AWARD WINNING YOUNG AFRICAN YOUTH MOBILE COMMUNITY LAUNCHES IN TANZANIA!

December 1st: YoungAfricaLive launches on Vodacom Tanzania today, marking the start of the award-winning mobile community’s presence in East Africa. Young Africa Live is a mobile community that entertains and educates young people on topics of love, sexual health, gender and relationships which are issues adversely affecting the youth in Tanzania.


The portal intends to give the youth a platform to speak their minds, through a medium that is accessible, and encourage conversations on topics that are relevant to them. This will then get the conversations going; ideas shared and internalized thereby creating behavior change around relationships, good love, safe sex and HIV.


The platform will therefore empower youth to become catalysts for change, connecting them to Tanzania health care providers and create a new experience of what can be achieved by mobile internet as a platform.

Fittingly, YoungAfricaLive: Tanzania arrives on World Aids Day – two years to the day after YoungAfricaLive’s inception in South Africa where it has proved to be an potent way for young people to share and discuss the issues they confront daily.


YoungAfricaLive: Tanzania is available free to Vodacom subscribers through the Vodacom Mobile portal http://m.vodacom.co.tz. This means that users are able to be on the YoungAfricaLive portal even if they don’t have airtime – a critical element in a country where one of the key millennium development goals is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. “We are thrilled that our partners Vodacom have joined us in launching YoungAfricaLive in Tanzania,” says Gustav Praekelt, founder of Praekelt Foundation.


“Over the past two years, what started out as a desire to provide young South Africans with free access to information on HIV/AIDS through their mobile device has turned into a vibrant community of engaged young people who use YoungAfricaLive to gain information, discuss issues - and also have fun.”

Just recently Praekelt Foundation was acknowledged for the success of YoungAfricaLive in South Africa, which currently has over 656,000 users. The Johannesburg based organization, Africa’s leading developer of mobile solutions to improve people’s lives, was named the first South African winner of the Social Impact category of the Mobile Marketing Awards for Innovation, Creativity and Leadership in Los Angeles in November 2011.


Over two years YoungAfricaLive has grown to become South Africa’s largest mobile community for young people – and with a substantial number of youth in Vodacom Tanzania’s over 10.5-million subscriber base, the uptake of YoungAfricaLive in this country is expected to be as significant.


YoungAfricaLive’s real power comes in providing a space where young Africans can talk about sex, HIV/AIDS, love, relationships, and, increasingly, jobs. “The fact is that through YoungAfricaLive and Vodacom, Tanzania’s youth can now get onto a mobile platform at no cost and get information on some very topical and important issues,” says Rene Meza, Managing Director Vodacom Tanzania


“Most importantly, YoungAfricaLive gives users the opportunity to ‘talk’ to other young Tanzanians about the things that affect their lives the most – be it their lovelife or female genital mutilation.” Said Rene .As we’ve seen in South Africa, this peer-to-peer conversation is incredibly powerful in changing people’s lives for the better and we are excited about giving young people in Tanzania access to this.


YoungAfricaLive is available free to pre-paid Vodacom subscribers from December 1st.