Independent charity ColaLife learnt from Coca-Cola, health agencies, Ministries and designers how to get our award-winning anti-diarrhoea kit - Kit Yamoyo - out to villages, to save children's lives. We build on existing market channels, with local manufacturers, and we train micro-retailers to sell AidPods - affordable kits containing oral rehydration salts, Zinc and soap. Mothers may walk 20 km to a health centre to find it stocked out; but most communities have small shops close by.
Coca-Cola gets everywhere in developing countries, yet Health Ministries struggle to staff and re-stock health centres, even with simple drugs like Oral Rehydration Salts (ORS) & Zinc for diarrhoea. 1 in 8 children die before their 5th birthday from simple, preventable causes like dehydration from diarrhoea. In Zambia that's 11,000 unnecessary child deaths a year. Parents have stark choices: ignore diarrhoea, risk a long walk with a sick child to a clinic, or pay for a ride. We're changing that.
ORS and Zinc, the 'gold standard' for childhood diarrhoea, is cheap, effective and protects for 3 months. Hand washing with soap prevents 46% of cases. ColaLife AidPods provide all 3 - and graphical training leaflets - in an affordable 'Kit Yamoyo' (Kit of Life), that measures the water for each child-sized sachet of ORS, and is a cup. Small shops, often well-stocked, do exist in remote areas: by 'upskilling' micro-retailers, we save lives, improve livelihoods and create a sustainable solution.
We demonstrate the power of design for the world's poorest: an attractive, affordable, desirable product for home treatment of diarrhea. We meet their need, to have effective medicine close to home; in an easy-to-use Kit, that helps them measure and make up small quantities of ORS correctly, in a hygienic reclosable pack. And sales put profits back into poor communities. With the world's biggest brand, plus UNICEF and WHO behind us, we have a partnership that can replicate across the world.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
