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South Africa, Expressions of Interest and the prototype packaging

1 February 2012 By Leave a Comment

2012 TMSA Retreat
The Trademark Southern Africa (TMSA) team | January 2012

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet on the blog but that doesn’t mean there’s been nothing going on – quite the contrary in fact. Here’s a summary of the last week or so. The highlight was the TMSA Retreat in South Africa. As I have explained earlier, TMSA have taken us under their wing and will be funding the ‘regional’* elements of our work over the next two years. They have also provided us with excellent office facilities and associated support. At the retreat, lots of synergies became immediately apparent – over and above the ‘Last Mile’ distribution that got their attention – and I see follow-up sessions on project communications and learning frameworks (which Jane is leading on for ColaLife) and online project management systems. We are using Huddle and they are using Sharepoint . . .

While of the subject of Huddle, I’ve been pleased with the way partners have engaged with this – there is just one partner yet to put their tasks on the system – you know who you are :-) . Huddle has impressive security but at the same time is refreshingly open which is absolutely crucial when managing a partnership, with organisations using different versions of various bits of software. I’ve put a RSS feed from our Huddle system on our home page (bottom right) so our supporters (that’s you) can get an overview of what we are up to operationally.

After the TMSA Retreat (or ‘Advance’ as some people think it should have been called) we spent the weekend with Ian and Judy Goldman. We are great friends and used to be neighbours in Warwickshire and in Mpika. Now we are neighbours in southern Africa! Ian is on the ColaLife virtual advisory board. ColaLife did come up in conversation once or twice (!) but the weekend was mostly spend relaxing and shopping for those things that are still difficult to get hold of in Zambia. The best bit was a visit to the Apartheid Museum which was really well done. Need to go back again to be able to absorb it all.

Different crates and bottles
Testing the new packaging at SABMiller, Zambia

When we got back to the office on Monday ,the prototype packaging had arrived along with PedZinc samples from Shelys Pharmaceuticals in Tanzania. We were really keen to get back to Zambia to see what the designers had come up with. We had seen a preview during a Skype presentation by the team at PI Global at the beginning of the week, before our departure for South Africa. PI Global have taken the AidPod concept to another level – more on this in the next couple of days. On Monday afternoon SABMiller had assembled all possible combinations of crates and bottles so that we could test the fit of the new packaging. Watch this space for more….

And finally . . . the call for Expressions of Interest (EOI) in Monitoring & Evaluation for our project closed today. We received 10 EOIs and most are of a very high quality – I’m confident that we are going to get the world class M&E partner we need.

Another good week.

* For the benefit of our supporters in the UK, in Africa ‘regional’ means several countries (eg Southern Africa) not a part of one country.

Filed Under: ColaLife Pre-Trial Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

The pre-trial bureaucratic phase

28 October 2011 By Leave a Comment

Lusaka weather chart 281011 Independence Day at the Spar

Apologies for the lack of blog posts lately. There is a lot happening but, if I’m frank, a lot of it is not very exciting. We are in a necessary, but rather dull bureaucratic phase as we try to get the last bits and pieces in place to start the trial.

We have confirmation of our last bit ($1m) of funding but I’m not able to give out the details yet.

Because ColaLife is new we need the services of an ‘accountable body’ to ensure that the funding we receive is dispersed properly and the donors receive the proper financial reports that they can have confidence in. We are working to get this in place now and will report on the detail once this is all agreed.

As you can see from the chart it is very, very hot here, even by Zambian standards, as we all wait for the rains to start and give some relief from the heat.

But there have been highlights. Monday (24/10/11) was Independence Day here and there was a great atmosphere about the place. Even those who had to work had made an effort to wear the proper gear (see the photo).

We’ve also been able to catch up with key partners and old friends and make some new friends. Last week we met up again with our contact at the Ministry of Health who’d been in the UK. I asked him how his trip was. He said “Not too bad”. He was referring to the weather! Zambian’s seem to embark on a trip to the UK with some fear and trepidation and this is all down to what the weather will be like!

We also caught up with Hans at Mobile Transactions Zambia to update him on the new AidPod shape and the new name we are testing ‘Ka-Pakati’. When we met them last they’d just moved and their offices were in chaos. Not now! The sign is up, the offices all redecorated and locally made Mukwa desks in place.

