Shanduko AI delivers instant, private, evidence-based SRH guidance to every young Zimbabwean — free, on WhatsApp, in English or Shona. No app. No judgment. No cost.
Zimbabwe faces a compounding SRH crisis among youth — driven not by lack of healthcare, but by a lack of safe, private access to information.
No app download. No registration. No cost. Works on any phone with WhatsApp — which 85% of Zimbabwean youth already use.
Simple, robust, zero-cost architecture. No app stores. No data bundles. Just WhatsApp — which Zimbabweans already have.
Any young person texts Shanduko AI on WhatsApp — any hour, any SRH question, in English or Shona. No registration, no name required.
Before anything else, the message is scanned for 40+ crisis phrases. Suicidal ideation or abuse disclosure triggers immediate hotline referral.
LLaMA 3.3 70B via Groq processes the message with a Zimbabwe-specific SRH knowledge base — clinic names, local brands, laws, and cultural context baked in.
A warm, accurate response is delivered in under 3 seconds. If the user asked where to go, a native WhatsApp map card pins the nearest free clinic automatically.
Deployed since early 2026 on zero infrastructure budget. Every stat below is live from the database — not a projection.
— crisis activations — moments where the bot detected distress and immediately surfaced Childline Zimbabwe (116) and the Musasa Project. Real people reached in real emergencies.
Shanduko has been recognised at the highest level of AI and global health — not as a concept, but as a working, deployed intervention.
Recognised at a Wellcome Trust & FCDO-funded workshop hosted by the University of Zimbabwe, judged by leading AI and global health academics. Competing against healthcare teams from across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Read the Imperial College article ↗Shanduko was designed, built, and deployed by a Zimbabwean MSc Epidemiology student at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine — combining clinical knowledge, data science, and software engineering in service of Zimbabwe's public health.
In a context where stigma is high and privacy is everything, Shanduko was built from day one with privacy as a non-negotiable.
Phone numbers are immediately hashed. The original number is never stored anywhere in the system.
All conversations and analytics are automatically purged after 30 days. Nothing is kept longer than it needs to be.
WhatsApp provides end-to-end encryption. No third party — including Shanduko — can read messages in transit.
No name, no age, no email, no profile. Users are completely anonymous to the system beyond their hashed identifier.
User identifiers are never shared with any third party, NGO, government body, or partner. Ever.
Even crisis activations are handled without storing identifiable information. Hotline numbers are sent; no report is filed.
Send any sexual health question to Shanduko AI on WhatsApp and experience it yourself. Free. Private. Immediate.
For partnership or Ministry enquiries — tynashmasvikeni@gmail.com