‘Home of Hope’ video on You Tube
January 24, 2009
The Children’s Home of Hope is featured in a video made by Elvis and is featured on the You Tube channel of the Community Media Hub.
Playpump - childs playground ’roundabout’
September 14, 2008
A Playground “roundabout” to power a borehole pump to provide clean water – the “PlayPump” benefits women and girls in particular who can spend hours each day fetching water. Surplus water sold to farmers for irrigation to provide funds for the Edu-POD to allow free schooling. In return the farmers provide grown crops to feed the children and allow food to be taken home.
Developed in 1997 by a socially responsible South African advertising company, Roundabout Outdoor, “PlayPumps” are innovative, low-tech devices that serve as both children’s merry-go-rounds and sources of rural water supply.
Installed directly above water wells at schools in rural areas, they harness the energy of children at play to supply villages with 1,400 litres of clean drinking water per hour into low maintenance storage tanks. This is a much faster and more reliable rate than any hand-driven pump can achieve.
Locally installed, often by black-owned micro-enterprises at average cost of $9,500 per pump, PlayPumps are an effective solution to one of rural Africa’s most pressing needs. The PlayPump business model recovers the costs of maintenance through commercial advertising sales from firms such as Unilever, Colgate Palmolive etc.
The storage tanks have also been used for public awareness messages such as HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, thus extending the health benefits of the water pumps from access to clean water to alleviation of spinal problems to HIV awareness and prevention.
Background
In rural Africa, the lack of access to clean water is a serious on-going problem. Traditionally, village women and girls collect water at the nearest stream and then carry the containers filled with water back home.
This not only takes up a lot of time that could otherwise be spent in school or at work, but the water from such open sources is often not clean, and carrying such a heavy load can have serious health effects, causing severe headaches and spinal damage.
GSMA Development Fund
August 14, 2008
Founded in October 2005, the GSMA Development Fund has rapidly established itself as a leader in identifying and implementing new uses for mobile communications to help people at the bottom of the social and economic pyramid. In short we connect the unconnected.
Our success is already proven. We have a created cost effective delivery mechanisms to enable speed and efficiencies. Thus in just 24 months we have delivered 16 pilot projects, with 12 mobile operators, in the following 11 countries
Algeria, Namibia, South Africa, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Tanzania, India, Pakistan, Uganda, Kenya and Rwanda
Our approach is based on six core principles:
To seed/catalyse programmes
We focus on practical field implementations that generate tangible results. We believe that connectivity means productivity, and that once this concept has been demonstrated, market forces will come into play and turn our pilot projects into new businesses.
To impact at scale and sustainably
We only work on projects that have the potential to be economically self-sustainable. In addition we are focused on building scalable solutions that impact sizable groups of people, as opposed to niche groups.
To work with operators in target markets
We leverage our unique position as the industry body for over 700 global operators and 200 vendors to bring innovative ICT solutions to new markets, sharing knowledge and world best practice.
To partner with other funding organisations
We build relationships with international, well-established funding organisations for the purpose of future funding, pilot execution and sharing of lessons learned.
To leverage government relationships
We believe that government policy and regulation play a crucial role in alleviating the digital divide, hence we engage governments in our projects where possible.
To apply commercial rigour and discipline to delivery, going beyond the established concept of Corporate Social Responsibility
We fund and directly manage the implementation of all our projects in the field through our own team and our strategic partner Accenture Development Partnerships.
Motorola Base Station
August 14, 2008
Motorola has been working with the GSM Association on a trial project in Namibia which was announced at 3GSM Barcelona in February 2007.
“A key challenge in much of Africa is connecting people in off-grid locations and this project seeks to highlight to operators that wind and solar power is a real and cost effective alternative. We expect this pilot to become a showcase for the industry and to see replication of the model thereafter,” said Dawn Hartley, Development Fund manager at the GSMA.
“With the implementation of cell sites into more remote areas this Motorola solution provides us with an efficient and reliable alternative to the often costly roll-out of mains grid electricity. This is an important project for us and commencement of the wind and solar cell site trial is proof of our commitment to our customers to provide the essential communication services needed in the region,” said Albertus Aochamub, corporate services general manager, MTC Namibia.
By incorporating renewable energy solutions into communication networks Motorola is trialling this solution as a feasible option for operators instead of utilising costly fuel generators or waiting long periods for a mains grid connection. The Dordabis cell site will remain a part of MTC Namibia’s live GSM network throughout the trial.
Geo-POD
August 14, 2008
A sustainable infrastructure facility using locally manufactured units called PODs; the Geo-POD acts as the catalyst for people in developing countries to change their lives.