A monitoring and evaluation system for community based organisations

Abstract

Heartbeat is a non profit organisation that reaches out to orphaned and vulnerable children in various poor communities in South Africa. The organisation offers a variety of services to children, such as providing food, shelter, emotional support and homework assistance. These services are delivered by Childcare Workers (CCW) visiting the children at their homes. Heartbeat is in the process of improving their monitoring and evaluation system. The organisation is currently experiencing major challenges with regard to data collection. Heartbeat needs to report regularly to external stakeholders, such as government departments and donors. These reports can only be accurate if their database is up to date. Childcare Workers are presently using a paper based system to report on the home visits they make to children. Management requested a study to determine if mobile technology can be used to replace the paper based reporting system. This document contains a study of literature concerning several mobile technology systems as well as an analysis of the most viable solutions to Heartbeat’s reporting challenges.