BACKGROUND AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES: Salaam Mumbai Foundation (SMF) works on tobacco control throughout the state of Maharashtra & 7 other states in India. Monitoring is an issue, especially reaching out to far-off locations is a concern when trying to reach out to remote rural areas. Physical travel to remote locations for school monitoring to check hard copies of their Tobacco-Free School files, had cost associated with it. To address this issue, SMF developed a data system that involves an individual or school entering their unique UDISE code & uploading their TFS status online. This App was launched by SMF on google play store.
INTERVENTION OR RESPONSE: SMF sensitized all partners, teachers & school-level stakeholders about the application through training workshops. Education & health authorities supported this cause, encouraged schools to upload a high number of relevant files online along with photos & evidence. Furthermore, the Admin panel is handled by SMF, who has record of log of activities of user accessing the app. SMF can accept and reject the individual files as per the 9 criterion requirements by Central Government of India
RESULTS AND IMPACT: SMF has received the database of more than 1,10,000 schools, 52000 entries from schools across Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh etc has been already made. Out of this around more than 19208 schools have declared as tobacco free through this digital app as per the nine criteria developed by Central Government of India.
Reports are accessible to the officials from Health and Education department for strategizing their districts and states progress as per the same.
CONCLUSIONS: Introduction of the online monitoring tool has saved considerable efforts and resources in paperwork. travel time, and simplified district-wise reporting system, where at one click one can find the Tobacco-Free-School status of any district in Maharashtra and other states who have registered their data.