Visiting Kenya a few weeks before their March 2013 elections I took advantage of the long delays on Nairobi's congested roads to chat to our taxi drivers about their opinions regarding preparations for the elections and the presidential candidates contesting it. They shared their thoughts willingly and not unsurprisingly had different perspectives.

We dived into Nairobi morning traffic once more, this time to meet Evans and James of FIT Resources. FIT are building a business model around Freedom Fone to complement their work providing capacity building skills to small and medium-sized enterprises (SME's). The idea is to use Freedom Fone to provide audio content in the vernacular and to use it as a feedback channel to evaluate products or services via the Leave-a-Message function (LAM). 

Akeyo has been a community health worker for 7 years. Fathiya is also a community health worker, living positively with HIV for the last 15 years and grandmother to 4 kids. Gathoni is both a community health worker and a sex worker and mother of 2.

We were privileged to meet and talk with these 3, who are helping the women of their community, each using their own experiences to break down barriers and empower women facing the same hardships and issues in Korogocho.

Freedom Fone faces a number of challenges in 2013 as it transitions from a donor funded development model to a community supported software project.

Historically, Freedom Fone was developed to help activists quickly set up automated voice menu, voicemail and SMS information services independent of the Internet and with a minimum of reliance on mobile network operators.