facilitate participation, the piloting of MobiSAM in Grahamstown with Makana Municipality will focus on water service delivery in 2013, in particular the delivery of drinking water to Grahamstown residents.
Why water?
• Ongoing concerns regarding water quality and water outages in Grahamstown • Recent protests over water service delivery in Grahamstown
• Need for more accurate data on the provision and use of water in Makana for the municipality to plan and budget properly
• Opportunities for residents to become proactively involved; being part of the solution
There are two ways in which MobiSAM will be used – water monitoring by residents, and communication about water.
It is critical to gather accurate data on the use, provision and quality of drinking water in Grahamstown.
We are calling for residents to volunteer to conduct regular monitoring of water in their homes during the course of 2013.
Residents volunteer to monitor these in their own homes during the course of 2013 by reading their meters on a monthly basis.
This project is aimed at improving communication between residents and the municipality on the issue of water. It focuses on managing both the supply and the demand for water, ensuring fair billing, determining and minimising water that is unaccounted for, reporting on water quality, recording and reporting the number and length of water outages each week, identifying trends in location, duration and frequency of outages in town, and so forth.
Where water quality concerns are raised by monitors through the MobiSAM application, a sample of water will be collected from the resident’s home and tested using water testing kits at the Rhodes University Pharmacy Department.
The results of water quality tests will be made available to the municipality for communication to residents.
In addition, results will be available on the MobiSAM website, the Grocott’s Mail website and Radio Grahamstown.
Data is captured and made available to registered MobiSAM users in real-time on the MobiSAM website.
Residents can register to be a part of this water-monitoring project from 1 March 2013.
Water Communication MobiSAM will facilitate increased communication between the municipality and Grahamstown residents.
Residents who register with MobiSAM will be able to report water outages and concerns over water quality and pressure via the MobiSAM application to the municipality.
An official in the municipality will be able to respond to residents by updating them on progress made in identifying the source of the problem and in addressing it.
Similarly, the municipality will be able to inform registered users of planned water outages.
This aspect of the project is yet to be finalised; we are waiting for the municipality to sign an memorandum of understanding.
If this document is signed at the next Council hearing, residents can register to be a part of this communications project at the end of March 2013.
How to participate
If you would like to participate in this exciting project by monitoring water provision and quality in your home, follow the steps below:
1.Register with MobiSAM Visit http://mobisam.net/user/register.aspx on your computer or cell phone and complete the registration form.
The registration process will capture basic personal information such as the user’s name, gender, cell phone number, and physical address.
The user’s physical address will be captured to enable MobiSAM to map reported water outages by suburb, as well as for the municipality to respond swiftly to water interruptions and/or water quality concerns.
Such personal information provided by users will be treated as strictly confidential.
Once your user account has been activated you will be able to login using your username and password.
2.Log in and complete a baseline survey Once you have logged in to the MobiSAM website, you will be asked to complete a baseline survey.
3.Once you are registered with MobiSAM and have completed the baseline survey you will be able to participate in any number of polls using the mobile phone application.
Certain polls will always be available in order to enable users to communicate water outages or water quality concerns to the municipality.
For example, there will be a permanently available poll asking: “Do you have water today?” Other polls and information will be sent out irregularly by the municipality informing users of planned water outages, etc.
A third set of polls is available for residents who commit to participating as water monitors.
These polls will be sent out each week in 2013 in order gather important water service delivery information.
Some water quality monitors will also be provided with test kits in order to more accurately test water quality.
4. You can view the results of polls by visiting http://mobisam.net/ for real-time updates if you are a registered MobiSAM user.
