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An ingenious kit based around Coca-Cola crates that was created to save thousands of children’s lives has won the product category of the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year Awards. The invention will feature in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ seminar on Appropriate Healthcare Technology for Developing Countries in September.
Kit Yamoyo, a “kitchen table” invention designed with the poor and for the poor, is aimed at preventing diarrhoea, which is the second-biggest killer of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa. In winning the prestigious product design of the year award, the invention beat off stiff competition from Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic cauldron.
The concept stemmed from a question that bothered UK aid worker Simon Berry in the late 1980s: why Coca-Cola is available even in remote villages in Zambia yet simple medicines to treat diarrhoea are not. Twenty years later, his wife Jane suggested making use of the unused space in a cola crate to carry an anti-diarrhoea kit. By 2009, the pair had set up the ColaLife charity, and won the goodwill of Coca-Cola to explore the idea.
Funded by an award from UnLtd in 2010, the Berrys gave up their jobs to bring together some of the best minds from big business, academia and non-profit making organisations: experts in supply chains, health, logistics and design.
A chance meeting led to packaging expert PI Global designing a robust pack to carry diarrhoea treatments recommended by the World Health Organization. It’s a plastic container that helps illiterate mothers in rural Africa to measure water for the child-sized sachets of oral rehydration salts it provides. The pack also contains zinc to help prevent diarrhoea recurring and soap for hand-washing. Dubbed AidPod by the BBC, the pack acts as a cup and a resealable storage vessel.
Most importantly, Kit Yamoyo was designed with input from African mothers and carers, most of whom live many hours’ walk from a health centre. In Zambia, where a trial is under way, independent rural retailers are buying it by the boxful, to carry out to their small shops in remote villages, because it’s designed to yield a profit – just as Coca-Cola does.
These retailers, trained by the project, have in the past six months bought more than 20,000 of the kits to sell at ZMK5 each (just under $1). The most promising retailers are not only serving their own communities but making a gross profit on this new product of $25 to $60 a month. In rural Zambia, that feeds a family.
Simon and Jane Berry, who are now in Zambia managing the project, explained: “We started with the space in the crate, but much more important for the long term is the space in the market. The millions of the world’s poor want good, affordable design that meets their needs. They don’t have much to spend and want to spend it well, ideally close to where they live.
“Good design is not only for the rich: the poor of the world deserve the dignity of attention from designers and from big companies as well as from the public sector and aid agencies.”
The Department for International Development is the trial’s majority funder. International development secretary Justine Greening said: “I warmly congratulate ColaLife for this tremendous achievement. Their innovative use of Coke’s distribution system to deliver vital supplies is helping to save countless lives.
“It is a fantastic example of how we can work with business to help alleviate the suffering of the world’s poorest people.”
Kit Yamoyo will be one of the inventions featured at the institution’s seminar on Appropriate Healthcare Technology for Developing Countries on 18 September. After a successful launch in 2012, this year’s seminar will showcase the concept of frugal technology. In the developing world, resources are limited and the need for medical devices, drugs and treatments is pressing. Frugal technology, which solves most of a problem for a fraction of the cost in a developed country, is therefore attractive.
The seminar will explore the opportunities for a frugal approach to healthcare problems, and includes expert analysis of its potential. Simon Berry from ColaLife will be one of the inventors on hand to discuss innovations and exhibit frugal healthcare devices and applications.
- To register interest in the seminar and get more information, contact health@imeche.org