Mobile app used to map free condoms in the Philippines

Inspired by the mobile game Pokemon Go, campaigners in the Philippines are using a smartphone app to send users to locations with condom dispensers in a bid to promote safe sex and break stigma to fight a worsening HIV epidemic.

Campaigners and activists in the Philippines have set up free condom dispensers in collaboration with restaurants and shops in Manila to promote safe sex and fight a worsening HIV epidemic. They have developed a smartphone application through which they can send out the locations of the condom dispensers to the public.

It’s like Pokemon Go when you run out of Poke Balls, you need to refill at a nearby station. At Safe Spaces, you can see the nearest stations where you can access free condoms. This is an innovation, it has never been done before. Now people can access condoms safely and without stigma – Ronivin Pagtakhan, LoveYourself Founder

Led by Save the Children and campaign group LoveYourself, which promotes HIV awareness, the Safe Spaces project has set up 30 dispensers in Manila so far and aims to expand to 150 locations across the country this year.

Via: Reuters

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Heland Ortega

This article was written by Heland Ortega, Junior Contributor of YugaTech. He is a graduate of Information Technology and Multimedia Arts at FEU Institute of Technology in where he is also now working as a full-time faculty. You can follow him at @helandortega.