“GET HELP FAST AT THE PUSH OF A BUTTON”
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Namola is a free app that empowers you to protect yourself and the ones you love.
NAMOLA IS AN APP THAT HELPS YOU RECEIVE EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE WHEN YOU MOST NEED IT
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Frequently asked questions
General
What is Namola?
When you request assistance through the Namola app, the Namola team immediately sends your request to local law enforcement and participating safety initiatives in your community so they can come to your aid as quickly as possible.
How is Namola different from WhatsApp safety groups?
We love that South Africans use communication tools like WhatsApp groups and CPF radio networks to keep their communities safe and we encourage everybody to join such groups.
Namola makes it super simple to request assistance at the touch of a button. This is especially important when you’re not near the area covered by your local group, such as when you’re commuting to work. We spend a lot of time away from home, and it can be difficult to figure out where to get to help. Namola makes that simple. It works everywhere and all the time.
If your local community signs up to receive Namola Sentinel alerts, they can still help co-ordinate the response using existing WhatsApp groups or radio networks. This way, Namola and initiatives that are already in place complement each other: Use Namola to request assistance, and the local community will be notified and can co-ordinate through existing channels.
Why does it sometimes take long for police to arrive?
It’s important to understand that Namola is not the police itself. It’s the simplest way to request assistance from the police so that help can be dispatched as quickly as possible without wasting time describing where you are. The police prioritise dispatch for incidents that are in-progress and with imminent danger to people’s lives, and arrival times depend on factors like how close the nearest vehicle is, how many other incidents the officers are dealing with and how well-resourced the local police station is.
Does the coverage include farm areas as well?
We understand and fully appreciate the gravity of the special dangers facing farmers. In rural areas that are far away from the nearest police station, Namola might not always be able to get police out as speedily as we’d like. (Not for lack of trying!)
Farm Watches can choose to join Namola Watch, which allows Farm Watches to receive emergency notifications in their area. This is to ensure that even if SAPS don’t have the resources to deal with an emergency, the community’s own safety initiatives can take over.
If you know of any Farm Watches that might want to get involved, please ask them to get in touch with watch@namola.com, and we’ll get them on board.
Are all police vehicle across the country linked to Namola?
In some places, Namola alerts go directly to officers. In other places, our control room will get hold of 10111, the fire station, EMS, traffic, etc. on the user’s behalf, depending on the need. In all cases, Namola has a dedicated command centre operator assigned to each incident who makes sure the user gets the assistance they need from the relevant authority and who is there for the user every step of the way.
Having said that, Namola is not a magic bullet that fixes all the myriad challenges with public emergency services in our country. That is precisely why we’ve developed Namola Watch. In many cases, communities are doing a great job putting structures in place to keep their communities safe and work around the challenges with e.g. SAPS not having adequate resources to deal with every incident as efficiently and speedily as we’d all like.
We’re also exploring ways to tie private armed response into our network, for those who want additional peace of mind.
Mobile App
Why does the Namola app require location permissions?
The magic of Namola is in not having to waste time describing your location in an emergency situation. Namola only uses your location in emergency situations. The rest of the time, we’re not locating or tracking you.
Will Namola drain my phone’s battery?
The Namola app is not active unless you’ve requested assistance. The app won’t drain your battery if you have it installed and aren’t using it.
Will Namola use my airtime or data?
Namola uses a little bit of data when you open the app and request assistance. Namola won’t, however, use any of your data in the background. (So please do not log out of Namola while you’re not using the app! You need to be logged in to request assistance, and you want to get to that function as quickly as possible in an emergency.)
If you run out of data and airtime, Namola will let you place a free call to 112 to request assistance.
My location pin is not exactly where I’m at… Can I update my location to be more accurate?
Our command centre agents will ask for address confirmation when they call back within seconds, or you can send a chat message with a more accurate description after opening an incident in case you can’t talk.
The phone also periodically sends through refined locations from the GPS during an open incident, in case the first location that was sent through was a little bit inaccurate or you move around after requesting assistance.
Emergency Contacts
How it works
Inside the Namola app, tap on the “Contacts” icon.
To add an emergency contact, tap the big “Add a contact” button or the icon in the top right that has a little +. Once you’ve selected up to five contacts, tap the checkmark (Android) or “Send invite” button (iPhone).
