YoungAfricaLive launches in Tanzania

The community portal aims 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, 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.

YoungAfricaLive: Tanzania is available free to Vodacom subscribers through the Vodacom mobisite 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 Young Africa Live to gain information, discuss issues - and also have fun."

Praekelt Foundation was acknowledged for the success of YoungAfricaLive in South Africa, being 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.

"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