About Us
Rerai Umntwana is a parenting app designed for parents, caregivers, and service providers in Zimbabwe. It is a Ministry of Health and Child Care app, supported by UNICEF Zimbabwe with funding from the Government of Japan.
About the Application
Rerai Umntwana was developed to respond to the unique needs and interests of parents and caregivers in Zimbabwe. Many parents face the challenges of limited access to reliable, evidence-based information on children's nutrition, health and development. The app aims to bridge this gap by offering parents and caregivers of young children practical, culturally-relevant advice, and tools on nutrition, health, child development and parenting.
Aligned with national Health policies and integrated programs, Rerai Umntwana was designed to be inclusive and accessible. In addition, it features simple visual and mobile-friendly parenting content.
Rerai Umntwana is an application that supports responsive, positive parenting. Its aim is to provide comprehensive information about early childhood development and parental care in a parent-friendly format. Rerai Umntwana can support the dissemination of messages and information related to illness and disease prevention and protection for children.
The app can also be used by service providers as a resource in their work with parents and as a tool for building trustworthy relationships and a partnership for the benefit of young children.
The app is developed to support parents to engage in developmentally stimulating practices through games and activities with their children and will help them monitor child growth, development and health status.
The app contains a rich library of articles and videos grouped under thematic categories of:
- Play and learning
- Nutrition and breastfeeding
- Responsive parenting
- Safety and protection
- Health and wellbeing
- Parental wellbeing
The app is using the information on child’s date of birth, gender and other information entered by a parent to recommend suitable content and tailored guidance.
Some content throughout this app has been sourced, adapted and translated with permission from the Raising Children Network Australia (Raising Children Network), Real Play Coalition (https://www.realplaycoalition.com), Afinidata (https://afinidata.com/en/home/).
The app will require internet connectivity to download the content and display media content.
The app can also operate in an off-line mode in environments with limited internet connectivity. The precondition for that is that the user was previously online at least once when s/he was downloading the app and logging in to it. The user can choose through the app Settings to download the app content specific to the current age of his/her child or to download all content to be able to use it in fully offline mode.