In a crowded rural health facility in one of the villages of Al-Wahj sub-district, Qatabah district in Al-Dhalea governorate, a father carried his young daughter suffering from severe dehydration after days of untreated diarrhoea. When the doctor asked why they had delayed seeking care, the father replied in a broken voice that they had received a WhatsApp message warning them not to visit health facilities, claiming that home remedies were sufficient.

This was not an isolated case. It had become part of a dangerous and growing pattern in Yemen, where a fragile health system is increasingly overwhelmed by waves of harmful and misleading information that spread faster than medical teams can counter them. This reflects a wider global trend highlighted in the World Disasters Report 2026, which identifies harmful information as one of the most urgent challenges shaping humanitarian crises today.

Living this reality day after day was young volunteer Hammam Al-Dakhla. He saw firsthand how a single voice note could influence the decisions of hundreds of families. During one vaccination campaign, a rumour claiming that vaccines cause infertility spread to dozens of villages within hours and took weeks to correct. As these incidents repeated themselves, it became clear to Hammam that traditional awareness methods were no longer enough to confront the scale and speed of harmful information.

Out of this frustration came a simple but powerful question: what if the same digital tools used to spread rumours could be used to fight them? What if there were an easy solution that worked on the phones people already use? What if reliable, instant corrections to false information were available to everyone?

These questions sparked the idea of The Digital Shield, an intelligent chatbot providing trusted health information around the clock through the most widely used applications in Yemen.

Searching for a way to turn this idea into reality, Hammam found the platform he needed in the IFRC Solferino Academy. The Academy had opened applications for the MDH Challenge, a programme designed to fight misinformation, disinformation and harmful information. 

Despite doubts about competing with more than 200 projects from around the world, Hammam applied. What he found was an institution that believed in ideas born from communities. When he learned that The Digital Shield had been selected among the top projects, it felt like recognition that the struggles of frontline workers had finally been heard.

With seed funding from the Academy, real work began—despite the fact that the actual costs exceeded the initial grant. Rather than wait for additional funding, Hammam covered the gap from his own savings, driven by the conviction that every day of delay could allow another harmful rumour to put a family at risk. Throughout this phase, the IFRC Solferino Academy provided technical and mentorship support, while IFRC experts helped guide the project with a structured, human-centred innovation approach.

Development officially started in October 2025 and continued intensively for a full month. Working with a single contracted developer, Hammam pushed forward with determination. The technical backbone was built, reliable health data sources were compiled, AI models were trained to understand Yemeni dialects, and integrations with WhatsApp and Telegram were developed followed by testing and refinement.

On 6 November, the first Telegram bot was launched; a significant milestone, achieved despite power cuts and limited internet connectivity.

The impact was immediate. Mothers, young people, and health workers began receiving trustworthy answers that shaped critical decisions. In Taiz, a mother decided to vaccinate her children after the bot confirmed that claims linking vaccines to autism were false. In Hodeidah, a health centre manager reported using the bot as a reliable tool to provide quick, accurate information to patients. Youth volunteers helped spread the links through local groups, accelerating early adoption.

Following the successful pilot launch on WhatsApp and Telegram, Hammam and the developer recognised the need for a stable, official platform that could serve as a central reference point for the public. Although building a website had not been part of the original implementation plan submitted to the IFRC Solferino Academy, practical needs and the desire to strengthen credibility and reach made it essential.

With a simple, clear design, the official website was launched as the project’s main gateway. It explains the service, showcases success stories, provides direct access to the bots, and clearly states that all services are free and based on trusted Yemeni and global health sources.

Gradually, the vision expanded beyond a chatbot. The project now aims to incorporate analysis of misleading images and videos, evolve into a standalone application, and reach all Yemeni governorates serving more than 100,000 users. Crucially, it offers a model that can be replicated in other countries facing similar challenges.

For the IFRC Solferino Academy, The Digital Shield exemplifies the kind of innovation it seeks to support: solutions rooted in lived experience, led by young people who deeply understand their local context and respond to real needs. As Catherine Eskandar, the MENA Youth Chair in IFRC, noted: “The Digital Shield is a powerful example of how innovation should happen in humanitarian contexts, rooted in lived experience, shaped by community needs, and driven by young people who refuse to accept harmful information as inevitable. This is what locally led, human-centered innovation looks like in action.”

For Hammam, the story goes far beyond technology. It is about trust—and about protecting people from an invisible threat capable of endangering lives. As he says: “I dream that my grandmother in the village can access the right information easily. And that one day, we can share this model with other countries. Yemen could become a place where solutions the world needs are created.”

In this way, The Digital Shield is not just a technical project. It is a digital window of hope in a country navigating illness, conflict, and information disorder every day. With the support of the IFRC Solferino Academy, this youth-led innovation has found a pathway toward broader impact, stronger protection—and a story whose next chapters are still being written.

🌍 Available in: Français | English | العربية