Power to the People
By Paul Weinberg

Photo courtesy of Freeplay Foundation

'Wind-up' radios that require no batteries have put power in the hands of campers in Canada - and villagers in Africa.

The wind-up, battery-free radios that can be found simultaneously in Rwandan villages and the great Canadian outdoors might never have been invented if a rather colourful Englishman by the name of Trevor Baylis had been able to reach for his TV remote in time.

Comfortable, cozy and smoking a pipe in his home on a verdant island on the Thames in west London, this former circus stuntman found himself listening one evening to a depressing account about AIDS in Africa. He might have switched to a more cheerful program except that something the narrator said intrigued him about the power of radio to spread public health information.

Or, more accurately, the lack of radios to take advantage of this power.

So Baylis thought about how the scarcity of radio receivers could be solved on a continent of six hundred million where few have access to electricity or can afford batteries - the cost of which is equivalent to a month's salary.

The inventive Brit imagined himself, somewhat ironically, back in colonial Africa with all the clichès of the time: the pith helmet, the monocle, the gin in tonic in one hand and the fly swatter in the other, all the while listening to a raunchy musical number by Nellie Melba on a wind-up gramophone circa 1890-1900.

"I am saying to myself if you can make all of that noise by dragging a rusty nail over a piece of old Bakelite and by using a spring, then surely there is enough power in that spring to drive a small dynamo [to generate an electric current] which in turn would drive a small radio."

That it takes considerable energy to produce that sound made Baylis realize that a similar principle could be applied with greater effect to the modern transistor radio, which does not require a lot of electricity to power it. He also drew parallels to how telephone messages during the Second World War in Britain were sent by winding a handle - which in turn caused the dynamo to send a message.

In his workshop, which Baylis describes as a "graveyard of a 1,000 domestic appliances," he placed a small electric motor into the chuck of a hand brace, connected by two wires to a transistor radio. By rotating the brace, the motor (running in reverse and acting as the dynamo or generator) produced the "first bark" of radio sound. "It wasn't requiring a great deal of effort to actually wind that handle," recalls Baylis.

Unfortunately, that initial triumph would convert his personal energy into frustration as Baylis spent four years trying in vain to sell his concept of a wind-up radio that requires neither batteries (and the need to dispose of used ones) or a connection to the power grid to large outfits like Marconi and Philips.

It was a chance appearance on the BBC program "Tomorrow's World" in 1994 that won him national sympathy and interest in Britain. ("Way to go Trevor" was the kind of comments that greeted him now.)

Eventually, he sold the rights to his technology to two South Africans - an outgoing businessman by the name of Rory Stear, and the quieter accountant Christopher Staines.

The latter brought his wife and children to Baylis's island home to break the ice with the inventor. Stear and Staines conducted their own market research in South Africa by traveling the country and interviewing ordinary poor people about what features they wanted to see in the wind-up radios, which give about one minute of power for every second of elbow grease.

Further technical refinement of the wind-up product, which came to be known as the 'Freeplay' radio, was made possible with $320,000 from the British government's Overseas Development Administration, now known as the Department for International Development. One of the improvements was the addition of solar panels on the devices to augment the energy stored in the spring that people 'wound up' by hand.

Photo courtesy of Freeplay Foundation

By 1995 there was a Cape Town factory making the radios on contract to a new company headed by Stear and Staines called BayGen Power Industries, headquartered in the same city. (BayGen would be renamed the Freeplay Energy Group in 1999.) A 1996 BBC science program on the story of the wind-up radio showed the very emotional inventor chatting with the disabled assembly workers on the job.

It then showed Baylis, Stear and Staines, along with William Rowland, the president of the South African Council for the Blind, meeting South African president Nelson Mandela who praised a "fantastic product that can provide an opportunity for those people who have been despised by society."

From the beginning it was the social appeal of the wind-up radio that attracted the initial financing from the South African-based Liberty Life Foundation to the tune of approximately $1.5-million. Its director and friend of Rory Stear, Hylton Appelbaum, offered to fund disabled organizations if they become business partners in the manufacture of the radios. It was Appelbaum's idea that disabled workers be involved, recalls Stear.

Baylis's dream had seen the light of day. Thousands of the radios from the Freeplay Energy Group have been purchased at a discount by NGOs, governments, aid agencies and the United Nations for development projects.

Organizing this distribution is the three-year-old Freeplay Foundation, a non-profit organization with an illustrious board: Appelbaum, Andrew Bearpark (the Europrean Union's representative in Kosovo), former British politician Baroness Linda Chalker and renowned hostage negotiator - and former hostage - Terry Waite.

The foundation's first project involved the shipping of upwards of 7,000 Freeplay radios to flood-stricken communities in Mozambique in 2000, in co-operation with the U.S.-based United Methodists.

