child using phone while in farm

Customer Stories

Brastorne is uniquely positioned to deliver custom solutions to help government institutions and non-governmental organizations deliver mission-critical programs that greatly benefit the rural poor across Botswana and Africa. Here are just a few of the custom solutions we’ve created in partnership with both local government and international organizations.

Botswana Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre employee working on computer

Connecting Victims of Abuse to Gender-Based Violence Support

The Botswana Gender-Based Violence Prevention and Support Centre (BGBVC) was struggling to reach key affected populations and wanted to expand its reach without necessarily having to set up a specialized contact center.

Brastorne partnered with BGBVC to provide contact center support for women affected by Gender-Based violence who may need counseling. Through the mPotsa SMS and Voice contact center platform, Brastorne created a dedicated line for counseling services that linked victims directly to trained counseling and GBV support professionals at BGBVC. The calls were private and only handled by BGBVC staff.

u report event members group pictures

Mobilizing 20,000 Users with U-Report Botswana

U-Report Botswana is a social messaging tool and data collection system developed by Brastorne in partnership with UNICEF to improve citizen engagement, inform leaders, and foster positive change.
The program sends SMS polls and alerts to its participants, collecting real-time responses, and subsequently publishing the gathered data. Brastorne was contracted to implement the U-report rollout and launch in Botswana.

The project included developing and implementing a social mobilization strategy that resulted in:

  • Onboarding over 20,000 U-reporters
  • Stakeholder mobilization (ministries, telco companies, faith-based organizations, schools, media companies and Non-Governmental Organizations)
  • Technical integration with mobile network operators

Brastorne Supports Botswana’s National Covid-19 Response

Brastorne responded to the Covid-19 pandemic with two key efforts to curb the spread and provide support to communities.

First, Brastorne provided its development capabilities pro-bono to create a contact tracing and permit application app called “bSafe” to support the government of Botswana and help curb the spread of COVID-19. bSafe was deployed as the official national contact tracing solution and was the official system to be used by all of Botswana.

Secondly, Brastorne donated its contact center facilities, technology, and equipment to the government of Botswana and hosted the Covid-19 contact center line to support the country during the pandemic. The call center handled over 50,000 calls a day, aided by our IVR technology that allowed for 90% of the traffic to be answered automatically.