I’m just back from my latest field trip to Katete. On these trips, I’m always aware that, as a 6’2″ white observer with weird hair, my mere presence has an impact on what I’m observing. This was really brought home to me on this trip when I was accompanied by three other white faces. Things got very [...]
Setting up for an exciting few days in Katete
3 April 2013 by Leave a Comment
It felt like a weekend this morning as I packed my cycling stuff, put the bike rack and bike on the back of the Land Rover and set off on a six-hour drive across Zambia. But I was in fact going to work. Three hours into the drive I got a call from a number [...]
Our concept for the distribution of medicines by rural retailers plays out in real life
23 March 2013 by 4 Comments
In November 2012 the rural health centres in Kalomo District in Zambia had not received ORS for several months due to a lack of stock at national level. In January, I visited one of these health centres and asked the Clinical Officer in charge if she’d received any ORS yet. She said they had received [...]
ColaLife featured in The Mail on Sunday – credit where credit is due
17 March 2013 by Leave a Comment
We are very pleased with this coverage in The Mail on Sunday about our nomination for Designs of the Year 2013 but I’d like to expand on it a bit. As the ‘front man’ for ColaLife I tend to get all the recognition which is not entirely fair! The idea of piggy-backing essential medicines on [...]
It’s the value chain stupid!
3 March 2013 by 2 Comments
Private sector people with supply chain experience will chuckle when they read this. It will be so obvious to them. But it’s not obvious to the rest of us. This is just one example of how public private partnerships are so helpful. What’s obvious to someone from the private sector may not be obvious to [...]
Curating chaos
22 February 2013 by 1 Comment
It’s all very well sitting in an office and planning something to within an inch of its life – which is what we did – but you need to try things out to really learn and plan properly. In theory the value chain we have created works like this: We create a desirable product – an [...]
A day in the field in Katete
22 January 2013 by Leave a Comment
Mothers and children (in their finest) at an under 5′s growth monitoring clinic in Mnthipa Village, Katete Today I had the pleasure to accompany the KZF staff of a field trip in Katete where we linked up with a group of women who had brought their children to an under 5s growth monitoring session. With [...]
Top 10 achievements in 2012
30 December 2012 by 8 Comments
>> 2009′s top 10 >> 2010′s top 10 >> 2011′s top 10 The end of the line. A child using the Kit Yamoyo in a remote village in Kalomo. Image credit: Claire Ward. 1. The launch of COTZ (the ColaLife Operational Trial in Zambia) Remote rural Kit Yamoyo retailer It has taken 25 years from [...]
The Kit Yamoyo is a hit
11 November 2012 by 6 Comments
During the field trip on Thursday (8/11/12) the feedback we got on the Kit Yamoyo was 100% positive. When people were asked if the Kit Yamoyo was good the response wasn’t ‘Yes’ but ‘Maningi’ meaning ‘very’. However, I’m always suspicious that people say what you want to hear. Before our trip out on Friday morning, [...]
Notes from Tuesday in rural Kalomo
5 November 2012 by Leave a Comment
Last Tuesday (30/10/12) started at 6am and finished at 7pm. The day was spent traveling around rural Kaloma calling on rural health centres, promoters and retailers. We delivered vouchers to health centers and promoters and collected vouchers from retailers that they had collected in exchange for Kit Yamoyos. Health centres act as one of the distribution [...]
