Wa Kanday Gooro! (Good news!) Good Neighbours UK (GNUK) in collaboration with Good Neighbors Niger is proud to announce the launch of 11 interactive, audio-visual health lessons in Zarma, the second most widely spoken language in Niger.
Spoken by approximately 21% of Niger’s population (around 4.9 million people), Zarma is the country’s second most widely spoken language after Hausa and a major language of the southwest, including the capital Niamey. Yet many Zarma speakers struggle to access vital health information because public health campaigns often rely on messaging and materials written in French.
In a country where maternal and child mortality remain high and adult literacy is approximately 35.6%, written leaflets, text-based campaigns and centrally broadcast messages reach only a small portion of the population. Through our partnership with Education Saves Lives and in close collaboration with Niger’s Ministry of Health, we are working to address this gap by delivering more accessible health education and awareness in rural Niger.
Education Saves Lives uses a simple but powerful model combining spoken narration in the viewer’s own language, in this case, Zarma, with illustrated visuals which are interactive, easy to follow and requiring no literacy. Lessons are distributed on USB keys and DVDs, as well as online, so that communities with limited or no internet access can still benefit from them. These 11 lessons will be distributed to health workers and NGO staff for use across Niger. The topics include maternal and child health, immunisation, and the prevention of diseases such as malaria among others.
Every lesson was reviewed and validated in collaboration with officials from Niger’s Ministry of Health, ensuring that the content is not only linguistically accurate but aligned with national health priorities and culturally appropriate for the communities it will serve.
Education Saves Lives is a registered UK charity founded in 2000, with the mission to get health information and more to people in local languages. Education Saves Lives has grown into a global force in community health education. Their developing library of over 35 interactive, audio-visual health lessons is available in up to 65 languages.
GNUK and Education Saves Lives are both committed to expanding the Zarma lesson library further and to exploring how this collaborative model of accessible health education can be replicated across other languages and regions in the Sahel Region, ensuring more communities have access to the knowledge they need to protect their health.
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