If your contact is already using Namola, they’ll receive a push notification about your request. If your contact isn’t registered on Namola yet, they’ll receive an SMS with a link to download the app.
Your contact, once registered for Namola, will find your request by opening Namola and going to “Contacts”. Tap on the request to either accept or decline it. (Until they have accepted your request, an emergency contact will show as “invited” in your Contacts inside Namola. Perhaps follow up with them to remind them to accept, if they’re still showing as “invited” after a few days…)
Once the contact has accepted to become your emergency contact, they’ll receive notifications whenever you request assistance for yourself in a real emergency. When one of your emergency contacts receives an SOS alert from Namola, they can open the Namola app, and see your emergency under “Contacts”. If they tap on your emergency, they’ll be able to call you, see where you are and navigate to your location. They can also participate in a chat group with you, your other emergency contacts, and—most importantly—the Namola control room operator who is co-ordinating the emergency response. This way, your emergency contacts will be kept fully informed about your emergency at all times.
How do I notify my emergency contacts when I need help?
Your emergency contacts will automatically be notified if you use Namola to request assistance for a real emergency (crime, accident, medical or fire) and indicate that you’re requesting assistance for yourself. In short, just use Namola as you always would!
And you can always have the peace of mind that our control room will always coordinate the emergency response, whether you have emergency contacts or not.
What’s the difference between contacts with a star and contacts without a star in my list of Contacts on Namola?
Contacts without a star have added you as an emergency contact. You’ll receive SOS alerts for their emergencies, but you won’t alert them of your own emergencies.
Contacts with a star are your own emergency contacts. These contacts will be alerted for your own emergencies.
You can always turn a non-emergency contact (without a star) into an emergency contact. Just tap their name and choose “Add as emergency contact”.
Can I remove an emergency contact?
Certainly. If you no longer want to notify someone of your emergencies, or if you no longer want to receive emergency alerts from someone, just tap their name in your list of Namola Contacts, and choose “Remove”.
What should I do when I receive an emergency alert from a loved one?
Open the Namola app and go to Contacts, where you’ll find more detail of the incident. Tap on the emergency to see more detail, including location. From there you can join a chat group with the person who requested assistance, our control room, and other emergency contacts who were alerted too.
In the chat, please indicate that you are participating. If you are able to alert e.g. a private security, please do so, and post the details about this to the emergency chat to keep everyone informed.
Our control room’s first job is to get the user who requested emergency assistance help as fast as possible. Once they’ve done that, they’ll inform everyone about next steps via chat.
My contact did not receive a notification for my request to add them…
Check to make sure:
- They have Namola installed.
- They have push notifications enabled.
- They are registered on Namola with the mobile number that is invited.
- They have an active data connection and/or data bundle.
If your contact is not yet a Namola user, they should have received a download link. If they haven’t, no worries. Just ask them to go to https://namola.com/share to download Namola. As long as they register with the same number that you’ve invited them on, your request as an emergency contact will wait for them as soon as they’ve registered.
My contact did not receive an alert for my emergency
Check to make sure that the contact has the following:
- They have Namola installed.
- They have push notifications for Namola enabled.
- They are still registered on Namola with the mobile number that is the emergency contact.
- They accepted the request to be your emergency contact.
- They have an active data connection and/or data bundle.
Also, check that the incident was:
- A real emergency (traffic, fire, medical or crime) AND requesting assistance for: “myself” was selected.
- Or: it was another type of emergency (“test” or “other”) AND alert emergency contacts: “yes” was selected.
Lastly, just make sure that the contact is an emergency contact. Only contacts with a star are alerted to your emergencies. (Those without a star will only alert you to their emergencies, not vice versa.)
Privacy
What are my personal details used for?
Namola only uses your personal details in an emergency (such as your mobile number, name and location) in order to get you the help you need as fast as possible. Namola may share your details with the relevant emergency responders who are attending to your incident. We never share your personal details with anyone else without your explicit permission.
I want to be removed completely from Namola!
We’re sad that we didn’t live up to your expectations, but we’re always here to help. Drop an email to privacy@namola.com and we’ll delete your account immediately.
