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AfriGadget

Gadgets for Africa: Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity

Village Toys (Uganda)January 1

Happy New Years everyone!

(The following series of images were sent in by Teddy (aka TMS Ruge) a professional photographer and an all around amazing individual who runs Project Diaspora.)

The SUV was made from an old Cooking Oil container, I can’t remember the brand. The “top” is cut-out and they put other little belongs in there pulled it for hours. The wheels are made from old slippers, or sandles. Spokes from an old bicycle served as the axles. Banana stalk was used to pull the “vehicle”.

“That’s my niece, Chris and her friend, Geofrey are in the picture. They spent hours in their own world pulling it across the yard.”

More pictures at the AfriGadget Flickr Image Pool and the

A BIG Thanks!December 29 2008

Thanks to the kindness of AfriGadget readers we were able to take a simple idea and far exceed expectations. We were looking for a mobile phone for our two young ladies in South Africa to start doing some AfriGadget mobile phone reporting on. Instead, we raised extra money and had 2 more smart phones given directly to the project!

What Next?

We’re off to the races with the Sony Ericsson C702 that you helped us buy, and the Nokia N95 that David Sasaki provided to Zintle and Lukhona when he was in South Africa earlier this month (pictured above).

The new phone from Michele is going into my bag with my Nokia N95 as I try to find another two mobile reporters in some other countries in Africa. I’ve got one eye on a likely candidate in Kenya, but want to try to get outside my normal stomping grounds in East Africa. If you have an idea of someone who has a good multimedia eye, likes to tell stories and would be good for AfriGadget, send them my way please.

Phones

These two individuals went far beyond what we expected and actually gave their Nokia N95’s to

Re-using a wheeled carriage for babies to make a livingDecember 22 2008

Madmoet Abrahams has been living and working on the street for more then 20 years now. He found a great way to make a living. Everyday you’ll find him in the streets of Cape Town, South Africa collecting White paper. 1 KG of White paper will pay him 23 South African Rand (approximately $2.35) at the paper scrap yard.

Per day he makes more or less 50 Rand. He is a hard worker. I met him in the pouring rain, which didn’t stop him from spitting through the bins in search for more paper. He saved money and bought a bicycle for 300 Rand last year. The bicycle, in combination with his creative re-use of a wheeled carriage for babies connected to it, allows Madmoet to make twice as much money per day! His big dream is to have a paid job and a house.

This friendly, clever and hard working man can be reached under the Sunlam bridge in Cape Town or somewhere on the street…

Paraffin Lamps and the Informal Recycling IndustryDecember 10 2008

Franco Mithika works in Gikomba, an industrial area in greater Nairobi. His job is to take scrap metal tin cans and a soldering iron to fabricate paraffin lamps. Paraffin lamps are used by millions of Kenyans, especially those who cannot afford or get electricity into their home for lighting.

It costs about 110/= Kenyan shillings to make, and it sells for around 150/= ($1.90). You can buy them wholesale for 1550/= ($20) for 24 pieces. It takes about a minute to make one (less for the truly gifted fabricators).

Here is a video of him making one:

Thinking about the unofficial recycling industry

What’s particularly interesting here, is that this scrapes the surface of a rather larger recycling industry that hums beneath the surface of the city. How it works is this. The youngest and poorest go around the city and collect scrap metal of all types. These are then taken to a buyer who sorts them into their different types. This is who people like Franco then buy from and create their wares.

The scrap metal picked up gets sold for just a few shillings per kilo. When sorted, the tin cans t

Support AfriGadget’s Young Mobile ReportersNovember 28 2008

If you donated before your funds never made it to us and are lying unclaimed in your PayPal account. Please consider re-sending that money via the new widget below. (this one does work, I have tested it)

The Grassroots Reporting Project is one of the initiatives that we’ve been talking about for a little while here at AfriGadget. It’s where we put smarter mobile phones into the hands of young Africans and get them to report AfriGadget stories. We’re at a point now where we’ve identified the right people, what we need is your help in raising $500 to make it happen.

The pilot project

As this is our pilot project, we want to start small and learn lessons before we expand to other parts of the continent. Our first group is made up of some youth from the Khayelitsha township outside of Cape Town. Local blogger Frerieke van Bree is acting as their blogging and multimedia mentor as they are taught how to find and tell stories about local inventors, innovators and loc