Jane, Hans and crate at MTZL

We also caught up with the whole crew at MSL – Dirk, Chipopa and Ian – who, coincidentally, had also moved into new offices (and a new website) which must be such a moral boost for the staff. The ones they were in lacked windows to the outside world.

And finally, when I finish typing this we are off to the Airport to meet Rohit (Ramchandani) for the first time! And we are really looking forward to that. We’ve been working with Rohit for nearly two years now and feel we know him very well but, to date, the closest we’ve been is on each end of a video Skype call.

Rohit will be here for two and a bit weeks and will be working with our partners – particularly UNICEF – to finalise the Logical Framework for the project.

Filed Under: ColaLife Pre-Trial Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Announcing the AidPod Mark VIb

16 October 2011 By Leave a Comment

We had a bit of a fright when we went to the local Supermarket to buy a crate of Coca-Cola for a presentation we are giving this week to find that the predictable had happened and Zambia Breweries (SABMiller), the Coca-Cola bottler, had capitalised on the new lighter and stumpier bottles we reported on earlier and have produced a more compact crate to match.

Unfortunately the Mark V AidPod does not fit the new crates. The AidPod is too deep and hits the dividers in the crate which means it sits too proud of the bottles. Time for a re-design. So I’ve spent the last couple of days with a new crate working out the new profile of the Mark VI AidPod. Mark VIa, the first attempt at a new design, still had the shoulders as a feature. However, this has always been a bone of contention as it would complicate the production process and make the AidPods more expensive to produce. So the Mark VIb has no shoulders and its cross-section now looks like this (see picture). It is still half-length (116mm approx), just like its predecessor and so 10 ADKs will fit into one crate.

The big question is, is the new design big enough to take all the proposed components of the Anti-Diarrhoea Kit (ADK)?

We have samples of the soap that will be part of the kit and we also have samples of the PedZinc zinc supplements but we have yet to finalise the ORS we will use. So on Saturday (15/10/11) we went into Lusaka to combine a bit of research, into what was available on the market, with the purchase of some ORS samples. When we got home we were able to see if the components would all fit into the new AidPod. Watch the video to find out!

Here is a set of 9 pictures which show the new AidPods in the new crate (you’ll need to be reading this on the blog to see this slideshow I think):

Filed Under: ColaLife Pre-Trial Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Tying up the loose ends from Week 1 in Zambia

14 October 2011 By Leave a Comment

There’s never a dull moment with ColaLife. Group Skyping with our fellow trustees from Zambia; is Ka-Pakati the new name for the AidPod in Zambia?; Coca-Cola change their crates and our response -> the AidPod Mark VI; meeting up with our friends at Keepers Zambia Foundation; and news that our trial advisor will be joining us shortly . . . it’s all in the Podcast below:


Podcast 27: Summing up week 1 in Zambia (mp3)

Filed Under: ColaLife Pre-Trial Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Introducing the Mark V AidPod

17 September 2011 By Leave a Comment

Each time I do a significant modification to the AidPod design I feel a strange fondness for the out-going model and then immediately bond with the new one. I said this to Jane and she quipped “That’s how you’ll feel when you get your second wife.” :-)

AidPod Mark V

Anyway, here it is the AidPod Mark V. It’s the same as the Mark IV but about half its length. This means it will be cheaper to produce and will carry the items needed to treat just one episode of diarrhoea (not two). We will be able to get 10 of these into a crate.

Our research tells us that a key determinant of whether a child is given ORS is whether ORS is available in the home at the time the diarrhoea strikes. This led us to think that it would be a good idea to include sufficient items in the AidPod to treat two episodes of diarrhoea. However, more compelling evidence indicates that people living in poverty cannot afford to buy and store. In the slums of Nairobi, they don’t buy tubes of toothpaste, they buy a squirt of toothpaste on their toothbrush when they need it.

We think that having AidPods available in the nearby retail kiosk at an affordable price will be nearly as good as having it in the home. The trial will help us determine whether this is the case.

For a more in-depth discussion on why we are going for a smaller AidPod please see this previous blog post.

