Dear Friend of DKT,
February is one of our favorite months here at DKT. No better time, after all, to protect against unwanted pregnancy than on the day dedicated to love and sex.
Trade in your heart-shaped Lindt truffles for our chocolate condoms, and show your love with a long-acting, reversible contraceptive method.
To mark this month of romantic surprises, we’ve put together a list of things you may not know about DKT.
Christopher Purdy
President
DKT Myanmar launched a Facebook Chatbot on the Lydia Myanmar Facebook page. The Chatbot can speak to site visitors over Facebook Messenger, providing a menu of contraceptive options and discussing the benefits and shortfalls of each method. The Lydia page has 1.4 million followers.
Similarly, DKT Brazil’s Prudence page has the “Prudence Adviser” which, upon clicking the page, greets you with a friendly message in Portuguese, “Hi! It’s a pleasure to have you here. Who do you want to speak with? A counselor or receptionist?” This chatbot sets the tone for a judgement-free, laid-back contraceptive conversation.
We Deliver Contraceptives to Conflict Zones
above: DKT Egypt trains OBGYNs on IUD insertion and removals.
Family planning is often out of reach for women living in war-torn or politically unstable environments.
To address such issues, DKT Egypt provided 25,000 IUDs to Syrian women in 2018 and trained providers on IUD insertion techniques in Somalia.
DKT Pakistan launched condoms and IUDs in Afghanistan while DKT’s Francophone West Africa program continued to secure products in Cameroon, amidst the Boko Haram insurgency.
In West Africa, DKT is also looking into additional sales opportunities in Niger, Mali, and Chad. And DKT Nigeria sold more than 76 million condoms in 2018, boosting access to contraception in spite of the ongoing ethnic conflicts.
Innovative Technology Tracks Our Clinical Quality
To determine client satisfaction in real time, DKT Pakistan is piloting an innovative monitoring and evaluation tool at 20 Dhanak Clinics. This computerized client satisfaction tracker presents clients with just five color-coded, facial expression buttons to capture their clinic experience. DKT uses the real-time data to keep a close eye on trends and results.
This tool opens communication between women and DKT. Oftentimes, women are uncomfortable discussing their family planning experience openly; others have limited capacity to do so, their language restricted by minimal education and health literacy. This monitoring and evaluation technology eliminates the need for sensitive, one-on-one conversations, while still ensuring DKT provides professional and easy-to-understand contraceptive counseling and services.
above: Each Client Satisfaction Tracker is a sustainable addition to even the most rural clinics, with a battery life of 2-3 years.
In addition to this tool, DKT distributes regular Quality Improvement and Client Satisfaction surveys.
Above: Dhanak healthcare provider counsels a client during a Health Day, special promotional days held in partnership with community health workers.
Partnerships with Public Sector Providers Advance Abortion Access
In Mozambique, DKT works closely with the Ministry of Health to equip public health nurses with the knowledge and products necessary to perform safe abortions. Recently, the government of Mozambique passed legislation that permits nurses to administer medical abortion pills. Since, DKT has trained more than 1,000 public health nurses, increasing safe abortion access points across the country.
above: DKT trainers and public sector providers pose for a post-training photo in the Safala Province,
Easy-to-Understand Information Mobilizes More Women
DKT connects women to partner website, HowToUse, an online educational resource on self-administered abortion. Featuring over 24 languages and illustrated procedures, the site is written at an 8th grade reading level to ensure most women can understand its content. The site receives some of its greatest web traffic from visitors in Nigeria, India, Iran, and the United States.
DKT promotes and prints materials that link to pinkshoes.org, a discrete URL that redirects to HowToUse. This mask URL protects young visitors from potential search-history backlash, meaning all women, young and old, may access abortion information without the fear of others finding out.
More so, the site also has training videos for providers, teaching best practices on safe abortion techniques. These videos enable not only women to understand their own abortion, but encourage providers to offer accurate, judgement-free support throughout the process.
below: Screenshot from the HowToUse site. This is the first of many images detailing a safe abortion process.
DKT on Social Media
DKT Mexico posted this Wonder Woman meme to its Facebook page. In Spanish, it reads, “When it’s Friday and you are protected with your IUD.”
Winter is wedding season in Pakistan, and Josh condoms is celebrating by wishing its 330,000 Facebook followers a “Happy Bedding Season.”
Janani took to Twitter on Valentine’s Day to share this post on Style condoms, just in time for romantic evenings everywhere.