More recently, a United Nations peacekeeping mission building an FM and shortwave radio network in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is hoping to raise enough money to buy about 100,000 wind-up radios from Freeplay.

"Freeplay is a fabulous Africa story," says Canadian UN worker David Smith, "made by Africans, for Africans, and to a large extent, made by handicapped Africans in Cape Town."

But business - no mater how well-meaning - can be complicated and contradictory, as in politics and the world of international development.

Smith may be disappointed to learn that except for its small research and development division, Freeplay has withdrawn almost completely out of South Africa, and it is not clear how many disabled workers are assembling Freeplay radios today. First to go was the company's headquarters which moved to London in 1997.

After five years in operation, the Cape Town factory closed and the manufacturing was outsourced to plants in China where labour costs are lower. Freeplay realized it could not survive selling wind-up radios to impoverished Africans, few of whom are able to afford the products even at a discount without heavy government or agency financial support.

It is only in this 2002 fiscal year that the company is expecting to make money for the first time - about $55-million, largely from sales in North America and the U.K. Currently, the General Electric pension fund and the Roddicks (of The Body Shop fame) are the largest investors for this privately held company.

But the company has had to fend off sharp criticism following the closure of the Cape Town plant. (Freeplay managed the Cape Town plant on behalf of disabled organizations, which were the actual owners.) The announcement was greeted by a demonstration of about 100 workers and an accusation by the National Union of Metal Workers that Freeplay had misled Nelson Mandela.

In the U.K. the most serious criticisms came from Trevor Baylis himself, who by now had distanced himself from Freeplay, even though he remains a shareholder in the company. "I wasn't particularly happy because I do believe that South Africa is going through struggling times. It is rather crass to raise money on the back of disabled people in South Africa [via Liberty Life], the people that actually need the income."

All of this exasperates Rory Stear, who was interviewed by telephone from a San Francisco hotel room and an office location in South Africa, and via email from a German trade show.

Some decisions had to be made or the company - and the dream - would have died outright.

Stear also says that a new company, Freecom, which refurbishes computers, rehired 60 of about 250 permanent staff who had been laid off after the Cape Town plant closed. The plant also employs hundreds more disabled people at peak seasonal periods. "I would hope that the majority of the rest would have found alternative employment," he says. Stear helped to set up Freedom with the assistance of a New York City investment firm.

A man who seems to love wheeling and dealing, Stear is the main driving force behind Freeplay as he flies around the world negotiating deals with new distributors, suppliers and potential corporate partners. A self-described "serial entrepreneur" from the age of 18, he has managed at one point a restaurant, a home delivery pizza service and a disco music service for parties.

Later, he gained valuable experience in the investment banking trade that has proven handy in getting investors to inject approximately $56-million into BayGen/Freeplay. Stear admits that he has no idea if disabled workers are employed in the Chinese plants contracted to make Freeplay radios. "If there are, they are not there because we have stipulated it." But he says his company has very rigid criteria regarding working conditions and labour conditions wherever their products are made.

The move to China was primarily "a commercial decision," admits Stear. Freeplay was busy expanding sales of its product around the world, including North America, and he could not afford to rely upon a Cape Town factory facility that had to import all of its materials from Asia. "South Africa doesn't have a consumer electronics infrastructure."

But Larry Rooney, a former Canadian distributor for Freeplay products, says that Freeplay's emphasis on targeting U.S. consumers with a splashy campaign ended up hurting the company's bottom line from the beginning.

He and Freeplay disagreed over the size and nature of the target market, which realistically consists of outdoor enthusiasts, people not connected to the power grid, and those concerned about emergency situations such as the Montreal ice storm or the September 11th attacks on the U.S.

Yet these internal dynamics in and around Freeplay are not particularly relevant for NGOs like War Child U.K. "It doesn't matter as long as the radios are made," says James Topham, a communications spokesperson for the London based charity, which in a pilot project has organized the distribution of about 1,400 Freeplay radios to child-headed households in post-genocide Rwanda.

There are about 200,000 impoverished children living in small isolated villages across that central African country. He estimates there may be about six per household, with the oldest kids looking after the younger siblings. The children are taught how to use and maintain the sturdy radios.

Freeplay radios are used for a variety of purposed in Rwanda. (The ratio of listeners per radio is about 20-30 to one.) But news that the genocide, which took place in 1994, has actually ended for isolated and still fearful Tutsi children remains at the top of the list, says Kristine Pearson who heads the Freeplay Foundation.

Speaking by telephone in a U.S. accent (she is half South African) she says she knows one girl "who is able to sleep because she has heard on the radio that the bad people will not be coming back."

The Freeplay Foundation has also developed a radio specifically for children caught up in similar circumstances. Called the Lifeline, it is not for commercial sale, but it is available only to donor agencies, continues Pearson. "It will look different: it will be colourful; it will be textured; it will have excellent reception; it will be robust."