 

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca-Cola Campaign, design Tagged With: ,

Why Nigel and Bill are cycling for ColaLife

30 August 2011 By Leave a Comment

This video will give you some idea why Nigel and Bill want your support to raise money for ColaLife. You can sponsor Bill here or Nigel here.

So how might ColaLife have helped Agnes and saved her niece’s life? Well, in several ways:

  • ColaLife will get ADKs (Anti-Diarrhoea Kits), packed within AidPods, to community shops which are MUCH closer for most people than health posts or health clinics which can be more than a day’s walk away
  • ColaLife community promoters will:
    • engage their own communities and show them how to treat water to make it safe to drink
    • teach mothers and care-givers what to do IMMEDIATELY a child gets diarrhoea to keep the child hydrated
    • teach mothers and care-givers about the ADK that will be available in the retail kiosk in their own community
    • give mothers and care-givers vouchers so that their first ADK is free
  • In this process ColaLife will put money into the very same communities we are helping through the retailers and wholesalers who live and work in the target communities
There is more on the ColaLife Business Model here. We think it’s an innovation and so do most other people. We hope it will be a game-changer for people like Agnes.
Here’s an idea of what your donation could do:
  • Just £1 will fill an AidPod with simple medicines to help a mother in rural Zambia rehydrate her child/save her child’s life (Note: there are only 70 retail pharmacies in the whole of Zambia – and public clinics can be a 20 kilometre walk from home)
  • £10 will subsidise 25 ADKs
  • £25 will subsidise 65 ADKs – we aim to distribute 20,000 in the Zambian trial
  • £100 will train a Zambian mother as a community promoter for the ADK – in hygiene, hand-washing and rehydration
  • £75 will buy her a bicycle so she can spread the word to neighbouring communities
  • £250 will fund a programme of village drama events on how the ColaLife ADK can help save children’s lives
  • £1,000 will cover on the job training for a Zambian ColaLife Field Officer, to help run our first local trial
  • £5,000 will pay a Zambian ColaLife field officer for a year to help run our first local trial
Filed Under: Coca-Cola Campaign, colalifeD2D, Funding, Participation Ride 2011 Tagged With: , , ,

A mini AidPod anyone?

22 July 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mark IV AidPod with PedZinc packages

I had a great meeting yesterday with Chris Griffin at the PI Global offices in London talking about the packaging aspects of the trial. I was also able to loan him the various bottles and a crate, on loan to me from Zambian Breweries. These will obviously be crucial in defining the cross-section of the AidPod. We then went on to talk about the length of the AidPod.

A tension has been emerging with this aspect of the AidPod over the last few months. We had originally envisaged that the AidPod would be the full length of the width of the crate ie about 225mm long. This would be big enough to carry the components to treat at least two episodes of diarrhoea: four sachets of ORS, two courses of Zinc supplements and two 25g bars of soap. This thinking was based on research that showed that the biggest indicator of whether a child gets ORS is whether or not the mother, or care-giver, had ORS available in the home at the time of the attack.

However, this makes the ADK (Anti-Diarrhoea Kit) twice as expensive as it needs to be and goes against the guidelines laid down by the late, great C. K. Prahalad* and others who say that when creating products for consumers earning $1-2 dollars a day, price, a low price, is absolutely crucial. These markets are completely different from more developed markets. In developed markets the starting point when pricing a product is your costs, then you add your margin to arrive at the sale price. In poor markets you need to turn this model on its head. You start from the amount people are able/willing to pay (the price) and then work backwards and design the product with a low enough cost to meet the need and enable a profit margin to be made.

On balance, we have concluded (I think) that we need to take the latter approach and so the ADK will have to be as cheap as possible to produce which points to a mini, or half-length ADK. This has the added benefit that we can get 10, not 5, ADKs in each crate.

But what about the research that indicates that ideally you need ORS and Zinc in the home to maximise the likelihood of treatment? Well, what we are banking on is that having ADKs available in the local retail kiosk is nearly as good as having one in the home. The trial will indicate whether or not we are right.

What is helpful is that, coincidentally, the PedZinc component of the ADK comes in a box which is fully compatible with half-length, mini AidPod – see the image above.

