Una Hakika (Swahili for ‘Are you sure?’) is a program launched in 2013 to use telecommunications in Kenya’s violence-prone Tana Delta in order to counter misinformation which contributed to several massacres and heightened inter-communal tensions.

John Otunga, Project Co-ordinator for The Sentinel Project's Una Hakika initiative.

Looking Ahead We look to the future of the project and the universal applicability of the lessons learned from it.

Una Hakika is an information service which provides subscribers with neutral, accurate information in response to rumours that arise in the Tana Delta. Most of the communication for Una Hakika takes place through SMS (short messaging service, or text messaging, as it is more commonly known in North America) as well as voice calls and the engagement of volunteer community ambassadors. People who hear rumours can report them by sending a toll-free SMS to our short code – 21512 – which essentially acts as a rumour verification hotline. Once Una Hakika receives a report about a rumour, our team goes into action to verify it and report back to the community about whether the rumour is true or not. This process involves gathering a lot of information from various different sources and trying to make sense of it while mapping subsequent reports of rumours to see how they develop and flow through the area. That’s where WikiRumours comes in as our purpose-built software for managing the Una Hakika workflow.