Building unlikely alliances to save children's lives
Simon Berry ColaLife Know How Non-Profit Interview | sounddelivery by colalife >
A big thank you to the folks at sounddelivery, Mark Ellis and Eric Whelan in particular, for the creativity that went into this audio feature which was recorded on the evening of 25/3/09 and summarised the ColaLife story so far. The feature mixes audio from various sources.
Since the interview Coca-Cola have confirmed that they plan to carry out trials of the ColaLife idea later this year in Tanzania.
Community development is always more complex than it looks. ‘Quick fixes’ are ‘out’ and ‘holistic approaches’ are ‘in’. But I wonder if there are exceptions to this philosophy. I think there are some things that just need to be fixed and I also think that a less holistic approach might actually help in some circumstances.
I happened to catch this feature on Radio 4′s Today programme, 6:45am, 20 April 2009:
Malaria no more | Radio 4 Today Programme | 20/4/09 by colalife
‘Malaria no more‘ is a recently established, single issue NGO that is just focussed on eliminating deaths from Malaria, no more, no less. And when it has done that it will disband (I understand). Around half the children that die before their fifth birthday, that ColaLife is so concerned about, die from Malaria. That’s 10% of children in Africa, or 2 a minute. Basically, that is not acceptable in 2009 and it has to stop. Full stop. That is what ‘Malaria no more’ is determined to do.
I wonder how they will distribute their bed nets and anti-malarial drugs?
The BBC’s iPM programme, which goes out on a Saturday on Radio 4, has maintained a keen interest in the ColaLife story. For convenience, I have brought together the features they have created and broadcast in the last 12 months into this post (see below). In addition to these broadcasts, Jennifer Tracey, of iPM did a follow-up interview at the 2gether08 festival on 3/7/08. You can listen to the feature here or watch David Wilcox’s video of the interview here.
24/5/08
A big thank you everyone at iPM
Highlights: Includes an interview and song from Eve Graham, the original lead singer of the New Seekers hit ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’ which became a Coca-Cola commercial in the early 70s and a statement of interest from Coca-Cola
The original ColaLife feature on iPM | 24 05 2008 by colalifeEve Graham sings a song for ColaLife on iPM | 25/5/08 by colalife
27/12/08
ColaLife on BBC (UK) National Radio (27/12/08)
Highlights: Summarises the progress of the first 8 months of the campaign, the development of the idea and first reactions from the frontline in Tanzania.
iPM ColaLife Feature broadcast on 27 12 2008 by colalife
25/4/09
Coca-Cola confirm their commitment to ColaLife trials . . on BBC Radio 4
Highlights: This interview brought together Coca-Cola’s Euan Wilmshurst and Simon Berry to discuss Coca-Cola’s commitment to trials of the ColaLife idea before the end of 2009.
Coca-Cola’s commitment to ColaLife | 25 04 2009 | FULL INTERVIEW by colalife
Here’s the presentation I gave yesterday at the Africa Gathering event at Birkbeck College, London. The audio was added retrospectively. The ‘Live’ version was a lot more fun! But all the facts are here. The videos and audio mentioned in the presentation are here:
Big thanks are due to Ed Scotcher and friends for organising a great day and for inviting ColaLife.
*STOP PRESS*
An hour or so after this presentation, Coca-Cola confirmed their commitment to trials on the BBC’s iPM programme on Radio 4. You can listen again here.
PROGRESS REPORTS
The latest timeline (progress report) is always here.
ADDENDUM: 30/6/09
Here is a video of the African Gathering presentation. After a bit of a flaky start with the technology it’s OK! Thanks to Mark Simpkins for uploading this.
Simon Berry at Africa Gathering, London 2009 from Mark Simpkins on Vimeo.
This is a great confirmation of Coca-Cola’s commitment to trials of the ColaLife idea this year in Tanzania. Listen again to the interview here (4 mins 52 secs):
Coca-Cola’s commitment to ColaLife | 25 04 2009 | FULL INTERVIEW by colalife
Thanks are due to Euan of Coca-Cola and the iPM team who can do magic with audio. This feature includes audio from the flip video I took on the frontline in Dar Es Salam in November 2008. Nice mash-up guys!
Here is an extract of the above interview containing the key commitment (52 secs).
Coca-Cola’s commitment to ColaLife | 25 04 2009 | EXTRACT by colalife
On Saturday, 27/12/08 the BBC ran a 10 minute feature on ColaLife updating the initial interview back in June on the BBC Radio 4 programme, iPM. It includes bits from the original interview in June 2008, an update on progress and the vision from me and a clever audio cut from the frontline video filmed in Tanzania.