* C.K. Prahalad Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca-Cola Campaign, design, Meetings, Zambian pilot Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

PedZinc samples arrive from Tanzania

15 June 2011 By Leave a Comment

PedZinc in AidPod PedZinc embossed livery

Regular readers will remember a mini-panic that we had back last month when we visited the Medical Stores Limited (MSL) warehouse to find the type of Zinc supplements we wanted but packed in boxes of 100 tablets (10 blister packs of 10 tablets each) – see the picture below.
ZinCfant 20mg

This is a real problem for us for several reasons:

  1. A course of Zinc supplementation is 10-14 tablets for a child 6 months or older and half that for children between 2 and 6 months. This packet contains 10 courses for older children – more than we need and more than the mothers and care-givers we are targeting could afford, or be willing, to buy in a single purchase.
  2. For good reasons, the pharmaceutical regulations apply to the medicine AND the way the medicine is packaged with its labelling, instructions and so on. This means that we would not be able to break these packets down and include just one or two blister packs in the proposed ADKs (Anti-Diarrhoea Kits).
  3. And finally, the boxes are too big to fit in an AidPod!

It was time for a re-think. The Zinc tablets we were expecting to find at MSL were PedZinc produced by Shelys Pharmaceuticals in Tanzania. These are already approved for general sale in Zambia but we still had no idea of the package size. Would these be supplied to boxes of 100 tablets too?

I contacted Shelys Pharmaceuticals and yesterday the PedZinc samples arrived from Tanzania and they are:

  1. Packaged as single blister packs of 10 tablets. The packets have all the required information on the back: tablet description; storage instructions; manufacturer; batch information including date of manufacture and expiry date.
  2. The package also contains a detailed data and instruction sheet.
  3. The packaging is very attractive with embossed printing on the front
  4. Two packets fit very neatly into an AidPod

The attractiveness of the package might seem an odd thing to highlight but the 2009 WHO/UNICEF Report, Diarrhoea : Why children are still dying and what can be done, recommended that products to treat diarrhoea need to be ‘attractive’ to mothers and care-givers and part of this will be the way the product looks. Other research has indicated that ORS is often not seen as ‘medicine’ and this is a drawback. Mothers don’t like to feel that are being ‘palmed off’ with non-medicine – a feeling that applies to mothers the world over I would suspect. PedZinc carries the look and feel of a high quality medicine.

A nice twist to all of this is that Shelys Pharmaceuticals is part of the Sumaria group which also owns the Nyanza Bottling Company Limited and Nyanza Bottling, which is based in Mwanza, is the Coca-Cola bottler for the Lake Region in Tanzania. I’m not the only one to have made this link . . .

Filed Under: Coca-Cola Campaign Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Intelligence from Kenya and Uganda

10 May 2011 By Leave a Comment

Hands on AidPod Children with AidPod

We have been in Pretoria today staying with Judy and Ian Goldman. Ian is a member of the ColaLife Virtual Advisory Board. The focus has been on catching up with emails and amongst these was this great report from ColaLife supporter Stewart Martin who is just back from a trip to Kenya and Uganda.

Hi Jane

I’m now back from Kenya and Uganda, and have placed a few photos and a couple of short videos on Flickr using the ColaLife tag. Coca-Cola was certainly a prominent product throughout Uganda as we travelled west from Kampala over to Queen Elizabeth National Park, to Bwindi, Lake Bunyonyi and onto Jinja. In those travels we passed a couple of major distribution points, plenty of rural outlets and opportunist crate sales as well as a number of Coca-Cola branded houses!

In Kenya in a remote community, not far from the border with Uganda (Malaba border crossing), we got involved in a project to improve a spring which serves over 600 families with water. While there I took a few photos of local children with the AidPods. In speaking to the village elder and through him a few others, the consensus seemed to be that they felt ColaLife was an excellent idea, and they allayed our concerns that the products might be taken out and sold/redirected. The people we spoke to felt confident that once the AidPods got to the rural communities there would be no problem with theft or redirection. The contents were familiar to the people we met, with the exception of the SODIS bag. People were travelling from miles around to get to the spring, which provided very poor water, and yet just half a mile down the road a couple of houses had Coca-Cola stocked (a scenario I’m sure you are very familiar with and giving rise to the ColaLife idea)!

