An in-person course that became a WhatsApp journey: what we learned with Longeviver

Yes, you can teach people aged 60 or over on WhatsApp, as long as the lesson fits the conversation: short video, audio, buttons to continue and reminders at the right moment. The course Educação Financeira para a Longevidade (Financial Education for Longevity), from OLHE, combines this journey with in-person meetings.

What the course is

Educação Financeira para a Longevidade is a course by OLHE, the Human Longevity and Aging Observatory (Observatório da Longevidade Humana e Envelhecimento), for people aged 60 or over in the city of São Paulo, with lessons on WhatsApp and in-person meetings. The project is supported by Cidade de São Paulo – Direitos Humanos e Cidadania (City of São Paulo – Human Rights and Citizenship), the Fundo Municipal da Pessoa Idosa (FMID, the Municipal Fund for Older Persons) and the Conselho Municipal de Direitos da Pessoa Idosa (CMI-SP, the Municipal Council for the Rights of Older Persons).

For Denise Mazzaferro, of OLHE, "the role of CORRE was very important in implementing a new way of bringing knowledge about financial education to the older population of the city of São Paulo" (our translation).

How it was: the classroom as the only channel

An in-person-only course depends on the person being in the room. Whoever misses a meeting misses the content, and the team does not know who disappeared until the next meeting. WhatsApp changes this for two reasons: the content stays on the phone, to review at the person's own pace, and the team can see who stopped responding.

How it is now: content that fits the conversation

The blocks in the project were:

• WhatsApp chatbot, which leads the lesson like a conversation.
• Learning paths in text, audio and video, so the same content reaches people in more than one format.
• Message classification with AI, to separate what is an answer to the activity, what is a question and what needs a person.
• Reminders and re-engagement, to call back those who drifted away.

On the course screens, a lesson appears as a short video from the teacher with a button to continue, or as an audio message with one sentence, such as "I know how much money I can spend in a month" (translated from Portuguese). On another screen, the person answers with buttons, "This fits me" or "This does not fit me" (translated from Portuguese). It is a conversation of a few taps.

A WhatsApp rule that shapes the course

The Meta documentation separates two types of message in the official API. Messages that are not templates can only be sent within a 24-hour service window, which opens when the person writes. Outside it, sending is by message template, approved by Meta. This matters for re-engagement: the reminder to someone who disappeared days ago has to be a template, and the course has to be designed with that in mind.

What we learned

• One idea per message. The lesson that fits on one phone screen is the one the person finishes.
• Short audio and video can help people who find reading hard. The same content in more than one format is an accessibility decision, not decoration.
• The reminder is part of the lesson. Without re-engagement, the class empties out and nobody sees it.
• AI classifies, the team answers. Sorting messages by type leaves the team with what takes a person.

See the design of the project in the Longeviver and OLHE case and other uses in Programs with WhatsApp.