U Join / U Afya by Every1Mobile

In places like Nairobi, shopkeepers are ideally positioned to serve low-income communities with essential health, hygiene and nutrition products. However, shopkeepers often lack the working capital required to keep shelves stocked and support in building basic business skills to promote and expand. 

Every1Mobile created digital platforms to provide shopkeepers with access to e-learning designed to improve business practices, and customers with much needed health information and product promotions, via their existing mobile phones.  

U Join was a mobile-enabled digital platform for low-income shopkeepers in Nairobi. It provided business education, information and peer support, and unlocked access to a range of services to help shopkeepers improve their livelihoods. Via U Join, shopkeepers could sign up their customers to a ‘loyalty club’, through which customers were sent SMS-based e-vouchers for discounted health and hygiene products. 

TRANSFORM supported Every1Mobile’s U Join platform to help U Join shopkeepers develop flourishing businesses, enable greater access to health and hygiene products for low-income consumers and become a catalyst for health promotion initiatives in the local community. 

U Afya was a complementary digital community for young mothers and mothers-to-be to drive uptake of healthy behaviours. U Afya’s innovative content and messaging created awareness about, and drove demand for health and nutrition products. 

TRANSFORM supported the U Afya platform to disseminate COVID-19 health information using a COVID-19 prevention content package and a set of behaviour change tools. It also engaged the community via a U Afya Ambassador programme and organised WhatsApp learning sessions designed to connect mothers digitally. These sessions offered advice on the prevention of COVID-19, techniques for improving the hygiene behaviour of thousands of young mothers in the most vulnerable settlements in Nairobi.