Friends I met up with suggested that Pepsi are understood to be mounting a challenge to gain market share in East Africa, something we saw little evidence of (two lorries in the space of two weeks) but thought I’d add. I’ve left the AidPod and t-shirt with friends in Kenya, who will endeavour to take more (better!) photos over the coming weeks and months, and also use the flat-pack AidPods with children.

My friend in Uganda who works for DFID was concerned that the government is afraid of losing control (generally) and therefore would be reluctant to see health provision through alternative routes. My friend in Kenya who is effectively running a hospital and medical outreach programmes was far more positive, thinking the idea to be brilliant, and keen to be involved in any further work.

I could ramble on further, but hope that the photos prove helpful and if you need anything more please let me know. The developments in South Africa look great.

Finally, have you considered adding ColaLife to Everyclick*? It allows supporters to make ColaLife their everyclick charity, using everyclick for website searches and generating income over time for the charity. Only small amounts are raised but given the interest in ColaLife it could add up to a significant amount over time.

All the very best

Stewart

 

Many thanks Stewart.

* We will be looking at the Everyclick opportunity once ColaLife is a registered charity – registration has been applied for, as reported here.

 

 

Filed Under: Coca-Cola Campaign Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

So what is, who is, WeCan-Ugan? (Part 2)

25 April 2011 By 1 Comment

Here is the second part of Muhammad Atif’s account of the recent WeCan-Ugan trip to northern Uganda. During the trip the WeCan-Ugan team undertook research for ColaLife.

WeCan-Ugan (Education) – What We Did
WeCan-Ugan Team
The WeCan-Ugan team

During the civil war some areas in northern Uganda were particularly hard hit. The Barlonyo massacre killed 482 Ugandans and destroyed an entire community. It left behind an entire village of orphans and widows and in those areas all social systems have been destroyed – the people have been left with nothing but scars. For the children, their nearest school is now 60km away.

It is on that need where our project originated and expanded. We are now working with HORARD to build a vocational school to upgrade local skills so that they can gain employment in industries where their skills are demanded.

To raise funds, we have already conducted various fundraising activities in the UK. In March 2011, we took part in a week-long sponsored cycle trip traversing 700km of northern Uganda.

During our cycle, we visited many other schools and youth groups and took part in their cultural exchange programmes. We were shown traditional African dances and in return we delivered workshops in leadership and life skills as well as in HIV/AIDS. Altogether we visited 57 schools meeting more than 40,000 pupils!

Through a combination of our previous fundraising activities and the sponsored cycle trip, we have now raised £4,500 to commence construction of our school.

The emotional culmination of all our hard work both in Uganda and in the UK was the laying of the Foundation stone for the WeCan-Ugan school on the 1st April 2011.

HORARD Stone

 

WeCan-Ugan – what we did for ColaLife

In March, two members of the WeCan-Ugan project (Claire/Mo) met Simon at the Royal Society of Medicine. We were so excited about ColaLife that we decided to help conduct some research during their upcoming trip to Uganda. At that time, the WeCan-Ugan team was only 3 weeks away from leaving.

ColaLife is such an incredible concept that it was easy to convey it and convince the rest of the WeCan-Ugan team about its potential. Simon provided us with AidPod prototypes and T-shirts that only enhanced the quality of our research.

Muhammad Atif talk with a mothers' group about ColaLife
Muhammad Atif gets the views of mothers’ on ColaLife

During our week in Uganda, the 14 members of WeCan-Ugan, conducted a series of interviews with 82 mothers’ groups (656 mothers), 16 health clinics, 22 shopkeepers and 49 schools. We were delighted with the positive reaction and immensely grateful for their constructive feedback.

WeCan-Ugan have compiled a report for ColaLife which is currently available on the ColaLife website.

Check out our ColaLife pictures/videos: https://picasaweb.google.com/wecanugan/ColaLife#

Muhammad Atif

Once again, many thanks to the Wecan-Ugan team for such a great report, pictures and video (coming up shortly).

Filed Under: Coca-Cola Campaign Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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