Khetha: Connecting to Youth

In 2018 I worked with Aviro Health and Doctors Without Borders (MSF) to create a new way of engaging youth around HIV. Traditionally HIV and youth engagement had been very theoretical, consisting mostly of overwhelming information that caused fear and panic. With Khetha, we put the youth at the centre of the design process and we crafted content that supported what they needed in order to actively change their health behaviour to minimise their risk of HIV infection.

To do this we engaged with youth through user design workshops, where we co-created stories and possible solutions for how they wanted to engage with the health system. Central to these workshops was the idea of storytelling, we wanted to understand how they were engaging with stories, legends, urban myths to create a sense of what guided their decision making in critical moments.

Out of these workshops came the needs for several different content engagement types:
– 1st we created a series of short films that explored how a group of friends experienced love and life.
– 2nd we created fictional youtube characters that made online tutorials to help youth with complex topics such as male circumcision or condom usage.
– 3rdly we created peer-to-peer counselling for support and mentoring through HIV testing and diagnosis.
– and additionally we created a VR experience, where as youth went through a night of fun they experienced the anxiety of bad decision making in the moment.

All of this was hosted inside of a youth friendly, zero-rated app available on mobile that gave them access to the information at all times and also allowed them to book health checks at youth facilities.

I am so proud of this work because of how much we engaged the youth we wanted to affect and the results show that when you really interact in a meaningful way through user design workshops you can create something impactful.

Read more about the project here