The item is no longer available on the BBC iPlayer but, thanks to the iPM Team, you can listen by clicking on the play button below:
iPM ColaLife Feature broadcast on 27 12 2008 by colalife
Eddie Mair finishes the feature saying “Simon Berry with his aidpod“. This is interesting because at the recent face-to-face meeting of ColaLife supporters there was lots a discussion about what the ‘ColaLife Pod’ should be called as the pod idea has applications beyond Coca-Cola, or Pepsi Cola for that matter. Terms like ‘healthpod’ and ‘lifepod’ are already in use for other things but ‘aidpod’ isn’t. So . . . . I’ve registered aidpod.org, aidpod.org.uk and aidpod.co.uk just in case we need them moving forward. For the moment I have re-directed these domain names to the ColaLife Blog.
If we adopted the term ‘aidpod’ then we would need to start talking in terms of ‘The ColaLife AidPod‘ which would leave space for the ‘Pepsi AidPod’ and the ‘Heineken AidPod’ etc etc
Any thoghts on the ‘aidpod’ name? What would it go down like on the frontline I wonder?
Here is today’s interview on the BBC World Service. I was expecting something much more linked up. During the week we’d talked about linking it to the WaterAid publication (Tackling the silent killer) that came out last week to coincide with the G8 Summit. In the end it was a standalone slot just 4 minutes long.
Thanks to The World Today weekend team for setting this opportunity up.
BBC World Service Interview | 13/7/08 by colalife
I was very grateful to have been invited to contribute to the inspiring 2gether08 event last Thursday. I attended with two hats on.
In my current role as secondee to CLG, I’d gone there to check out my hunch that this is the sort of event and network that local and national Government needs to engage with if we are to make progress with the Government’s policy of community empowerment. My hunch was right and at the very, very last minute national Government did get involved with Tom Watson MP using the event to promote the ‘mash-up’ competion – Show Us a Better Way. Hopefully their involvement will be better planned and more strategic next year.
While I was there I also did a mini presentation and led a ‘next steps’ discussion with a group of people behind the Coca-Cola Campaign. More on this later.
At the event, during the coffee break, I got a surprise call from Jennifer Tracey (pictured!) who asked to meet to talk about what had happened since Radio 4′s iPM Programme first featured the campaign in May. You can listen to an edit of the interview below or by going to the feature on the iPM website. Thanks are due again to the whole of the iPM Team who really helped to get this campaign off to a flying start.
| Add IPM Radio4′s channel to your page |
Eddie Mair | Rupert Allman | George South
These guys have worked their socks off this week to support the Coca Cola campaign and the results came together beautifully at 5:30pm today on the iPM programme on Radio 4. In exchange for a simple idea and interview from me they have:
This is how the whole thing is reported on the iPM website:
We’d like to teach the world to sing . . .
Copyright problems mean that podcast listeners will have been denied the chance to hear our very first iPM song. It’s Eve Graham of the New Seekers, and she’s singing about this.
Not to neglect our digital listeners, may we suggest a home
performance of the anthem? By marrying the lyrics below with the chords
D, E, A, G and D, you can take part in our biggest crowd-sourcing
project yet. We’d like to teach the world to sing (but we can’t help on
the guitar unfortunately).
I’d like to fix those Burmese homes;
Give poverty the shove
Grow sustainable trees, give aid with ease
And show Africa some love..Chorus:
I’d like to reach the world and bring
It perfect harmony.
I’d like to reach its outstretched arms
But I need a company:
They’re the real thing
The world needs them today.
They’re the real thing
The world needs them today
(Coca-Cola)
Now, I just happened to have my recorder running while the show was on and by some fluke of ICT trickery the recording of the item, including the song has ended up here.
Here is the whole feature:
The original ColaLife feature on iPM | 24 05 2008 by colalife
Here is the song only:
Eve Graham sings a song for ColaLife on iPM | 25/5/08 by colalife
Further information
The interview with Eddie Mair went ahead
today – what a nice man! He is even more amusing off air than he it on air!
Because of the nature of the iPM programme they are happy for me to publish the
whole interview here ahead of the programme on Saturday. How refreshing! [In fact they have also published it on the iPM Blog].
I do make some sweeping
generalisations in the interview which I apologise for but I wanted to keep the
message simple. This is how it is reported on the iPM Blog:
Simon Berry and others on the [iPM] blog have been keen for iPM to to hear more about his big idea.
For more than ten years, Simon worked all over the world as part of the
British aid effort. He thinks there is a simple way to help the one in five children in Africa who die from simple causes – usually diarrhoea. And the answer is Coca-Cola.
Not the product – but its distribution network. We’ve asked Coca-Cola
to debate, but in the meantime Eddie has been speaking to Simon about
him and his idea.
Add Coca Cola is it to your page The version that goes out on Saturday will be an edited version of this. There is a possibility that this won’t go out at all; if Coca Cola respond then another interview might be done which is more interactive. That would be brilliant.
Further information
