Mobile Phones in Africa - Quite Different

The mobile phone in Africa is quite different and rapidly changing some cultural and economic aspects. The growth of mobile phones has been the largest in the "developing world" with a massive surge in Africa.

First of all, a new phone costs about $50 and a used one can be found for as little as $10. Instead of a monthly bill, requiring a credit account which is impossible here, people buy Scratch Off cards from street vendors for amounts as little as $1. They enter the code and amount is placed on their accounts. And, it is free to receive calls and quite cheap to make one or to send a text message.

There is significant innovation for how the mobile phone is used. Day laborers will get a message telling them where there is work that morning. There is a growing use of a the mobile phone as a banking process and some systems allow someone to transfer a "micro transaction" from one phone to another. And, the mobile call can keep together a family that has been forced to disperse to various parts of a country due to economics or conflicts.

The mobile phone culture extends to communities without electricity or running water. People can drop their phone off in a vendor to get it recharged from a car battery for a few cents.

There are also some very interesting uses of mobile phones to keep track of patients are using AIDS medicine with daily reminders to take their pills at key times.

Here is an interesting article about Mobile Phones in Africa from MIT: http://prom.mit.edu/whyafrica.html

Montage and Reading

Here are two videos from Mali.

1) Montage of video and images from our trip to Mali.



2) Elliott and an "e-reader" in Mali:

A Photo - Sunset on the Niger - Mali, Africa

Impressions

I have posted video and photos from our 5 days in Mali, as part of the Malaria No More mission, yet it is difficult to convey the impressions, emotions and learnings that are swirling around inside of me this evening. So, I'll share a few phrases and stories:

• Handing a mosquito net to a Mali woman and her child was so powerful. Her 1 year old boy had just received a Polio, Measles, Deworming, Vitamin A treatment and now she had a treated net. These things will keep her son from becoming one of the 20% of infants who will die in the first five years of their lives. She says Merci and held her son as they walked 2 miles back to their village.
• Sitting in a clinic as 30 local health volunteers showed us how they are conducting training with railroad staff, police and workers on how to use a condom to prevent HIV spreading. Their comfort with talking about sexual topics was striking.
• The smile on the President of Mali as he launched the Malaria Health Campaign that would reach 95% of families in his country.
• The voice of the "Village Talker", a Mali town crier, as she calmed the 150 women on line that they would get their Nets, even though it was getting dark. She travels to villages, as the traditional source of news, supporting the campaign.
• The conversation that I had as a Jew with Islamic religious leaders about the connection between our faiths and the need to link modern health issues to scripture.
• Teaching our guide how to edit his first movie, in the lobby of our hotel, on my Macbook.
  
• Watching 60 Global Agencies cooperate on an effort, with low ego and remarkable coordination.
• Viewing the impact of the internet on a whole range of changing perspectives here in Africa (more about that in a few days)

Thanks for listening. We would love to get your emails while we are here.. just send a note to emasie@masie.com

Learning Gives Back

Here is a 3 1/2 minute video from Elliott Masie from the clinics in the villages of Mali. It includes a "thank you" from the children of Mali to the people who donated the Malaria Nets.

Video from Malaria Net Distribution in the Field

Here is a short video with some short clips from our first day in the field here in Mali, Africa

Athlethes Join Us in Mali for Net Distribution

Three wonderful professional sports professionals are in our small delegation here in Mali. We have been pleased to get to know these sports stars and social activists:

Diego Gutierrez, midfielder for Major League Soccer’s (MLS) Chicago Fire

Dwayne De Rosario, midfielder for MLS Houston Dynamo and MLS Cup 2007 MVP;

Ruth Riley, center for Women’s National Basketball Association’s San Antonio Silver Stars and two-time WNBA champion and Olympic Gold Medalist

Diego, Dwayne and Ruth have added a key element to this campaign..a connection to sports and youth. They have been engaged in all of our briefings and are an incredible spokespeople for the Malaria and Health Campaign.

The Logistics of Millions of Nets

Here is how they nets made their way to Mali. I quote Steven Phillips, ExxonMobil's Medical Director for Global Issues and Projects as he tells of the logistics of a campaign to get bed nets, which protect people against malaria, to hundreds of thousands of people.

Here is the story of how each of the 2.26 million nets will make their way into the hands of a pregnant Malian mother and all mothers with children under age five (The nets were funded by a consortium including the U.S. President's Malaria Initiative, the Canadian Red Cross, Malaria No More, and the UN Foundation's Nothing But Nets campaign.):

Orders were placed with a manufacturer who sourced the nets from Vietnam, seven months pre-campaign. The nets were contained and shipped in 58 "high cube containers" (40 x 9-1/2 x 8 feet), from Vietnam to a sorting transit point in Spain. Each container holds about 38,000 nets.

The cargo was sorted and re-loaded to a second ship for its journey through the Straits of Gibraltar and down the West African coast to Dakar, Senegal. It took 55 days for the shipment to arrive in the port of Dakar.

Over the next two to three weeks the cargo was transported over 1,200 kilometers of road and rail to Bamako, Mali. It required a further seven days to clear customs.

The 58 containers were transferred to the only three warehouses in the country large to store them. They filled the three 1100 square-metre warehouses.

The distribution plan called for 40 health districts to receive shipments in six regions of the country over a radius of 600 km from Bamako. A single transport company won the tender and used 60 runs by 40 trucks to deliver bales of uncrated nets. Transport was about 50 percent on "tire roads" which are paved, and 50 percent on unpaved dirt roads. It required ten days to accomplish this phase. Many of the roads would have been impassable in the rainy season. The paradox was striking – the nets could only be delivered reliably during the dry season, when malaria risk is the lowest.

From the 40 district locations nets were subdivided for shipment to 975 health centers. It took one to 10 days to accomplish this. While awaiting trans-shipment, the bales of nets were often subject to "outdoor warehousing" with a hired security guard sitting on top of the bales to prevent theft.

From the health centers, the nets were sent to 2,000-3,000 distribution points with a radius of 5-20 km. This was accomplished via a variety of transportation modes including bicycle, donkey-cart, camel and "push-push", a local cart-like conveyance pushed by human power.

For mothers who could not make it to the final distribution points, mobile teams on bicycles and motorcycles would deliver the nets to their villages and dwellings. In the end, all of Mali's 15,000 villages are covered.

Elapsed time: seven months. Number of people coordinating logistics: six. Lost or damaged nets: none.

First Day in the Field - Malaria Net Distribution

This was a very powerful day, emotionally and physically.

We will post a longer blog entry tomorrow, but it started at 8 AM with a launch of the Malaria campaign with the President of Mali and then we journeyed to several health clinics about one hour north of the city.

At each clinic there was a line of about 100 women, with 1 or 2 children each, to have their child immunized against Polio, dewormed, get Vitamin A and then receive a Malaria Net.

The children and mothers were participating in an unprecedented effort to decrease child mortality. They fully embraced us as visitors and it was so moving to interact and even help to distribute the nets.

Many more images and videos to follow...

Interview with Kass - Mali Resident

Here is an interview with a man in Mali, about the impact of Mosquito Nets on Malaria in his life over the past few years. While there have been adult uses of Nets, the current campaign will extend this to 95% of the infant population from birth to age 5.