Documents & Pictures
- Supporting LIFE Final Report
- Supporting LIFE Factsheet
- Supporting LIFE Trial Results Factsheet
- Supporting LIFE Team Picture, Kick-off Meeting, June 2013, Lund, Sweden
- Supporting LIFE Logo
Videos
- Data flow diagram illustrating health record data management within the Supporting LIFE application
- Rationale and aims: Explainer video, produced by Jason Harvey and the team from University College Cork, on the Supporting LIFE project
- Supporting LIFE documentary video 1 – Revolutionising rural mHealth solutions in developing countries
- Supporting LIFE documentary video 2 – Combating child mortality with a mobile health app
About the Supporting LIFE logo
In Africa, the Baobab tree is known as the “Tree of Life” for its ability to supply nutrients, water and medicines. It has evolved in a way that lets it make optimum use of very scarce resources. In fact, the Baobab is among the largest and longest-lived trees on earth. It survives prolonged droughts by storing water in its massive, fibrous, sponge-like trunk which can be 30 to 60 feet in diameter. The trunk can be hollowed out to make a shelter. The Baobab produces an edible fruit that has high concentrations of vitamin C while the leaves are rich in vitamin A.
For millennia people have gathered below the branches of the Baobab to debate and discuss important issues and ideas. In many villages in Malawi the baobab tree is a centre for community life with meetings take place under its broad branches. For some cultures it is the tree under which man was born. The Baobab tree is a symbol of sustainability, creativity, ingenuity and dialogue. The proposed Supporting LIFE project strives to follow these ideals and be a meeting place for groups in Europe and Africa who will come together to create a sustainable resource for low resource communities across the world.
Like the Baobab tree the Supporting LIFE project will make use of resources in an optimal way to achieve a sustainable community focused healthcare environment. A proverb from Ghana tells us “Knowledge is like the trunk of a Baobab tree. No one person’s arm span is great enough to encompass it.” Recognising this, the Supporting LIFE project has undertaken a cross disciplinary approach where the knowledge of Healthcare, Information Systems and Information Technology combine to improve the health of children.