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Priyanka Dutt is a project director for Â鶹ԼÅÄ Media Action, the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s international development charity which uses media to improve health and help people understand their rights in developing countries.Ìý

Audiences are at the heart of everything the Â鶹ԼÅÄ does. And it’s no different for the Â鶹ԼÅÄ’s international development charity .

I’m currently managing a project which is tackling the dreadfully high maternal and infant mortality rates in Bihar in northern India.Ìý But in a state of 104 million people, many of whom don’t have constant access to electricity, how do you reach as many people as possible in the most cost-effective way?

The answer is to go back to our audiences in the region: find out how they live, how they think and what kind of media they consume.Ìý Only 18% of women in Bihar watch TV and 11% listen to radio, for example. But over 80% have access to a basic mobile phone.Ìý And our research shows that all community health workers who visit women in their homes either own, or have access to, a mobile phone.

Due to the relatively low literacy rates in Bihar, our research also found out that people were often not able to send or open text messages or locate their contacts on their phones. So we created a simple, audio service designed for health workers to use during their visits to families.

Called Mobile Kunji (‘key’ in Hindi), it has two components. The first is a deck of 40 cards made of the same plastic as credit cards - and therefore monsoon proof! On the front of each card is a picture and a health lesson about, for example, the importance of vaccinations, breastfeeding or birth preparation. And on the back of the card – the side the health worker sees – key learning points to be shared with the mother - and the most powerful figure in a family in Bihar, the mother-in-law.

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But what’s unique about the project is the second component: at the bottom of each card is a seven-digit number, a mobile short code. When the community health worker dials the number, she hears a matching audio message which she can play to the family she’s visiting.

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Punctuated with music and easy-to-remember rhymes, the messages are voiced by an empathetic, reassuring character called Dr Anita who, in the course of the health workers’ visits, will be there to provide guidance and advice through a woman’s pregnancy and after the birth.Ìý

Because Â鶹ԼÅÄ Media Action negotiated some of the lowest call charges in the world with all six of the major mobile network operators in Bihar, all health workers can access the services via the same short codes, whatever handset they use or network they’re on.

We are currently on course to train 200,000 community health workers and in our first seven months, 75,000 users have called the service to listen to more than 1.4 million minutes of Dr Anita’s advice.

In addition to Mobile Kunji, we are also offering training to health workers through their mobile phones and will soon be launching a service for audio messages sent directly to families’ mobiles at relevant intervals throughout a woman’s pregnancy and after birth. What’s more, TV and billboard adverts, 10,000 street theatre performances, 6,000 women’s listener clubs and a radio drama – featuring Dr Anita herself – also reinforce the advice given by the health worker.

I’ve visited villages and heard first-hand the stories of women in Bihar whose lives have been changed by the information provided by Mobile Kunji.Ìý Women like 19-year-old Rinku Devi, who lives in a small thatched hut and sees her husband only once a year when he returns from his job in the Middle East. Ìý

She told me the many things she learned over months of conversations with her health worker, visits which saw her successfully registering for government health services like vaccinations and preparing fully for her baby’s birth. She even showed me a small cloth bag she had prepared, with a new blade, thread, soap and a clean, soft cloth needed for a safe delivery in case she had to give birth at home.

I’m happy to say that a month later Rinku safely delivered her baby, a little boy, in a Bihar hospital. And with Â鶹ԼÅÄ Media Action’s help, he will grow up with Dr Anita at his side.

Â鶹ԼÅÄ Media Action’s work in Bihar is funded by the as part of a programme that aims to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and reduce infectious diseases in the state.

Watch Priyanka Dutt talk about and find out more about .Ìý