Personally engaged in all of the details of each of the foundation's distribution projects, Pearson describes herself as "fiercely independent person with a business background." Like her husband Rory Stear, she is constantly on the move flying from country to country, except that her work takes her on separate trips to places like Mali, Rwanda and Niger. Pearson has a small staff of four or five people and operates on a modest budget.

"It is safe to say that we are quite stretched at the moment because so much is happening. Yes, I am involved in every project, especially at the beginning phases since the projects usually involve meetings with government ministers or head of organizations, although other members of the team are involved behind the scenes."

"During the implementation other Freeplay Foundation personnel become more directly involved and it takes a bit of pressure off of me. So far, though (fingers crossed) we've been able to handle any projects to which we have committed. If I did not enjoy what I do so much and believe in what we are striving for, I probably would have burnt out a long time ago."

How Stear and Pearson maintain "their competing interests" is of professional fascination to Sharon Maeda, associate general secretary for the New York City-based General Board of the Global Ministries (GBGM) of the United Methodist Church. Maeda worked closely with Pearson and her foundation in the distribution of about 4,000 Freeplay radios in Mozambique during the devastating flooding of 2000.

The GBGM, which has developed HIV/AIDS education radio programming for Africa, had sought a more formalized partnership with Freeplay where the church organization would get involved in the actual production of the radios and thus ensure a ready access for other projects on the continent.

Maeda says the year-long negotiations broke down over how much the GBGM would have to pay - about $US50 per radio. "It didn't work because [an alliance] would have required a substantial outlay in the millions of dollars."

The GBGM spokesperson carefully couches her comments about Freeplay and the negotiations. But she reveals there was a definite culture clash between Rory Stear's "bottom line" approach in the negotiations and senior United Methodist officials. Stear would probably argue that he is just trying to survive.

Finding the money to pay for the radios appears to be a challenge for NGOs, especially when governments are not forthcoming with assistance.

"It is challenging from the point of view that donor agencies are not accustomed to funding hardware," says Kristine Pearson. "They assume that everybody listens to the radio. Although the radio is the primary means of communication, particularly in Africa and in developing countries, the access issue is a real one that is not looked at."

War Child has been helped by the generosity of a local disc jockey in the U.K., as well as fund-raising events such as an all-night comedy session on the BBC. Pearson is pleased that significant amounts of money from major funders are being earmarked for radio related HIV/AIDS education and other health related information projects.

Among the more interesting recent uses of the Freeplay radio involves a 'guns for radios' exchange in Niger, one of a number of West African countries struggling to maintain stability and peace amidst the overabundance of illicit arms following a civil war. Co-ordinating the effort is the Freeplay Foundation and the United Nations Development Program.

Photo courtesy of Freeplay Foundation

A total of 12,445 Freeplay radios have been donated to the Niger government by Freeplay Energy. "A technician is going to Niger to train people on the radio's repair and reconditioning. And we are going to be using unemployed youth and women offenders who have been rehabilitated under the government's rehabilitation scheme," says Pearson.

The old saying that the best form of flattery is imitation can now be applied to Freeplay. The BBC has reported that wind-up radios have been dropped into post-war Afghanistan by the U.S. military, but apparently they are not Freeplay-branded products.

Stear is in the dark as to what actually happened, but he recalls that another load of non-Freeplay wind-up radios were purchased out of China by the United Nations for East Timor. Three months later, the radios were not working. "They came back and purchased ours."

Freeplay is attempting to corner the market for self-power by also establishing co-branding alliances with Coleman (the famous camping goods company) in North America for the Freeplay radios and wind-up flashlights, and with Motorola for Freeplay cell phone chargers. Freeplay now offers a wide range of self-powered products.

Stear is hesitant about going public on the stock market until 2003, but he sees it as necessary for further growth. And he does not rule out the possibility that Freeplay could eventually be bought if a larger corporate player with a similar philosophy came along.

Would the work of the Freeplay Foundation survive a merger? "In the unlikely event of us selling the company, we would entrench [the Foundation's status] in any deal much like Ben and Jerry's did [with their good works] when they sold to Unilever."

Subsidizing the Freeplay Foundation may be "more than a company would normally give as part of its corporate giving program," but Stear realizes that his commercial operation is married to its social reputation, even if it leads to a few contradictions at times.

"We believe [the foundation's work in developing countries] is the essence of the Freeplay brand."

Time will tell if Freeplay can continue to put the power in the hands of those who need it most. Hopefully, Baylis's dream will keep winding its way into the villages of Africa and the backwoods of Canada, because sometimes it's the deceptively simple ideas that can change the world.


Paul Weinberg is a freelance writer based in Toronto.
Written July 2002.



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